A mysterious valise containing confidential documents belonging to an unnamed North Korean official was offered to the United States (US) Embassy by a “reputable businessman” in Barbados, shortly after the Cubana Flight 455 airliner crashed into the Caribbean Sea. American Ambassador Theodore Britton protested a consequent State Department (SD) “injunction that we should have nothing to do with the briefcase…”
Seventy-three people died in the twin bombing on October 6 1976, comprising mostly Cubans, 11 Guyanese, and a five-man visiting delegation from the Democratic People’s Republic Korea (DPRK) leaving disappointed at the delayed end of a formal trip to the South American country, which was then the only other in the region, besides Cuba, that enjoyed close relations with the pariah state.
Diplomatic records reveal that three of the representatives led by Vice Minister for Culture, Kwang Nae Ik, had fatefully postponed their departure until the morning of the tragedy, to hold important talks with Foreign Affairs Minister, Fred Wills in a spurned first bid to get him and Guyana to agree to a world conference of revolutionary organisations, focusing on Korean reunification. By that afternoon the team was dead.
Almost immediately with the plane’s downing, Barbadian fishermen, tour operators, volunteers and the authorities rushed to the crash scene and began retrieving and collecting human remains, aircraft pieces and numerous personal and other items left scattered and floating across a wide debris field. More than 1400 pounds of material were retrieved.
Ambassador Britton complained about the SD’s order from Theodore Heavner, Director, Office of Caribbean Affairs, Bureau of Inter-American Affairs of which he was informed subsequent to Heavner’s October 7 teleconference with Deputy Chief of Mission (DCM), John Simms. In an immediate message, early on the afternoon of Friday, October 8, to Senior Deputy Assistant Secretary, William Luers, who was responsible for Inter-American Affairs, Britton sought to get the move reversed, fretting: “I regret to say that I must disagree with this decision and still believe that we should proceed along the lines indicated…”
The attache case was presented by an undisclosed “reputable businessman well known to the Embassy for some time on his own initiative,” the top diplomat assured in his note which was originally classified as “secret” but later put on microfilm and divulged in 2006 under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). No details were made public on how the individual came into possession of the portfolio or what happened to it when the Americans rebuffed the advance.
“According to him the contents are highly sensitive and include information indicating plans – it is not quite clear whose, though the briefcase apparently belonged to a North Korean – to undermine relations between us and Caribbean countries,” the Ambassador reported.
Britton warned, “If we refuse the offer, we risk foregoing chance to acquire a significant piece of political intelligence at relatively small risk. Needless to say, if the Department agrees with this line of argument, we will exercise all due discretion in taking possession of the briefcase and returning it to the businessman.”
A key 7 a.m missive following the airliner’s downing mere hours before, covering related communication between the SD and the Bridgetown mission, under the heading “Cubana Crash” remains classified. Britton, also the US Ambassador to Grenada served until April 1977.
Diplomatic telegrams show Permanent Secretary, Division of Defense and Security, Sam Headley informed the Embassy on Thursday, October 7, that the “accident took place about two miles from shore and therefore inside Barbados territorial waters.”
The confidential brief filed that night was copied by the Embassy, to Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger and the country’s sister consulates in Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, and Venezuela. But Ambassador, Britton, in his message commented, “despite Headley’s statement we continue to believe the accident occurred three and a half miles offshore.”
Earlier, the Department instructed the Barbados office to extend technical and laboratory assistance from the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) on the assumptions “that Barbadians are conducting investigation and crash site actually within Barbados territorial waters.” It continued, “You may also cite our opposition to acts of terrorism and sabotage wherever committed, if indeed these might have been involved.”
The Embassy’s DCM, Simms then spoke with the Permanent Secretary (PS) in the External Affairs Ministry. A.W. Symmonds to extend help in the crash investigation, motivated by concern for air safety given that the US was the country of manufacture of the Douglas DC-8 airliner. Next day, the PS said the proposal was “appreciated” but the Government of Barbados (GOB) had already accepted similar offers from countries including the United Kingdom (UK), Canada and Cuba. Two Cuban salvage vessels docked that weekend.
“If instructed to do so by (the State) Dept I will press offer on GOB. I believe however that to insist in face of initial rejection of offer might cause our motives to be questioned,” Simms assessed. By Saturday, October 9, Secretary Kissinger cautioned, the “proper profile for (the Barbadian) Embassy in this entire affair should be low” and “we in no way want to press our assistance on the Barbados Government.” Come month-end, the US had accepted the GOB’s invitation to participate in the technical probe.
On October 7 too, Permanent Secretary Sam Headley, Barbadian Division of Defense and Security, informed Ambassador Britton that at 4 p.m he received a telephone call from Montreal, Canada about the loss of the Cubana DC-8, from a man who promised to “get even” mentioning a US airliner leaving Miami earlier that afternoon, but there is no more of this in the diplomatic correspondence studied.
Reflecting on articles in the Barbados Advocate newspaper, the Embassy cited an October 10 editorial critical of Cuban President Fidel Castro, which declared: “We have had our initial first hand look at international gangsterism and its horrifying machinations. It has been shatteringly demonstrated that Barbados will not be allowed without interference to go her way unattacked by the violence attaching to divergent hardline totalitarian ideologies.”
Political commentator, Lawson Bailey blasted, “It is a fact that if the Governments in the Caribbean – including the United States – wanted to control ‘gangsterism’ in the area that it would have been better controlled a long time ago. Unfortunately, the United States has this Cuban thing stuck in its throat and as a result all of us are feeling uncomfortable as it can be.”
Simms reiterated to the Barbadian media the “US position of unalterable opposition to acts of international terrorism, by whomever carried out” insisting the “record of our fight against terrorism spoke for itself and that in the case, of (harsh criticism from) the St Vincent-Cuba Friendship Society, there was some reason to suspect anti-US bias.”
An October 14 text from Bridgetown, identified businessman Charles Emtage “a consultant to Barbados Coast Guard” as having made an unofficial call on Simms who was in charge of the Embassy in the absence of Ambassador Britton, seeking certain equipment to salvage the Cubana jet. Simms countered curtly that the US had made an offer to the GOB which was rejected and “for such assistance, (a) request would no doubt be given serious consideration, but we could not entertain an unofficial request from the Coastguard or any other element of GOB acting on its own.”
Believed to have snapped into two as it hit the ocean at high speed, hurtling nearly 2000 feet down to the seabed, the wreckage of the Cubana airplane was placed at about 4.8 miles off the beautiful west coast of Barbados, according to an October 25 official confirmation from the GOB. Using equipment aboard the ‘H.M.S Tartar’ on October 23-24, the British ship “reported two sonar contacts which it assessed as wreckage. Their positions (are) 13 degrees 07.32 minutes north, 59 degrees, 43 minutes west,” the Embassy conveyed in a telegram to the State Department.
Among other SD papers, is the one from the Georgetown Embassy indicating that the North Koreans were unsuccessful in trying to convince Foreign Minister Wills. “The Guyanese finally turned them down flat, no longer even offering security problems as an excuse,” the October 12 cable, from the US Charge d’Affaires, the influential John Blacken relayed. The five men who perished were listed as the Vice Minister Kwang, the Counsellor for Public Affairs of the country’s Embassy in Havana, Oh Ki Bung, Kim Yong Sam, Hang Sang Kiu and Kim Do Yun.
Blacken forwarded the advisory to Kissinger, the American Embassies in Barbados, Jamaica, South Korea, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, and the US Mission to the United Nations (UN).
Guyana established diplomatic relations with the DPRK in 1974 and North Korea joined the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) in 1975. Annexed by Japan in 1910, Korea split into two zones along the 38th parallel with the end of World War Two in 1945 and separate governments three years later. A North Korean invasion led to the 1950-53 War and the hardening of the divisions along opposing ideological lines.
In the wake of the Cubana terrorist attack, and facing severe financial and economic problems, Prime Minister Forbes Burnham gradually drifted away from his Embassy confidantes, his stance hardened and he began turning more to communist countries within the Soviet sphere of influence, touring the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and Pyongyang, DPRK in 1978.
As the DPRK grew into a vital source of bilateral assistance for Guyana, the Burnham regime responded by becoming an outspoken advocate of unification, finally acceding to the entreaties and hosting in January 1979 the first Latin American-Caribbean Conference for the Independent and Peaceful Reunification of Korea, nearly three years after it was originally raised.
Outside of Cuba, Guyana proved the DPRK’s major diplomatic success in these parts, and Burnham’s cooperative socialism conveniently aligned with the disciplined self-reliance of the “juche idea.” North Korea emerged post 1976 as a valuable trade partner and aid provider in industry, agriculture, culture/education (Mass Games) and military equipment, a Korea Specialist from Columbia University maintains.
In his book “Tyranny of the Weak – North Korea and the World, writer, Charles Armstrong argues that Burnham “greatly admired the discipline of North Korean society under the leadership of Kim Il Sung and sought to replicate elements of Kim’s cult of personality.” However, relations slumped after Burnham’s sudden death in August 1985 with the DPRK eventually closing its Guyana mission and transferring all responsibilities to the Cuba Embassy as it “lost most of its attraction as a model for Third World development.”
ID learns of an “alleged plot” to overthrow Barbadian Prime Minister Tom Adams in November 1976 that the Opposition dismissed as being without evidence and much substance, except that “a dangerous crackpot and schizophrenic” Sydney Burnett Alleyne was jailed in Martinique. Alleyne said he feared Adams would turn Barbados over to the Cubans.
