Bienvenido, Brezhnev!

From high over the Atlantic Ocean last week Soviet Party Chief Leonid Brezhnev sent a warm greeting to President Nixon. "Flying close to the shores of the United States of America," radioed Brezhnev, "I express my very best wishes to you, Mr. President, to the Government and the people of the U.S. I am confident that relations between the Soviet Union and the U.S. will continue to develop to the benefit of our peoples and in the interests of international security and peace." Two hours later, Brezhnev's blue and white Ilyushin-62 jet landed in Havana, and the Russian leader began a week-long visit that at times seemed mainly aimed at patching up relations between Cuba and the U.S.

A million flag-waving Cubans turned out in Havana's sunny streets to bid "Bienvenido, Companero Brezhnev." It was the first visit by a Kremlin leader to Cuba since Premier Aleksei Kosygin visited the Caribbean island in 1971--and the biggest crowd Brezhnev had ever received on his frequent travels abroad. Plainly enjoying the effusive Latin welcome, he traded warm abrazos with Castro, and waved continuously on the 25-mile motorcade into Havana from the back of a pale gray open Zil convertible that had been shipped from Moscow, along with a fleet of black Chaika limousines.

Next day, hundreds of thousands of Cubans attended a mass rally in Havana's Plaza de la Revolucion. In deference to Castro, who was wearing his inevitable fatigues, the Soviet Party Chief, 67, abandoned his customary dark business suit for a casual tunic jacket and a white Panama hat. Anxious to impress the shirt-sleeved masses with his own blue-collar credentials, Brezhnev told the rally that he, his father and brother had all worked in a steel mill.

In a speech that seemed to be aimed at Washington as well as at Castro, Brezhnev told the rally that Soviet weapons in Cuba were not "for attacking anyone but for defending your revolutionary gains." He warned Latin American leftists that despite "the fascist coup in Chile," Moscow was opposed to the use of subversion as a political tool. "Revolution feeds not on somebody's subversion or propaganda," he declared, "but on realities, on the unbearable conditions in which people have to live. The Soviet Union has always considered to be criminal any attempt to export counterrevolution. But neither are Communists supporters of the export of revolution."

Chief Creditor. As for the U.S., said Brezhnev, "it is indisputable" that the recent improvement in Soviet-American relations "has helped attain other aims for which socialist countries have long struggled." Though he alluded to Pentagon efforts to intensify the arms race, he avoided any direct criticism of the U.S. Indeed, even while Brezhnev spoke, Soviet Deputy Trade Minister Vladimir Alkhimov was in the U.S. meeting with businessmen to discuss joint economic ventures and most-favored-nation trade status for Moscow.

The significance of Brezhnev's visit --and his message to Washington--was not lost on Castro. His chief creditor had come calling, with some sobering pragmatic advice. Brezhnev's main message: better relations between Cuba and the U.S. are in the interest of the Soviet Union. With Soviet aid to Havana already exceeding $3 billion and credits and assistance running at $1.5 million a day, the lifting of the U.S. economic embargo would go a long way toward easing the Russians' burden.

Castro is believed to favor improved relations with the U.S. as well. Last month, in fact, his Ambassador to Mexico, Fernando Lopez Muino, told newsmen that Cuba was willing to negotiate with Washington if the U.S. would lift its economic blockade of the island. (An application by General Motors, Ford and Chrysler to export automobiles from Argentina to Cuba is currently under study at the Treasury Department.) Washington shrugged off the Cuban ambassador's offer at the time. Subsequently, though, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger indicated that the U.S. has dropped its demands that Cuba must cut military ties with Moscow and pay compensation for seized American properties before lifting the embargo. Some observers believe that a breakthrough ending the 15-year-old freeze could come when Kissinger attends a meeting of Western Hemisphere foreign ministers in Mexico City next week. Perhaps to discuss that prospect, Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko, who has been traveling with Brezhnev, will fly to Washington this week to meet with Kissinger.

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