The strange story of the U.S.-Cuba hijacking accord

Looking back on decades of standoff and subterfuge, it's easy to miss the rare — and often strange — episodes of U.S.-Cuban collaboration. In one footnote of history, Nixon and Castro, otherwise sworn enemies, unite to curb the rise of plane hijackings.

Long before the advent of full-body scanners and 3.4-oz limits on toothpaste, airports had very little security. As air travel boomed in the mid-century, so did plane hijackings. Airline executives initially pushed back against added security measures because they didn't want to inconvenience their customers. Most of the hijacking incidents were fairly benign, anyway; injuries or fatalities related to the hijackings were rare. In a typical case, a troubled person would barge into the cockpit with a weapon, demanding that the plane be flown to a new destination. Where exactly? It varied, but more often than not, hijackers that started their trip in the U.S. conspired to end it in Cuba.

Many hijackers were pro-Cuban ideologues and believed that if they could make it to Havana, Fidel would greet them with a hero's welcome. Cuba was the symbolic antithesis to Western ideology; those who stood against the Vietnam War, domestic racism, and other issues of the day often viewed Castro as their spiritual leader, and Cuba as the land of milk and honey. But Cuba was inaccessible to Americans, made distant by the U.S. embargo enacted by President Kennedy. One of the only ways to get there was by hijacking a plane.

Source: Aviation Safety Network

By the late 1960s, the hijacking problem reached a staggering peak. Between 1968 and 1972, the number of hijackings worldwide was over 300, with over 50% of them originating in the US and landing in Cuba. Inconceivably, two American planes were hijacked on the same day on July 12, 1968. Both hijackers attempted to go to Cuba. One was successful, the other was not.

Source: NYT Archive

Fidel sought respect from the international community and wasn't keen on the optics of his young socialist country being a haven for hijackers. The Cuban government stated that although some hijackers were politically motivated, others were "common delinquents" [1] and did not deserve political asylum in Cuba. Criminals were not welcome in Havana – this was an ongoing theme for Fidel. A decade later, he announced a period of free emigration from Cuba to the United States, now known as the Mariel Boatlift. As part of the mass exodus (about 125,000 Cubans), Fidel released criminals from Cuban prisons and sent them to the U.S.

Washington didn't like the hijackings any more than Havana. Not only were the episodes bad for the airline business, they came with their own set of unfavorable optics. The U.S. was supposed to be a safe haven for Cuban refugees, not the other way around.

Seeing an area of aligned interests, Cuba reached out to its northern neighbor to put an end to the "skyjacking" problem. Knowing it would be difficult to engage directly, the Cubans tried something bolder, putting Washington on its heels. In a savvy political gambit, the Castro government made a public announcement: Cuba would start prosecuting or extraditing all foreign hijackers. Extradition, however, would happen only with countries that had negotiated a bilateral antihijacking accord with Cuba [2].

Long before the Cuban Revolution and the U.S. embargo, Pan Am started as a scheduled airmail and passenger service flying between Key West, Florida, and Havana, Cuba.

The Nixon administration was more interested in overthrowing the Cuban government than extending the hand of diplomacy, so Cuba's announcement initially flummoxed Henry Kissinger's team at the State Department. But seeing no other alternative, Nixon and Kissinger warmed up to the idea of collaborating. The U.S. began secret communications with the Cubans via the Swiss Embassy in Havana.

A negotiation ensued, but the sticking point was reciprocity. The Cubans were offering to return American hijackers back to the U.S., but Nixon and Kissinger didn't want to commit to returning Cuban hijackers to Cuba. An internal memo at the U.S. National Security Council said it was a "commitment we cannot make because of the political asylum aspect." [2]

But after a few more high-profile hijackings, the problem became too grave to ignore. The U.S. decided to take things more seriously and ultimately agreed to Cuba's terms. There was one caveat, however: the accord wouldn't apply to hijackers who didn't use violence and claimed to be political refugees. In those particular cases, Cuban hijackers would be offered asylum in the U.S.

Although it would eventually hit some turbulence, the accord was a success. It dramatically decreased hijackings and set the stage for future opportunities to collaborate over common interests. Successful diplomacy is often just a series of small wins strung together into a bilateral relationship, and the hijacking accord was one of those small wins. In future posts, we'll explore other ways in which the Cubans and Americans have put aside their fiercest disputes in order to work together.

[1] "Antihijacking Law Enacted by Havana" NYT, September 20, 1969

[2] Leogrande et al. Back Channel to Cuba: The Hidden History of Negotiations between Washington and Havana. The University of North Carolina Press Chapel Hill, 2015.