Millions for Tribute?

At Miami's International Airport, a stocky, white-haired man wearily faced newsmen. New York Lawyer James B. Donovan was just back from Havana, but he could offer only the haziest account of his effort to ransom 1,113 Cuban prisoners captured by Castro after the collapse of the Bay of Pigs invasion in April 1961. "The negotiations haven't broken down," said Donovan. "There are simply some points that must be resolved." He had made "concrete offers" to Castro, and "now we must await resolutions"--meaning wait for Castro's next move.

What had he offered Castro? Drugs, medicines and baby foods, said Donovan. "Not one dollar in cash is involved."

What was the total dollar value of the package? Donovan declined to say. How much of the ransom was being put up by the U.S. Government? Said Donovan:

"The U.S. Government has absolutely no part in these negotiations."

A Grim Occasion. It was a grim occasion for Negotiator Donovan. His bursitis was paining him, and he was terribly tired. When he stood up at the end of the press conference, he wobbled so alarmingly that policemen hurried to his aid. He had spent eight nerve-grating days waiting around in Havana. Castro had deigned to see him only twice, behaving with the assurance of a blackmailer in a society with no law against blackmail.

It was also a grim occasion for the U.S., which somehow found itself offering ransom to the uncouth Communist dictator of an impoverished island less than 100 miles from Florida. That was a grotesquely awkward posture for a nation that cherishes "Millions for defense, but not a cent for tribute" as one of its proud historical utterances.* The ransom negotiations were all the more embarrassing at a time when the U.S. was pressing other nations to halt shipments to Cuba.

Donovan's mission was made all the more unseemly by other events that took place last week. At the U.N., Cuba's President Osvaldo Dorticos spieled forth a ranting attack, accusing the U.S. of "aggressive hysteria" and "hunger for domination." In Havana, Castro made a chestthumping speech gibing at U.S. fears that an attack on Cuba will lead to nuclear war with Russia. And in the U.S. Congress, New York's Republican Senator Kenneth Keating said that U.S. intelligence had detected six additional missile sites under construction in Cuba. The Administration, charged Keating, was keeping the U.S. public "in the dark" about the Russian buildup in Cuba.

"Amiable Fiction." Against this background. Donovan's mission to Havana would have seemed dubious even if it had been an open, honest attempt by the

U.S. Government to ransom the Bay of Pigs prisoners. But it was neither open nor honest. The Administration put up a strained pretense that Donovan was negotiating as a private citizen on behalf of an organization called the Cuban Families Committee for Liberation of Prisoners of War. Assistant Secretary of State Edwin M. Martin flatly declared that Donovan "has no connection with the Administration." The Justice Department admitted that Donovan had conferred with Attorney General Kennedy several times, but insisted that the visits were merely "courtesy calls."

This insistence drew some sharp journalistic fire. The New York Times's James Reston charged that the Administration merely "added to the confusion about Cuba" by disclaiming any connection with Donovan's mission. Liberal Washington Columnist William V. Shannon wrote that the "amiable fiction" about the prisoner negotiations is wrong on two counts: 1) the President of the U.S. "ought not to be a party to practicing a deception on the people and the Congress," and 2) "this kind of secret will not keep, and its disclosure is always embarrassing."

Project X. Once before, President Kennedy had tried to make an Administration-sponsored ransom attempt look like a private undertaking. Shortly after the Bay of Pigs disaster, Castro offered to trade the prisoners for 500 tractors. At the behind-the-scenes urging of the President, a group of prominent U.S. citizens formed a committee to raise money to buy tractors for Castro. The deal collapsed when Castro demanded heavy, tank-tread tractors costing several times as much as the wheeled farm tractors the committee had planned to deliver to him.

The outcome was a great relief to the many Americans who found the deal repugnant. But President Kennedy was dis appointed. The prisoners weighed on his conscience: they had undertaken their invasion under his sponsorship, and his decision not to support them with U.S. air cover doomed whatever prospects for success they might have had. So the President undertook a second ransom effort, with less fanfare, working through the Cuban Families Committee--"Project X." the White House called it.

What made the Administration's involvement so obvious was the glaring disparity between the size of Castro's demands and the resources of the Families Committee. Castro's last publicly announced price tag on the prisoners' freedom was $62 million, which works out to more than $50,000 per prisoner. He is now demanding drugs and other goods worth a comparable amount at Cuban prices. The Kennedy Administration has been pressuring U.S. drug manufacturers to supply wares for the ransom package at nonprofit prices, but even so the total cost will run to millions of dollars. The Families Committee obviously can supply only a picayune fraction of the money. The unavoidable conclusion is that much or most of the ransom money is going to come from the U.S. taxpayers by the way of the President's contingency fund or some other lightly audited channel.

Once that conclusion sank in on Capitol Hill, members of Congress erupted with cries of anger and protest. On the floor of the Senate, Mississippi Democrat John Stennis and Delaware Republican John J. Williams declared themselves opposed to the use of any federal funds to meet Castro's demands. Four Congressmen sent the President telegrams demanding to know where the money was going to come from. In a floor speech, Florida's Republican Congressman William C. Cramer said that "this whole deal smells."

Conflict of Roles. An extra complication was the fact that Negotiator Donovan is the Democratic candidate for U.S. Senator from New York against Republican Incumbent Jacob Javits. He therefore has a big, personal political stake in the outcome. Even the pro-Kennedy Washington Post voiced editorial misgivings about Donovan's "conflict of roles." Said the Post: "Suppose the Cubans are freed before the election. The suspicion will exist, fairly or not, that the United States has paid a bribe to the Castro regime at least in part to help publicize a candidate for office."

When Donovan arrived in Miami last week, gathered to meet him were many of the relatives and friends of the Bay of Pigs prisoners. They had been hoping against hope for months. Now, some of the prisoners' wives wore yellow dresses--in symbolic reply to the yellow prison shirts that Castro.had forced their husbands to wear in an attempt to brand them as cowards. When Donovan came back emptyhanded, the Cubans drifted slowly away.

But many other Cuban exiles, particularly those who had no close kinfolks among the prisoners, were bitterly opposed to the ransom negotiations. Said an exile leader in Puerto Rico: "Cubans are demoralized because they fear that the U.S. Government is behind the ran som deal. It means that the U.S. does not plan to do anything to rescue these prisoners except pay money. It means that the U.S. will rescue a few Cubans, but not the whole Cuban people." Warned a Cuban exile living in Washington: "If the U.S. pays the ransom, the people of Cuba and all the rest of Latin America will recognize that your Government is willing to accept Communism in Cuba. This is a tragedy."

* It was voiced in 1798 by Robert Goodloe Harper, U.S. Congressman from South Carolina, in reference to French demands that the U.S. pay a sort of indemnity for signing an amicable treaty with France's enemy, Britain.

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