Tighter Red Knots

In the Western Hemisphere branch of the cold war, which pits the Communist world and Cuba against the U.S. and the rest of Latin America, last week's skirmishes were won by the U.S. and its friends.

Cuban Foreign Minister Raul Roa, speaking before the United Nations Security Council, labeled the U.S. a "butcher'' and asked for U.N. action to head off what he said was a theoretical Yankee invasion. Soviet Delegate Arkady A. Sobolev chimed in to renew Premier Khrushchev's claim to be Cuba's protector.

"Do not touch Cuba." he warned the U.S.

"Do not threaten Cuba with your might because other countries also have much might. That is our policy toward the Latin American countries and toward Cuba.'' Latin American nations have been noticeably reticent to side with the U.S.

against Castro, but Khrushchev's intrusion upset them all. Ecuador's Ambassador to the U.N., Jose A. Correa, who by rotation is president this month of the Security Council, spoke up: "The Latin American countries will struggle for nonintervention against any attempt to violate it. If any power, whether near or far--especially if it is a far-distant power --should attempt to tell us what we are to do, the only thing that will be accomplished will be the achievement of animosity and profound dislike on the part of our people. We do not believe in having happiness imposed upon us." Communist Sobolev got the point. Ecuador and Argentina sponsored a joint resolution to refer Roa's complaint to the regional Organization of American States. Instead of vetoing the proposal as he had threatened to do, the Russian abstained.

Domination & Disaster. Concern about Communist penetration spread across the Americas. The Mexican Ambassador to the U.S.. Antonio Carrillo Flores, explained that his nation's recently expressed sympathy for the ideals of the Cuban revolution does not mean approval of "the procedure or methods she is employing." Venezuelan President Romulo Betancourt said that Latin American democracies must take charge of telling the Soviet Union to "keep hands off America"' --though to him the first order of hemisphere business was to cope with the Caribbean threat posed by the Dominican Republic Dictator, Rafael Leonidas Trujillo, whose agents last month tried to assassinate Betancourt.

The OAS has proposed a meeting of foreign ministers to deal with i ) the assassination attempt against Betancourt, 2) the Soviet intervention threat.

Happy & Hairy. Though reluctantly giving ground on this issue, Cuba continued to tie itself into tighter knots with Russia and Red China. A delegation from Cuba's government-run Confederation of Labor junketed through China from banquet to banquet and agreed with the Communist All-China Federation of Trade Unions in a joint condemnation of U.S. "imperialist aggression." A Chinese Communist trade delegation to Cuba, headed by Deputy Foreign Trade Minister Lu Hsu-chang, closed a deal with National Bank President Ernesto ("Che"') Guevara to buy 500,000 tons of Cuban sugar each year for five years. A fifth of the payment is to be convertible sterling and the rest vegetable oil, rice, cotton, manufactured goods and "entire factories." In Moscow.

Raul Castro, brother of Fidel and head of Cuba's armed forces, made the social rounds in an unaccustomed necktie and a more conservative haircut. Nikita Khrushchev told him that Russia is "prepared to undertake delivery of oil and other goods in amounts fully meeting the requirements of Cuba in exchange for Cuban goods." In return, Raul obligingly attacked the U.S. as "the major enemy of peace in the world."

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