108 THE POLITICS OF INTERVENTIONWhen he arrived in Havana, he learned two inescapable
facts: the insurgents had arms and men enough to wreak
havoc, and the Moderates wanted annexation. He and Roose
velt had agreed to steer a course between war and annexation,
and their goal was "to get the people dispersed and down to
work in the tobacco and sugar fields." Affairs in Havana had
been a "nightmare"; if the United States had supported the
Cuban government, there would have been war and the
destruction of American-owned property. If it had not inter
vened at all, the result would have been the same.
89
Now the
United States, Taft wrote the President, as it acted the role
of receiver or trustee for Cuba, must make the best of a bad
situation. It must show the "South Americans that we are
here against our will and only for the purpose of aiding
Cuba... ."^90
As appraised by the sophisticated Captain Frank McCoy,
who understood the Cuban people and their problems, "some
kind of intervention was absolutely necessary" for Cuba had
truly been in turmoil.^91 The revolt "was a fight between the
'Ins' and 'Outs' with no principle at stake," sparked by the
Moderates when they adopted "the Porfirio Diaz scheme of
running a Latin-American Republic, without the force nec
essary to solve the problem ... " Instead the government
had "relied on the Platt Amendment, with its backing of the
United States." In the Peace Mission's negotiations, the Lib
erals "outplayed" the Moderates, who worried about "their
sacred honor and dignity" and "sulked in their tents." Taft,
McCoy wrote Wood, "soon found he was up against a dif
ferent lot of people" from, the Filipinos, but on the whole
(since Wood couldn't be there) the Secretary "handled the
thing ably and with wonderful tact for a new comer to Cuba."
Both Taft's and McCoy's accounts reveal the commissioners'
feeling that their mission had successfully stopped the war
on the insurgents' terms and that the chance of any other
settlement had been closed before they arrived in Cuba.
In the meantime, Roosevelt made sure that the Cubans
would bear the historical responsibility for this situation by
publishing the diplomatic correspondence leading to the