Cuba: The Raiders

“We have no radar, but we have guts,” said a member of a small group of anti-Castro exiles who call themselves Alpha 66. A few days later, a 36-ft. grey and white motorboat slipped through the predawn darkness into the north coast Cuban port of Caibarién, 210 miles southeast of Havana. Navigating by compass, the launch found its way to the San Pascual, an old Cuban steamer grounded on a concrete base and used as a molasses storehouse. A machine gun chattered, and a burst of .50-caliber slugs ripped into the cabin; an explosion split the night. The launch drew up beside a second ship, the 7,O43-ton British freighter Newlane, and machine guns blazed again, riddling the funnel and crew quarters. The boat gunned its engines for a final firing pass at the Cuban coastal freighter San Blas, then high-tailed out to sea pursued by Castro helicopters.

Hands-Off Orders. After this bold foray last week, Havana radio called the attacker a “pirate vessel” manned by “criminals armed and paid by the U.S.” Cried Castro himself over his powerful short-wave propaganda station: “We no longer have to bother ourselves proving the aggressive intentions of the Yankee imperialists. It is enough to read the Yankee press itself and the speeches of its Senators. They no longer deny their aggressive intentions. No! They proclaim them to the world publicly.” Actually there was no indication that U.S. policy had shifted noticeably from the hands-off orders in force ever since the Bay of Pigs debacle 17 months ago. These orders apply to the 350,000 Cuban exiles scattered around the hemisphere. Far from being paid and armed by the U.S., last week’s Alpha 66 raiders were completely on their own. Supported by some 1,500 contributors, Alpha 66 counts among its activists a few members of the once powerful M.R.P. underground organization that was shattered by Castro’s G-2 security cops after the Bay of Pigs; many of the Alphas are professional men; some are former members of Havana’s Public Accountants’ Association, which used to be one of the strongest of Cuba’s professional organizations. They scrounge their own funds, their own supplies, arms and ammunition, and daringly plan more attacks in the next few weeks—that is if they can duck the CIA agents who dog their footsteps trying to find out what they are up to and dissuade them from doing it.

“Leave Us Alone.” A little over a month ago, one group of Cuban exiles got hold of a plane in Costa Rica, devised a scheme to pick up a load of bombs in Guatemala, then fly on to Cuba to blow up two strategic petroleum refineries on the outskirts of Havana. But the U.S. embassy in Costa Rica got wind of the operation and squashed the idea before it could get off the ground.

Last month, when the full extent of the massive Soviet arms buildup became evident, anti-Castro exiles hoped that U.S. policy would change. Manuel Antonio Varona, a leader of the hapless Revolutionary Council that figureheaded the Bay of Pigs invasion, urged the U.S. to recognize an exile government-in-arms, declare it a belligerent, and start pumping in large-scale aid— “just like Moscow is helping Castro.” Varona calculated that he could raise a 50,000-man international invasion force, and said that he had the backing of all five Central American governments plus Panama. But the U.S. smothered the idea, and last “week in Miami the exile groups, still planning their daring and desperate forays against Castro’s Cuba, reported that, if anything, the U.S. was holding them down even harder. Said an exile leader: “We ourselves had two arms caches seized here during the past few weeks. If anyone tries to buy more than 100 gallons of gasoline, the U.S. authorities immediately investigate. They don’t have to help us. If they would —just leave us alone, we could accomplish much.”