War of Nerves

The exile campaign against Cuba's Fidel Castro pressed on last week--a war of words, nerves and calculated confusion designed to bedevil and aggravate Cuba's Communists.

All week long, reports of new landings and new attacks poured out of Miami. Spokesmen for Manuel Artime's M.R.R., which destroyed a sugar mill fortnight ago, announced that they had gone in again to blow up six highway bridges inside Cuba--then admitted that this was untrue but promised that Castro would hear from them soon.

Stories of exile training camps made the rounds--particularly of big doings at the old Bay of Pigs camps in Guatemala and Nicaragua. NBC-TV showed films of exile guerrillas training "somewhere in Central America," likely Costa Rica. Almost with one voice, the governments of the three countries stoutly denied any Cuban rebel activity, and other newsmen prowling the area found nothing.

Corsair & Caesar. Anti-Castro radio stations came on the air, and some of the broadcasts may have indeed come from inside Cuba. But most of them probably originated no farther distant than "Little Havana" in southwestern Miami. Using code names such as "Tiger," "Corsair," and "Alpha Five," they beamed a 24-hour torrent of chatter, reading off metronome-like numbers in Spanish and repeating cryptic messages: "Caesar is approaching the Colosseum," "The little tree is in the middle of the pasture." More than once, Castro stations broke in angrily. Cried one Castroite at the microphone: "You have no guts to come here, son of a whore! You only know how to kill children. Effeminates! Tell me where you are--I'll get you." Replied an anti-Castro station: "That is the education that the Russians have given you. But we are going to re-educate you."

The one man everyone expected to hear from was mysteriously silent. Manolo Ray, leader of the JURE exile group, had promised to be inside Cuba reorganizing the anti-Castro underground by May 20, Cuba's Independence Day. On the 16th, Miami monitors picked up a brief broadcast purporting to be from Cuba: "This is Ray speaking to all Cubans from free territory." But Ray's lieutenants said it was not Ray's voice. On the 20th, there was nothing but silence from Ray's group. Was their leader in Cuba? A spokesman merely smiled.

"Fight to the Death." The war of nerves was beginning to tell on Castro and his henchmen. "We are face to face with history," roared Minister of Industries Che Guevara last week. "We cannot be afraid. This is a fight to the death." Added Castro's little brother Raul, head of Cuba's armed forces: "We must be alert. We must be implacable." Castro canceled all military leaves and placed his armed forces on full alert. Havana University was drained as students were called to arms in militia units. Night after night, radar antennas scanned the sea and sky for any suspicious movement, while patrol boats and shore patrols filled in the radar gaps. So busy were MIG fighters that one jet narrowly missed ramming into a Cuban airliner over eastern Oriente province. Castro's internal radio even issued a call for volunteer blood donors in preparation for "any emergency." Meantime, Cuba's powerful, 100,000-watt propaganda radio blared defiance to the world: "The Cuban people will flatten those who try to take over Cuba. Cubans are ready."

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