AMY GOODMAN: We are also joined by Peter Kornbluh, Cuba specialist at the National Security Archive, author of Back Channel to Cuba.

If you can talk, Peter, about both the CIA going to Cuba — you just wrote a piece in The Nation about this, the director going there — and the imminent indictment, as is being reported by multiple media outlets, of the 94-year-old former President Raúl Castro?

PETER KORNBLUH: Yeah, Amy, this is the one-two punch of U.S. aggression against Cuba, which is escalating dramatically over the last week. You had the director of the CIA — a CIA that has a long history of covert operations to roll back the Cuban Revolution, going all the way back to the early ’60s, to the Bay of Pigs operations in 1960, ’61 — going to Cuba on a diplomatic trip, an overt mission to give the Cubans an ultimatum.

And that ultimatum essentially had several parts. One is, “You remember what happened in Venezuela. You have to take Donald Trump very seriously.” Two is, “The United States wants it to be clear to you that we don’t want to see mass migration as this humanitarian crisis,” that Ed has just described, “evolves. And we don’t want to see repression when the discontent and frustration of the Cuban people boils over.” And finally, “You have a dwindling window in which we are going to continue to talk to you.” Essentially, military options are on the table and coming soon.

And literally, as the CIA director was leaving, the Department of Justice leaked to the press that an indictment of Raúl Castro was coming today at 1:00 at the Freedom Tower in Miami. This is going to be an extraordinary event, on May 20th, Independence Day for — in Cuban history. It’s going to generate a tremendous attention.

And let me just say that the indictment of Raúl Castro for the shootdown of the Brothers to the Rescue planes more than 30 years ago accomplishes three important things for the Trump administration. It sends a bone of red meat to the rabidly anti-Castro Miami community. It gives them a significant victory. Politicians have been pushing very hard for years for the indictment of Raúl Castro. Two, this sends a clear warning to the Cubans, almost psychological warfare against the Cuban leadership. This is the MO, the modus operandi, that the United States used in the case of Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela. Trump indicted him and then went in and seized him. And here, trumped-up charges, if you will, against Raúl Castro basically sets the stage for the same type of operation, as it will be perceived in Cuba and around the world. And finally, just as Trump did in Venezuela, he will circumvent the War Powers Act if he attacks Cuba, and simply tell Congress that this is a law enforcement operation, any Special Forces attempt to go in and seize or assassinate Raúl Castro. And that is what I think you can expect to see in the coming days.

AMY GOODMAN: Explain who Brothers to the Rescue are, founded by José Basulto, a CIA operative, as reported by the Miami Herald, who admitted to committing terrorist acts against Cuba in the past, like firing a cannon at a hotel.

PETER KORNBLUH: Right. Well, that firing of that cannon in the hotel, Basulto was on a speedboat. He was a Bay of Pigs veteran. He was trying to assassinate Fidel Castro at that time.

And years later, during the Balsero crisis, the rafting crisis, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, when Cuba was experiencing another extraordinary humanitarian crisis, thousands of people were fleeing. And Basulto, who’s a pilot, created an organization called Brothers to the Rescue. And they started out in 1992, ’93, flying what are called spotting missions over the Florida Straits, identifying small rafts, alerting the U.S. Coast Guard that those rafts were out there and needed to be helped. It was a humanitarian mission.

But once the Clinton administration settled, negotiated an end to the Balsero crisis with the Cuban government of Fidel Castro, Basulto then turned his Brothers to the Rescue into a provocation mission instead of a humanitarian mission. And his flights continued, but they started to overfly Cuban territory, dropping leaflets and tchotchkes over the heads of the Cuban people. And then Basulto would land back in Florida and crow about his ability to intrude on U.S. — on Cuban airspace. “We want confrontation” is one of the things he told, I believe, NBC News at the time. And these provocative flights continued and continued. And U.S. officials got involved, pressing the FAA to kind of clip Basulto’s wings and stop these flights from taking place. The FAA dilly-dallied. The Federal Aviation Administration dilly-dallied in its investigation. And even though U.S. officials, including White House officials, pressed the FAA to block his flights, because the Cubans were threatening to shoot these flights down, the flights continued. And the final flight, on February 24th, 1996, resulted in the Cuban Air Force rocketing two of these Cessna planes and killing four members of Brothers to the Rescue.

AMY GOODMAN: And this was under the Clinton government. Finally, Peter Kornbluh, as you look at what happened with Venezuela — people hardly talk about the fact that the Venezuelan president and the first lady are imprisoned here in New York — what you see happening? President Lula of Brazil just said President Trump assured him there would not be an invasion.

PETER KORNBLUH: Well, you know, an invasion is one thing. A U.S. invasion and occupation of Cuba is one thing. Perhaps that’s not the — that is not, I think, the immediate goal and priority of the Trump administration. But an attack on Cuba, a Special Forces operation to seize or assassinate Raúl Castro, is certainly on the table. And a series of strategic surgical strikes on Cuban targets, military targets, attempting, essentially, to kill the leadership of the Cuban military, are also quite on the table. This has been reported by Politico and CBS and other outlets recently. And obviously, if you look at what the U.S. military has been doing recently with surveillance flights over Cuba and other warnings to the Cuban government that their time is running out, it is absolutely clear that the U.S. military is preparing contingency operations in case Trump’s impatience runs out because Cuba has not met his imperial demands fast enough.

AMY GOODMAN: Peter Kornbluh, I want to thank you for being with us, of the National Security Archive, co-author of Back Channel to Cuba: The Hidden History of Negotiations Between Washington and Havana. We’ll link to your Nation piece, “The CIA Goes to Cuba.”

Coming up, executions around the world have surged to a 44-year high. We’ll speak with Amnesty’s Iran researcher, where the number of executions doubled last year. Stay with us.

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AMY GOODMAN: Julieta Venegas in our Democracy Now! studio.