Toward D-Day

The testing hour for Fidel Castro was drawing near.

At 6:25 a.m. Saturday, two B-26 light bombers roared in from the sea toward Havana, dropped to low level and started their bomb runs. One plane worked over Castro's Air Force Base at San Antonio de los Banos, 20 miles southwest of the capital. The other attacked Havana's Camp Liberty, Castro's main military headquarters. Darting through a curtain of antiaircraft fire, the B-26 swept over the camp toggling bombs, banked around for a rocket attack, then finished off by a strafing run with eight .50-cal. machine guns. As smoke from exploding ammo dumps and burning buildings spread over Castro's GHQ, radio reports crackled in of a similar B-26 raid on the military airport at Santiago, 460 miles away on the eastern end of the island.

Shortly thereafter, a B-26 with Cuban Air Force markings limped into Miami International Airport, one engine feathered, its engine nacelles nicked by bullets. A second B26, with a shot-up engine and landing gear, scraped down on a bed of fire-preventing foam at the U.S. Naval Air Station at Key West. A third reportedly landed in Jamaica. The crewmen, all Cubans, were whisked away before reporters could ask questions. One pilot, who finally told an elaborate story of his day's work, asked not to be named, to protect his family in Cuba.

Prelude to Invasion? As the news hit the wires, Jose Miro Cardona, head of the exile Revolutionary Council in Manhattan, proclaimed the attack a last salute to Fidel Castro by defecting members of the Cuban Air Force. "Before flying their planes towards freedom, these true revolutionaries attempted to destroy as many Castro military planes as possible." The well-coordinated, professionally executed mission was known to the council beforehand, said Miro Cardona. "We have been in contact with, and have encouraged these brave pilots." He added that "military security" prevented further explanation.

Castro accused the U.S. of staging the attack, raged that it was the prelude to direct, frontal invasion by "North American imperialists." Raul Roa, Castro's U.N. delegate, popped up to demand that the General Assembly consider the anti-U.S. charges immediately, was eagerly backed by the Soviet Union. Adlai Stevenson, for the U.S., denied all, and cited the Cuban markings on the planes.

All week Castro's Cubans had been excited by the possibility of an imminent showdown. They could find support for their fears on Page One of the New York Times, which reported from Florida troop-laden aircraft roaring off into the night, exiled Cuban doctors called to service on a hospital ship standing by off the coast, launches making nightly runs to Cuba with explosives and saboteurs. Training groups of exiles were reported breaking up at a mysterious jungle-warfare camp in the Louisiana bayous, at a sabotage school near Houston, at a string of seven camps between Guatemala and Panama. Between 3,000 and 5,000 anti-Castro Cubans--some reports said 7,000--awaited the signal.

Guard on the Beaches. As the sound of distant drums grew louder, so did noises closer to home. Underground agents set fire to Havana's big El Encanto department store and destroyed it completely, an $8,000,000 loss. Castro himself seemed almost out of control. Four times last week he appeared to harangue Cubans over TV. "We are going to tear to bits all those who show their heads," he cried. At a workers' meeting he lapsed into incoherency. But Brother Raul, the Defense Minister, and Castro's Communist Adviser Che Guevara seemed to be keeping their heads. They sent convoys of tanks and grimly silent militia rumbling out of Havana to guard the lonely beaches along the island's 2,200-mile perimeter. Raul Castro enlisted sugarcane cutters as fighters, invited them to set up their own jungle justice over people they were suspicious of: "The workers themselves will try saboteurs and execute them."

As even much of the U.S. press seemed to be getting set to report an invasion of Cuba, Miro Cardona and his Revolutionary Council insisted (as they have for months) that they have no plans for a massive, ramps-down landing on fortress Cuba, but contemplate many small infiltrations from outside and massive sabotage inside, which will in time signal a general uprising by Cubans against the Castro dictatorship. The rebels believe that a third of Castro's much ballyhooed, 200,000-man militia will shoot, one third will head for home, and another third will turn their guns on Castro. "This fight," said Manolo Ray, the underground leader in charge of sabotage, "is a fight of Cubans against Cubans."

On the Sidelines. The U.S. Government, so plainly opposed to a Communist-supplied base 90 miles from U.S. shores, was obviously going to come in for a storm of leftist agitation and a good deal of Latin American criticism, if its part in the exiles' activities became too obvious. The U.S. is heavily pledged (Bogota, 1948) not to help overthrow any hemisphere regime. Furthermore, even Cubans despairing of Castro's Communist ties might be patriotically moved to side with Castro if the invaders seemed mere U.S. mercenaries. The U.S. position is that of coach and well-wisher cheering from the sidelines but forbidden on the playing field. In a letter to the New York Times last week, the obvious dangers of overt U.S. participation in the fight against Castro were clearly laid down by two Latin affairs experts, Assistant Editor Raymond D. Higgins of the Hispanic American Report and Associate Professor Martin B. Travis of Stanford University. "Castro would surely be killed and become a martyr," they said. "Our action would be compared to that of the U.S.S.R. in Hungary. Democratic Presidents in Latin America like [Adolfo] Lopez Mateos of Mexico or Romulo Betancourt of Venezuela would be forced to adopt an extreme position in order to prevent revolution in their own countries."

Welcome Interruption. At his press conference last week, President Kennedy sought to take all U.S. fingerprints off the blueprints for overthrowing Castro. "There will not, under any circumstances, be an intervention in Cuba by U.S. armed forces," he said. "This Government will do everything it possibly can to make sure that there are no Americans involved in any actions inside Cuba." He pointed out that the Justice Department had just indicted Rolando Masferrer, onetime hoodlum leader of a pro-Batista strong-arm squad, for "plotting an invasion of Cuba from Florida in order to establish a Batista-like regime."

But when he was asked whether the U.S. was barred from giving aid or arms to anti-Castro elements in the U.S. by the terms of the Organization of American States treaty, Kennedy was less precise: "Well, there is a revolutionary committee here which is, of course, extremely anxious to see a change in government in that country. I'm sure that they have, they're very interested in associating with all those who feel the same way."

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