Cuba: Getting Ready

Cuba’s two most important exile groups, after months of quarreling, met last week to form a shadow government dedicated to the liberation of their homeland. As flashbulbs popped in Manhattan’s Biltmore Hotel, Manuel (“Tony”) Varona, 52, coordinator of the middle-roading Revolutionary Democratic Front, and Manolo Ray, 36, chief of the farther left Revolutionary Movement of the People, shook hands and proclaimed the existence of the Cuban Revolutionary ouncil, in effect a government in exile, with a program and a president.

Good Credentials. The Cubans promised to restore the republic’s U.S.-style 1940 constitution, promised to free trade unions from Communist domination and to return confiscated property to its rightful owners. The council also promised to hold free elections within 18 months after victory, to outlaw the Communist Party, and to abrogate all trade treaties with the Communist bloc.

Chosen to head the revolutionary government: José Miró Cardona, 58, a respected Havana lawyer, whose credentials are as good in Cuba as they are in the United States. Miró Cardona was Fidel Castro’s first Prime Minister but quit in anger and disgust after 39 days. Never much of a politician, Miró Cardona leads no movement of his own and promises to serve only until elections, for which he will not be a candidate. When and if the council manages to win a piece of Cuban soil, Provisional President Miró Cardona will move in, and the council will be formally renamed the Provisional Government-in-Arms.

What remains is to liberate Cuba, and for that major task the exiles do not tell their plans. Despite bland official statements that the U.S. has no attitude whatsoever toward the Revolutionary Council, the fact is that the U.S. helped bring the two spatting groups to the negotiating table. Whatever aid the exiles might get from the U.S. is something else no one is talking about.

On their own, the exiles hardly seem strong enough to threaten Castro’s well-armed dictatorship. The Varona group has about 2,500 men armed and trained as an invasion force to challenge Castro’s 200,000 militia. In Havana last week, Castro hooted at the council’s invasion scheme: “Behind that plan there must be something more. There is a more complex plan because they could not rest their hopes on a group of mercenaries.”

Reverses in the Hills. Castro has reason to sneer. For 14 months large groups of rebels have been fighting a desperate battle through the hills of Cuba. It is a battle that Castro is winning. He has poured 60,000 militiamen into the central Escambray hills alone and claims to have captured 80% of the 1,000 rebels operating there. Though the claims are undoubtedly exaggerated, the rebels have been scattered, disorganized and discouraged. Several leaders have been killed, others captured; a few have been smuggled out of Cuba to Miami, where they are trying to reorganize for another attempt.

Last week, two guerrilla leaders recently escaped from the Escambray told a TIME correspondent in Miami of the pres sure Castro was putting on the rebels. At first, arms could be smuggled in overland, but now Castro’s militia blocks every road and path, and the supplies have been choked off. A radio transmitter was sent into the hills for use in arranging airdrops.

The drops failed. In January the rebels radioed pleas for nine drops; only one was confirmed. It fell short, and about two-thirds of the cargo was captured by Castro’s militia. The last drop, made Feb. 7, included 86 bundles of arms and food; it fell eight miles from the drop zone—again into Castro’s hands.

But Castro’s propaganda to the contrary, said the rebels, Cuba’s disillusioned farmers are on the side of the guerrillas. Peasants supplied them food, did the cooking, helped care for the wounded. “They were wonderful allies,” said one of the escapees last week. “Not one peasant betrayed us.” Shortly after the first of the year, Castro evacuated the peasants from their farms in the Escambray, leaving the rebels without food or scouts. For a time the rebels held the militia off. They found the Castro troops poor shots and without much stomach for battle; in the few serious fire fights, the rebels usually came off the winners. But eventually, the weight of numbers began to tell; one effective militia tactic was to drive a band of rebels into a pocket, then bombard the area with tear gas until they surrendered.

When it became impossible to fight any longer, one of the officers spent 36 days in making his escape, was seriously wounded before he finally got out. The other officer got out literally on his belly, crawling several miles to avoid the omnipresent militia.

Help Needed. Despite the reverses, the rebels still have hopes of defeating Castro in the hills. Some 500 armed men are left in the Escambray, according to the two who escaped. But they need help, and soon. The primary need is for more and better communications with the outside. Instructors are needed to teach the rebels how to use bazookas, recoilless rifles. Demolition experts are needed for special jobs such as blowing up bridges. And then a regular central drop zone must be set up in an easily defensible position. “We have already spotted the place,” said one of the rebels last week. “It’s a long, narrow canyon. We can hold it. This time we’re going back to stay.”