Cuba: The Greying Pearl

The news that filters out of Fidel Castro’s Cuban dictatorship is told two ways. The stream of disillusioned refugees who make their way to haven in Florida describe the police-state control, the hardships, the hunger, the flight. A second version is the face Castro shows the few U.S. visitors allowed inside Cuba. Last week TIME’S Caribbean Correspondent Sam Halper flew out of Cuba after a guided two-week tour. His report:

The traveler to Cuba may be prepared to find it in Communist hands, but is surprised by the astonishing speed and thoroughness of the takeover. Barely an hour out of Miami, the Pan Am DC-6 skims over sunny Havana and touches down behind the Iron Curtain. In the airport waiting room, a sign welcomes the Czech, Russian and Chinese visitors who have replaced the U.S. tourists: “We thank you for the fraternal help from the Socialist countries.” On the walls are seven slogans by Mao Tse-tung, three by Che Guevara, Castro’s Marxist mentor, others by Lenin, Fidel and Brother Raúl. None by Khrushchev. On almost every Havana wall is stenciled Communism’s red hammer and sickle—along with the slogan “We Shall Win.”

The trademark of Castro’s Cuba is not a cigar but a gun. The most impressive single sight in Havana is its belligerent, uniformed, weapon-toting citizenry. Unlike most dictators, Castro has given the people Garands, the Belgian FN, pistols of all shapes and sizes. A poet grimly cradles a rifle while standing guard before the Revolución newspaper office; restaurant cashiers perch on their stools wearing pistols; busty militia girls in tight green pants stand in government waiting rooms pointing rifles at their feet, at you, anywhere. Castro wants them to use the guns, and from what they say, they mean to obey. Said a young militia girl, who agreed to chat over a cup of coffee: “When the Marines come, they will have to kill all of us—all Cuban people.”

Running to Rumor. The stranger is watched unceasingly—which obviously limits the candor of what he is told. A Western newsman cannot travel outside Havana without a “guide.” He may not take his own photographs, may not telephone his stories to the States (one newsman phoned New York 18 times, was cut off 18 times). Western diplomats are isolated within their embassy compounds. The bits of information they pick up run heavily to rumor. One current story has it that Blas Roca, 55, a career Communist and boss of the party in Cuba, is now coming forward as Castro’s top theoretician and planner. Whoever runs the show has been able, as one foreign diplomat says, “to change the entire structure of society to a Communist basis.”

“Education” bursts out everywhere. In the grand mansions of the departed rich in suburban Miramar, in seaside villas, in warehouses and in ballrooms, there are schools for ex-domestics, for would-be English teachers, for future diplomats, for fallen boys, for risen prostitutes, for peasant girls who want to learn to sew. The program with most impact is the drive against illiteracy—”alphabetization,” as the Cubans call it. About 300,000 illiterates have been taught to read.

Seeking to Impress. Naturally the Cubans make a special point of showing visitors grandiose first models of the promised Communist future, such as the low-cost housing complex called Havana East, now houses 500 families, with another 1,000 moving in and units for 6,000 more abuilding. A family of five has a living room with dining area, three bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a kitchen with a gas stove—all for $20.50 a month, says the guide. The tenants, as he stands there, agree that they are very happy.

But the greying side of Communism also hits the visitors. Havana’s luxury hotels have grown dingy, most taxis on the streets are rattling wrecks, stores have few goods to sell. Castro’s men seek to impress visitors with the volume of aid from the Soviet bloc, show off hundreds of stacked crates containing Iron Curtain tractors, machine shops with Chinese gear grinders, Czech universal lathes, Polish radial drills. How many such machines? The Cubans produce no statistics.

Castro’s greatest admitted failure is food. No one in Havana seemed to be starving, but last week soap, onions, tomatoes, potatoes, carrots, turnips—as well as toothpaste and detergents—were virtually impossible to find. The National Agrarian Reform Institute promises that before long the collective farms in Pinar del Rio province alone will produce 600,000 chickens a month; at Christmas they will market between 70,000 and 80,000 turkeys.

The inevitable question outsiders seek to answer is how many Cubans are firmly with Castro. “Only 45% are with him,” says one careful foreign observer. Another explodes: “What difference does it make? The important thing is that the revolution is going deeper and deeper, digging in more and more.”

As it digs in, organized resistance diminishes. Some fighting is apparently still going on in the Pinar del Rio countryside, where the militia chases a guerrilla known only as Cara Linda (Pretty Face). One afternoon, at a crossroads filling station on the central highway, a truck stopped and nine weary militiamen climbed down. “Where have you been?” I asked. “Hunting Cara Linda,” said one man matter-of-factly. One of my guides snorted: “I heard he’s dead. He’s just a myth.” The militiaman shook his head. A foreign technician told of coming on a militia encampment—on the floor was a dead guerrilla, the back of his head blown out with a .45-caliber pistol. The dramatic exploits of the Cara Lindas seem the exception. “People are giving up.” said a resident newsman. “Castro holds the youth.”

A veteran foreign diplomat gave a sober summing-up. “The overall picture will be of a typically impoverished ‘People’s Democracy.’ They won’t starve, but their food will be monotonous, and so will be their lives. The chicken is a fast-reproducing animal, so is the pig. They will manage to give the population a sufficient amount of calories. Cuba will compare, say, with North Korea, certainly not with Czechoslovakia.”