The Subversion Airlift

Around 12:30 p.m. every Monday and Friday, an aging Cubana Airlines turboprop Britannia whistles to a halt at Mexico City's International Airport. Squads of police stand by. All passengers arriving without diplomatic or Mexican passports are photographed and questioned by immigration men. Sometimes the travelers grapple with the cameramen; they always dodge questions. "Why are you here? Where are you going?" ask the Mexicans. "None of your business," answer the secretive travelers. "Tourists," say the others blandly. Going to Cuba or coming, it is all perfectly legal, and they proceed on their way.

Castro once had several pipelines of subversion around the hemisphere. Pan American flew daily flights between Miami and Havana; Delta flew from Haiti and the Dominican Republic; K.L.M. went in from Curasao, a Dutch self-governing territory off the coast of Venezuela. But now the flights have ended, leaving only the twice-weekly Cubana flight to Mexico--and Castro makes the most of it. The 96-seat Britannia is usually half full, an estimated 5,000 people flew back and forth last year. Of those, says CIA Director John A. McCone, about 1,500 have received indoctrination and guerrilla warfare training.

Blueprints & Money. Communist couriers and political agitators fly into Mexico, fan out across the hemisphere carrying propaganda, blueprints for revolt, and their share of the estimated $120 million annually that goes for Latin American subversion. When a Vang Airlines 707 jet crashed near Lima last November, ten Cubans were on the plane, and Castro rushed a 27-man delegation to pick up the pieces. But the Peruvians collected the evidence first, including documents reportedly detailing guerrilla activities in Brazil. Last week a Lloyd Aereo Boliviano DC-6B crashed in the Andes on a flight from Arica. Chile, to La Paz, Bolivia.

Aboard were two Cuban diplomatic couriers on their roundabout way to La Paz via Mexico and Chile. Investigators found a batch of Cuban documents and an auto matic pistol with silencer. Another interesting discovery: both Cubans appeared to have been in the cockpit of the plane, which was 35 miles off course and 9,000 ft. too low when it crashed.

Obvious agents and big-name Communists are relatively easy to track. Francisco Juliao, leader of Brazil's troublemaking Peasant Leagues, was in Cuba last month; so was Brazilian Communist Boss Luis Carlos Prestes. When he was ar rested last October, Venezuelan Commu nist Fabricio Ojeda had been logged into Cuba 13 times, so often that he was nicknamed "Lieutenant Hilton." for the suite he occupied in Havana's expropriated Hilton hotel.

Telltale Mark. The more elusive travelers--and in a way the bigger potential danger--are the thousands of students, small-time labor leaders, intellectuals and professional men who go to Cuba on scholarships and "all-expense-paid" tours. Some return disenchanted with Cuba's socialist paradise; many others become terrorists, guerrillas and Communist party workers. Bolivia still has diplomatic relations with Cuba, and an estimated 1,000 Bolivian workers went to Cuba last year; some 400 are still there. Brazil, Chile, Uruguay and Mexico will not talk about their nationals in Cuba, but the figure runs into the thousands. Other nations frown upon travel to Castroland, but until last Feb. 15 it was no trick to fly to Mexico, where the Cuban embassy issued a visa on a slip of paper. No telltale stamp marred the passports. Now the Mexicans stamp passports "Salio a Cuba" in bold letters. But, of course, passports can be conveniently "lost." destroying the evidence.

U.S. intelligence estimates that more than 200 Venezuelans went to Cuba for training last year, and as one U.S. official says, "We do not consider it sheer coincidence that the Venezuelan democratic government is being subjected most heavily to the terrorist and guerrilla activities of Castro Communists."

At San Jose last week, Castro's subversion threat was a first order of business.

The seven Presidents agreed to hold a ministerial conference next month to devise "stricter travel and passport controls" and a "more rapid and complete exchange of intelligence information on the movement of people, propaganda, money and arms." The subversion airlift also figured prominently in the questions and answers at Kennedy's press conference two days later. The key to the airlift, obviously, is Mexico. And while the Mexicans may pass on the airport mug shots, stamp passports and occasionally confiscate a load of propaganda, they have done nothing to stop the flights, or to stem the flood of people pouring into the country bound for the Cuban island dictatorship--and bound to make trouble at home.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.