Tantalizing Hope

On the eve of the eighth anniversary of his 26th of July movement, Fidel Castro prepared to take some final formal vows to Communism. His old revolutionary party would be merged with the Cuban Communist Party, and his scribes were writing a new constitution officially proclaiming Cuba a "socialist state." All this was being tied in with an anniversary celebration at which the principal attraction was to be Soviet Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin.*

For those Cubans who prefer to take another direction, the U.S. last week held out a tantalizing hope. The State Department offered to sponsor a free airlift for more than 20,000 Cubans still waiting in Havana with visas or special waivers to come to the U.S. The $350,000 to charter ten Pan American flights a day for 20 days would come out of emergency foreign-aid funds. There was only one catch: the U.S. had not told Castro. At week's end, as Pan American's third plane approached Havana, Castro suddenly limited round-trip flights between Havana and Miami to two a day, and turned back No. 3.

*Another Soviet visitation last week, a 39-man Russian good-will delegation, spent 95 minutes with Brazil's President Janio Quadros, went away with assurances that Brazil would reestablish diplomatic relations with Russia after a break of 14 years.

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