Guantánamo Bay

Judge Randolph: Consider yourself in Contempt!
Kaffee: Colonel Jessep, did you order the Code Red?
Judge Randolph: You don't have to answer that question!
Col. Jessep: I'll answer the question! ... You want answers?
Kaffee: I think I'm entitled.
Col. Jessep: You want answers?!
Kaffee: I want the truth!
Col. Jessep: You can't handle the truth!

Ever wonder how it is the United States has a Navy base in Cuba?


Guantánamo Bay (Spanish: Bahía de Guantánamo) is a bay located at the southeastern end of Cuba. It is the largest harbor on the south side of the island and is surrounded by steep hills creating an enclave cut off from the immediate hinterland.

The bay was called Guantánamo by its original inhabitants, native americans called the Taínos. Christopher Columbus landed on Cuba there in 1494, naming it Puerto Grande. When Spanish settlers took control of Cuba in 1511, the bay became a vital harbor on the south side of the island.

The bay was briefly known as Cumberland Bay when the British seized it in 1741, during the War of Jenkins' Ear (You do remember this war?). British Admiral Edward Vernon arrived with a force of eight warships and 4,000 soldiers with plans to march on Santiago de Cuba. However, resistance by local forces forced him to withdraw.

During the Spanish-American War (April 25, 1898 - August 12, 1898), the U.S. Navy fleet attacking Santiago needed shelter from the summer hurricane season. They chose Guantánamo because of its excellent harbor. U.S. Marines landed with naval support in the invasion of Guantánamo Bay. As they moved inland, however, Spanish resistance increased and the Marines required support from Cuban scouts.

The Guantanamo Bay Naval Base which surrounds the southern portion of the bay, nicknamed "Gitmo", covers about 45 square miles. It is the oldest overseas U.S. Navy Base, established in 1898, when the United States took control of Cuba from Spain following the Spanish-American War.

A perpetual lease for the area around Guantánamo Bay was offered February 23, 1903, from Tomás Estrada Palma, the first President of Cuba. The Cuban-American Treaty held, among other things, that the United States, for the purposes of operating coaling and naval stations, has "complete jurisdiction and control" of the Guantánamo Bay, while the Republic of Cuba is recognized to retain ultimate sovereignty.

In 1934, a treaty reaffirming the lease, modified the lease payment from $2,000 in U.S. gold coins per year to the 1934 equivalent value of $4,085 in U.S. dollars, and made the lease permanent unless both governments agreed to break it or until the U.S. abandoned the base property.

After the Cuban Revolution, then-President Dwight Eisenhower insisted the status of the base remained unchanged, despite Fidel Castro's objections. Since then, the Cuban government has cashed only one of the rent checks from the U.S. government, and even then only because of "confusion" in the early days of the revolution, according to Castro. The remaining uncashed checks made out to "Treasurer General of the Republic" (a title that ceased to exist after the revolution) are supposedly kept in Castro's office stuffed into a desk drawer.

The "United States" argues that the cashing of the single check signifies Havana's ratification of the lease — and that ratification by the new government renders moot any questions about violations of sovereignty and illegal military occupation.

Col. Jessep: Have you ever spent time in an infantry unit, son?
Kaffee: No sir.
Col. Jessep: Ever served in a forward area?
Kaffee: No sir.
Col. Jessep: Ever put your life in another man's hands, ask him to put his life in yours?
Kaffee: No sir.
Col. Jessep: We follow orders, son. We follow orders or people die. It's that simple. Are we clear?
Kaffee: Yes sir.
Col. Jessep: Are we clear?
Kaffee: Crystal.