Split-Level Subversion

Red and black flags flapped from every lamppost, and gigantic portraits of Fidel Castro, Guerrilla Expert Che Guevara and "Carlos" Marx glowered from windows and walls of office buildings. Banners were strung here and there with the slogan: IF YOU WANT TO BE A REVOLUTIONARY, START A REVOLUTION. One of the proudest achievements of Castro's revolution--Havana's Coppelia Tee Cream Parlor--was dishing out more flavors (54), as it likes to boast, than even Howard Johnson does. In the crowded dining rooms of Havana's five "luxury" hotels, three waiters orbited eagerly around each table, smiling broadly, rushing about with plates piled with steaming food and refilling water glasses after a single sip had been taken.

Fidel Castro laid it on thick last week for 700 delegates and observers and 73 foreign newsmen invited to Havana for this week's "Conference on Latin American Solidarity"--fancy Castroite jargon for Latin American subversion. The conference is a split-level affair. One level is a big, propaganda-splashed meeting filled with speeches and mutual, comradely abrazos, and attended by Communists, leftists and other Castro friends, including the U.S.'s Stokely Carmichael and Folk Singer Barbara Dane. On the other level, the nuts-and-bolts business of subversion is being discussed by rank-and-file guerrillas, agitators and other Communists who are dedicated to Castro's "wars of liberation."

By Plane & Fishing Fleet. To cover their identities, many delegates traveled on phony passports, readily available in most major Latin American cities. Delegates who flew to Mexico City and caught one of the twice-weekly Cubana Airlines flights to Havana had to submit to laborious immigration and secret-police screenings by Mexican authorities. Some, like Carmichael, flew to Prague or Moscow and then to Havana. Others worked their way to the Yucatan, and were whisked by special undercover "fishing fleets" across the 125-mile Yucatan Channel to Cuba. A Venezuelan guerrilla leader named Amerigo Martin even went so far as to travel to Colombia and sign aboard a boat bound for Spain, where he evidently planned to fly to Eastern Europe and then to Cuba; en route, however, his boat docked in Venezuela, and police--tipped off--picked him up along with his aide.

The main purpose of the conference is to discuss ways and means of creatin "new Viet Nams" throughout Latin America. There are some difficulties.

From Mexico on south, the Communist Party has always broken down into splinter groups, but divisions have recently sharpened more than ever. Russia is pushing trade and cultural exchange on one side, while on the other Castro is stressing violent revolution. Venezuela's Moscow-lining Communist Party broke completely with Cuba four months ago, protesting Castro's stepped-up aggression. Last week the Organization of American States accused Castro of sending four armed Cuban regulars to the coast of Venezuela last May, the first overt and deliberate military invasion of one Latin American country by another since the Gran Chaco border war between Bolivia and Paraguay more than 30 years ago.

Key elements of Colombia's Communist Party have also split with Castro, and their lack of support for Castroite guerrillas operating in the Colombian Andes has helped narrow their operation from five areas in 1961 down to two. Castro's only notable success has come in Chile, where far-leftists have won control of President Eduardo Frei's Christian Democratic Party and installed Castro-worshiping Extremist Salvador Allende as president of the Senate. Last month Frei's government even permitted Castro's solidarity organization to open a branch in Santiago, the first in Latin America outside Cuba.

Mystery Guest. Castro is in no danger of losing his Russian ally right now despite disagreements, but he made it clear on the eve of the conference that the Russians have tried to rein him in.

On the 14th anniversary of his unsuccessful attack on Moncada barracks in Santiago de Cuba, which opened his revolution, Castro told his audience that Cubans must count less on Russian protection: "In the face of an invasion here, we must get used to the idea that we are going to fight alone." To whip delegates into the proper anti-U.S. mood, Castro paraded Black-Power's Carmichael before the crowd as "one of the most distinguished leaders for civil rights in the United States." The U.S., Carmichael obliged, "is going to fall. I only hope I live to see the day."

To further enliven this week's proceedings Castro's government promised a speech by an unnamed "leader of the revolution." Speculation immediately spread that the speaker just might be Che Guevara, Castro's onetime No. 2 man, who mysteriously dropped from sight 27 months ago. According to Castro, Che has been organizing guerrilla wars in Latin America. If that is true --many believe that Che is dead--Che would make quite a delegate to Castro's conference, perhaps eclipsing El Maximo himself.

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