Deportation: Adios to Cuban Prisoners

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At Dobbins Air Force Base in Georgia last week, two buses carrying 23 prisoners from the Atlanta federal penitentiary pulled up to a chartered Boeing 727 waiting on the tarmac. The convicts, handcuffed and clad in identical blue uniforms, were herded into the jet, which took off for the two- hour flight to Havana, Cuba. The 23 men were the first batch of Cubans to be sent back to the homeland they had fled in the Mariel boat lift of 1980. According to the Justice Department, all the deportees had committed serious crimes in Cuba or the U.S.: four of them were murderers, eight were robbers, three had engaged in drug dealing, and eight were guilty of assaults.

The Reagan Administration has fought for the deportation of the criminals and mental patients who were among the 125,000 "freedom flotilla" Cubans who came to the U.S. claiming political asylum. Under an agreement struck with Havana last December, the U.S. can now deport as many as 2,746 Cubans at a rate of 100 a month. "We are afraid that these men being returned to Cuba will be tortured," said Dale Schwartz, an Atlanta attorney who has been fighting to block the deportation of the prisoners. "As for whether it will be a bloodbath, we don't know. There's really no way of monitoring that sort of thing in Cuba."

"It's not just a job, it's an adventure." That's the slogan of the Navy's enlistment commercials. Unhappily, however, some Navy pilots are looking for careers and adventure outside the military. In fact, Navy Secretary John Lehman told Congress that letters of resignation from pilots and flight officers jumped by 75% from 1983 to 1984. Last December alone, the Navy lost 175 pilots and 40 flight officers. Most of the dropouts are joining U.S. commercial airlines, which plan to hire 6,000 pilots this year. High salaries and the rewards of a more normal family life make the commercial pilot's lot more tempting than life aboard an aircraft carrier.

To spur re-enlistments, Lehman last week announced a plan to grant cash payments of up to $36,000 for Navy aviators who sign up for four to six additional years in the service. In the past such bonuses were made in annual installments of $6,000, but the new program will offer lump-sum distributions. The Navy estimates that the bonuses will cost the Government $9.3 million for the remainder of the fiscal year. Even so, this outlay is a cheap alternative to the price of training new flyers. The estimate for that: $1 million or more per pilot.

For the past four years, Japanese automakers have voluntarily held back their exports to the U.S.--after a lot of arm-twisting from Washington. Last week the President's Council on Commerce and Trade recommended that the U.S. not ask the Japanese to extend restrictions that expire at the end of March.