Cuba: The Russian Presence

Despite initial Cuban attempts to hide it. and official U.S. denials that it was going on, there was no mistaking the Russian buildup when it began six weeks ago. Refugees fleeing Castro's miserable island brought the first reports; U.S. intelligence agents and members of the Western diplomatic corps filled out the story. Ships—some Russian, some chartered from such NATO nations as Britain, West Germany and Norway—were pouring into Cuba carrying heavy loads of Russian military equipment and Russian soldiers.

Mostly at night, and mostly with their own hands, the Russians unloaded sensitive electronic gear and crates shaped as though they might contain missiles. At

Mariel, a port near Havana, a cinder-block wall went up to screen the docks; local Cubans nicknamed the area "Little Berlin." But there was no way of concealing the Red army trucks and armored cars lined up five-deep for a quarter of a mile along Havana's waterfront San Pedro Street. Exiles with contacts in Cuba reported convoys of military vehicles, radar vans, mobile generators, field kitchens, and flatbed trucks bearing cylindrical objects under tarpaulins rumbling inland from the quays.

Twin Bivouacs. Castro bars most U.S. newsmen from his Communist police state, and it was not until Keith Morfett of the London Daily Mail hired a car and went looking southwest of Havana that the West last week got an eyewitness description of the Russian presence. Just past the village of El Cano, eight miles from the capital, Morfett came to a high hedge and a wire fence stretching for about two miles. Then, at a break in the hedge, "there were the Russians." They numbered in the hundreds, Morfett said, and wore coarse denim trousers and cheap checked shirts. "They looked in their early 203, and were beefy men . . . strong. They were probably a construction unit."

Four miles down the red clay road, Morfett discovered a second bivouac, "swarming with thousands of Russians. Some were dressed in physical-training gear and were doing calisthenics. Others wore greenish fatigues. Two teams were playing volley ball." Between neat rows of dun-colored tents, Morfett caught glimpses of field kitchens and chow lines, and beyond sat "military vehicles—lorries, trucks with mobile radar units, armored cars. Some of the trucks still bore Russian-language lettering." Ringing the camp were Cuban soldiers manning freshly dug anti-aircraft emplacements.

Gratuitous Slap. Thus, for the first time since he reached power, Castro had on hand flesh-and-blood soldiers of the

Red army, totaling about 4,000, along with a growing armory ranging from rifles to missiles (see box opposite).

Back in Moscow, Khrushchev obviously enjoyed what he had wrought. In a gratuitous slap in the face for the U.S. and President Kennedy, he announced that "during the stay in the U.S.S.R. of Ernesto Guevara Serna [better known as Che] . . . the government of the Cuban republic addressed the Soviet government with a request for help by delivering armaments and sending technical specialists for training Cuban servicemen. Agreement was reached. As long as aggressive imperialist quarters continue threatening Cuba, the Cuban republic has every justification for taking measures to ensure its security . . . while all Cuba's true friends have every right to respond."