Reasonable Doubt

Everyone suddenly seemed to be feeling reasonably pleased about Cuba--well, almost everyone. President Kennedy obviously felt himself riding high as a result of public reaction to his handling of the situation. Some dependent families, evacuated from the U.S.'s Guantanamo Naval Base while the Cuba crisis was at its crest, were now back; the Pentagon hoped to have all the dependents returned to Gitmo by Christmas. Considerable satisfaction was found in the fact that the Soviet Union apparently had shipped 42 crated jet bombers homeward from Cuba; the skipper of at least one ship obligingly opened the crates so that Navy air patrolmen could see for themselves.

All well and good. But enough? At the United Nations and elsewhere, U.S. negotiations aimed at achieving on-site inspection in Cuba have still come to nothing. Yet, as Kennedy has repeatedly said, such inspection is the only way the U.S. can really be sure that Russia has removed its offensive weapons from Castroland. Moreover, intelligence reports from Cuba insisted that Russian troops in division strength were still in Cuba, now helping Castro to build up his defenses by extending airstrips, constructing underground bunker systems, gasoline and munitions depots and camouflage networks for MIG-17 and MIG-21 jet fighters. The construction of facilities for new "fishing ports"--meaning submarine bases--continues.

There could be little doubt that the U.S. was still way ahead in the aftermath of the Cuba crisis. But Georgia's Senator Richard Russell, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, best expressed the doubts that persisted in some minds. Said Russell in an Atlanta television interview: "We have temporized. We have even lifted the quarantine. Frankly, I thought that was a mistake. I didn't think we should lift the quarantine, or make any guarantees as to Cuba, until we have the right of on-site inspection throughout Cuba.

"We have now been euchred into the position of baby-sitting for Castro and guaranteeing the integrity of the Communist regime in Cuba, and we don't know for a positive fact that the missiles and the bombers have been removed."

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