End of an Invasion

The girls of the village of Nombre de Dios (Name of God) strolled toward the azure Caribbean one day last week, arm in arm with the Cuban invaders who had come to Panama to overthrow the democratic government of President Ernesto de la Guardia. As the landing craft taking them off to jail in Panama City backed off the beach, Expedition Commander Cesar Vega and his 83 men (plus a 24-year-old Cuban girl) broke into a song that Castro's rebels used to sing in Cuba's Sierra Maestra. The girls of Nombre de

Dios wept as the invaders sailed away.

False Premise. The invaders were recruited in Cuba in recent months by an assortment of Panamanians, including Career Rebel Ruben Miro, who was tried and acquitted for the 1955 assassination of Panamanian President Jose Antonio ("Chichi") Remon. The Panamanian leaders persuaded the largely ignorant Cubans that Panama was crushed under the iron heel of a military dictatorship and was yearning for freedom. The invasion was supposed to be coordinated with the plot attempted fortnight ago (TIME, May 4) by Roberto ("Tito") Arias, a cousin of Miro's and the husband of British Ballerina Dame Margot Fonteyn.

The invaders set sail at dawn one day in the 55-ft. yacht Mayari from Batabano, a fishing village on Cuba's south coast. Three were drowned upon landing at Nombre de Dios, including one leader who preached "Never lay down your gun" so convincingly that he could not let go of his as it dragged him down. The remaining invaders moved into nearby Nombre de Dios in such manly fashion that three love affairs quickly blossomed. When he was asked to marry the three couples, the village priest refused: "These hurried romances need a cooling-off period."

False Position. Cuban Prime Minister Fidel Castro, who had been telling U.S. audiences that he flatly opposed Caribbean filibusters, knew all about the Panamanian plot, but was caught aback as the Arias-Fonteyn flop placed Panama in a spotlight of world attention. He ordered his brother, Armed Forces Chief Raul Castro, to come to Houston for a private talk. The Castros sent a pair of their bearded officers to Panama to persuade the invaders to withdraw.

In Washington the Organization of American States met, listened to a Panamanian plea for help against "international pirates," sent an investigating team. While patrol boats and planes contributed by the U.S., Ecuador and Colombia scouted the Caribbean and the Panamanian coast for signs of a rumored reinforcement fleet, Invader Chief Cesar Vega met the Cuban officers and the OAS negotiators, and surrendered. Cuba was expected to ask Panama to give the invaders leniency, a quality unknown to the Castro firing squads at home.

Only real winner: Dominican Republican Dictator Rafael Leonidas Trujillo, who has a firm precedent for appealing to the OAS if and when Cuban rebels try to help overthrow him.

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