Growing Troubles

From Fidel Castro's Armed Forces Ministry one day last week came a high-pitched communique. An invasion force, said the ministry, landed on the north shore of Oriente province and was engaged by the militia. In the fight Invasion Leader Armentino Feria, described as a follower of Batista Gangster Rolando Masferrer, was killed. Captured, according to the communique, were two of his men, plus a U.S. flag, a U.S. Army manual, a U.S. Army uniform, seven U.S. carbines and three muleloads of ammunition. The remaining invaders, totaling 24 men, escaped to the hills. Inevitably the ministry charged that the invasion was dispatched from the U.S. by the "circles that direct policies of the U.S. Government."

Washington's response was a snort. Said a State Department spokesman: "I am impressed with the ingenuity of the Cubans in arranging a delegation with an American flag flying at its head. They neglected only one thing--to have them rush up a hill yelling 'charge!'''

The affair had its comic aspect; yet it was one more evidence of Castro's growing troubles. Some 315 miles to the west, in the Sierra Escambray, small groups of oppositionists have joined in a nettlesome guerrilla force estimated at 400 to 1,000 fighting men. Castro has sent 10,000 to 15,000 militia to surround the rebels, who apparently are getting weapons by air. Last week the Cubans were getting so nervous that they forced down a Nicaraguan cargo plane, grilled the pilots for eight hours.

The biggest stirrings were not yet in the hills but in the streets and on the farms. Among the middle class that financed Castro's revolt, a grim saying has spread: "We brought him to power, and we'll bring him down." One old rebel who can still speak out, Santiago's Archbishop Perez Serantes, spoke for all in a new pastoral letter read in Oriente province. "How many Communists did for the revolution as much as our own did?" he asked his people. "Must we suffer tamely and silently having these now come and give lessons in patriotism to heroes? Cuba, Yes; Communism, No."

But Castro hesitated not a step in his march to Moscow. The word in Havana was that Economic Czar Ernesto ("Che") Guevara would go to Russia in November and there ask for increased aid, possibly even consigning Cuba's entire sugar crop to the Soviets. Unless Russia was prepared to play Santa Claus, the deal could only worsen Cuba's economic plight. Just diverting one-third of this year's harvest to Iron Curtain countries at their prices (3 1/4-c- per lb. v. 4-c- production cost) was enough to slash sugar workers' wages from $1.31 daily to $1.09.

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