THE NATION: Notice Posted

The U.S. put the world on notice last week that it intends to stop the spread of armed Communism in the Caribbean by force if necessary.

The notice was publicly posted when four radar picket destroyers escorted the 70-plane carrier Shangri-La southward from Florida into the Caribbean. In response to requests from Guatemala and Nicaragua, said President Eisenhower, the U.S. would maintain a patrol to halt the shipment of arms or volunteers from Castro's Cuba to aid revolutionaries in those Central American countries. The U.S. intention had been less formally asserted weeks before when part of the 8th Marine Expeditionary Unit, 1,500 men aboard the assault carrier Boxer and accompanying ships, began conducting training exercises in the Caribbean area.

The decision to send Shangri-La was made by the President during his vacation at Augusta, Ga. after a special meeting of the National Security Council, which weighed intelligence of a heavy buildup of Communist jets, tanks, artillery and small arms in Cuba (TIME, Nov. 14). Presidential Press Secretary James Hagerty announced that the Navy would "seek out and prevent any intervention on the part of Communist-directed elements in the internal affairs of Guatemala and Nicaragua through the landing of armed forces or supplies from abroad." As explained by the State Department, this meant that U.S. forces would conduct a regular search of the Caribbean, but would not act to intercept suspicious vessels unless 1) those ships were within the three-mile territorial limits of Nicaragua and Guatemala, and 2) those countries specifically requested the U.S. Navy to intercept. One job of the electronics-crammed destroyers will be to detect small fishing boats or yachts—or possibly foreign submarines—and prevent them from landing shipments of arms at night.

While the orders pinpointed the troubles in Nicaragua and Guatemala (see THE HEMISPHERE), they showed a U.S. firmness toward Castro & Co. that was notably missing in the days before the election. Henceforth, Navy patrol planes will scan the east coast of Central America while the Shangri-La squadron operates in the general area southwest of Cuba. The Boxer Marine unit will continue to conduct exercises in Puerto Rico and send Marines ashore on weekend liberty in friendly Caribbean ports.

The U.S. acted as one sovereign nation answering the appeal for help of other sovereign nations—much as the President moved troops into Lebanon in 1958. The order not only put teeth into the President's statement of last July promising firm support for the Monroe Doctrine, but broadened the doctrine to include swift support for any Latin American nation that felt itself under threat from Communism.