1960-07-09 — Page 15

THE CHINA MAIL. SATURDAY, JULY

CUBA

Most explosive island in the world... Columbus wouldn't know it now

L&SONLAY

ON the man Cuba looks like a long knobbly stick that could be picked up out of the Carib bean for a stinging swipe at the sensitive low-slung bottom of America.

With Havana as a handle and headquarters Mr K. and other Communist leaders are tightening their grip and using Cuba as one of their most effective weapons against America.

Every day they also use it to hit the headlines while Eisen- hower backs away nursing his Japanese weals and ineffectually swinging a golf club.

IT IS garish posters which catch your eye before you leave Miami saying: "Come to Cuba, the inviting island next door."

IT IS the modernistic hotels, Like Japan and Formosa it is taller than Castro's promises one of the hot islands that will like the Riviera and the Havana stay in the news. Islands' sür- Kilen, now run by the trades rounded by the drowned policies unions. The Hilton has 630 of American Secretaries of State, "spacious' rooms with air, con- Cuba is the closest to America dfiloning, television. And when and to us. Just 35 minutes by I was there I reckoned about jet to Miami, Florida. Fifty-six hundred spacious moms five minutes by Viscount. No with air conditioning, television" time at all by missile to any but no guests,

White American State and the House-and. indirectly, Houses of Parliament.

IT IS the newevendor in old and malodorous Havana, who

sold ine a copy of Bohemia, a pro-Castro magazine, and offered

me five marijuana cigarettes at two American dollars each-

"Very good quality. Grown in IT IS the worried banker who has spent the last 15 years in

my own garden."

To this

cell holds six prisoners, and a crevling contented army of cockroaches.

IT IS the knock on the door in the middle of the night by members of D.I.E.R., the military secret police

(pro nounced. Ironically Dear). Mine came in the middle of the after- noon on the door of my hotel roum. The two plain-clothes

D.1.E.R. men who told me I

was a

and

"counter-revolutionary". to be deported

Teutonic

about

shed me with thoroughness."

They even loosened the rubber sinnes on one of my hel-tir

cuba met in the American which finally dropped off on

Club, 进罪 uneasy oasis in Havana. He told me: "The rich and property class--many of them supported Castro in the days have completely early turned against him.

"Even the poor, the workers in the city and the peasants, who looked on him as a saviour, are beginning to get disillusion- ed. Many of them are out of work or on lower wages."

IT 18 bearded and loyal battle-dressed Fidelistras carry ing banners announcing boldly; "Fidel has delivered you or the imperialists." IT IS casinos in all the hotels IT 18 peasants in the outlying

carrying the parlours of capitalistic de- provinces

banners radence,

but kept open by edmitting plaintively: "Fidel. Government order though they we are starving." are as empty as the steppes,

It is the inescapable island from which I just escaped recently, but it has pursued me all the way back home across the Atlantic. I must tell you more about 11 now that I've got the time-and freedom.

The seasons

more thah an average width of 55 miles, and according to Christopher Columbus who first discovered it in October 1492 (the dry season), "the most beautiful that eyes have ever seen,"

IT IS night clubs like the Tropicana which claims to be

*the

the

mos! fabulous in world" and looks like a Wellslan thing-to-ecme. It presents a lavish floor show which makes London's Talk of the Town, for

Plus thirty-odd waiters,

1

The police

Ministries who told me: "I gave IT IS an official of one of the

facilities to the Stor Carol Heed when he was making that film 'Our Man in Havana." I

my way home in New York. Before they applied. summary Justice and took 400 dollars from my wallet as a fine they

few lines produced remarkable dialogue:--

a

The futility

of

JO MORROW ON THE WRONG SIDE OF THE RAILS ON THE BALCONY OF THE HAVANA HILTON

"We know you are a counter- revolutionary because we have a copy of the article you wrote when you met Batista last year, you said Castro was a psycho-

I pointed out that Bausta had pathie murderer and a torturer." said that. I had merely quoted him. I might as well have, recited the American Declara- officer tion of Rights,

They went on: "You are a spy for the American imperial- ists, "I told them I was British. They said: "You are a British

the for Imperialists," lackey,

American

I decided it would be unwise and futile-to argue with

them,

IT IS the British Consul who IT IS 1,000 miles long but no example. look like very amal saw it when I was in America

talk indeed. When I saw it there was an audience of dye recently. If I'd known what it could have been played by Noel. with dialogue by would be like I would have had Cowird

The after- including myself.

them all arrested, including Graham Greene. Senor Guinness and especially noon of my investigation was that girl. What was her name? his afternoon off. I finally found said: "I Morrow, Jo Morrow, was it not? him at home. He She would have made a beauti- ndvise you to leave as soon as

possible. ful prisoner."

Let me know when and if you arrive safely in Miami, that's a good fellow. I don't want the boring job looking round the jails for you."

IT 18 in July 1960 (the wet season) having its

tropical

The B-Girls

In

IT 18 bars a greater variety,

IT 18 the luxurious hotel and beauty washed by steamy cloud- ranging from the sleazy to the casino, the Capri, in which

Alec Guinness bursts that lasted without break opulent, than

George Raft had an interest, in "Our was found

Man tor the Grst 48 hours I

Havana," Each bar has its but which he left when Castro there...

IT 19 Prime Minister Fidel brassy battalion of B girls with arrived because: "I used to be something of a crook and a Castro speaking on television, hungry eyes and beautiful un- telling the workers that Cuba Is employed Agures B girls, 1 Bangster myself. But I can't compete with a government of theirs, Inviting them to build should explain. I suppose. are gangsters."

entertain the their own homes at weekends, hostesses who

on-and off-the also inviting Mr K to visit Cuba customers this month but insisting that premises.

he is non-Communist, "a demo- They respresent one of the crat dedicated to freeing my minor problems of the revolu- people from American domi- tion. How can they be redirect- ed to useful labour in the New nance,"

IT IS large banners on every Cura which despite the Castro other building shouting "Patria denials has been planned on O Murte" (Our country or Communist lines? The B girl death).

makes a bad tractor driver.

IT IS the symmetry and beauty of the trees the tamarinds, the silk-cottons and the royal palms which stretch up to dust the clouds,

of

IT IS the bumpy, apprehen- sive journey to the airport with an amiable and garrulous taxi driver who said: "We Cubans are too Catholic ever to go

completely Communist,"

The take-off

IT 18 the airport waiting room yellow with the functional

IT IS the filth and ugliness of the prison on the Isle of Pines chairs where I spent the longest where hundreds of political two hours of my life when the including British plane was delayed; prisoners.

The police, looking threaten Peter Lambton, are held. Ench

ing and dyspeptic, took two American girls away questioning. The sticky minutes dragged on. At last we were ushered out to the plane.

AMERICA'S ROCKET MEN

BUILDING A GIANT

Huntsville, Alabama.

A monstrous new version of the Saturn space vehicle

it will tower as

for

The American girls said they had been jailed for two nights after

their a dispute about hotel bill and then re-searched before boarding the plane,

Their arms were visibly bruleed. One of them · sald: we were told by police in jail we could be set free. All we had to do was be nice to him. The monster,"

That my friends, enemies, and fellow travellers, is Cuba 1080. Finally, it is like a bad comedy thriller Alm. It is more im- plausible than "Our Man in Havana.

And more frighteningly real,

-London Express Service).

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I was fastening my seat belt the crew-cut American sitting next to me said: "You're wast ing your time".""

He told me about the Jeep.. It waits till the plane has taxied out to the end of the runway, then drives out to drag

prison.

high as a 25-storey building-is being developed as America's bright-off "eminter-revolutionaries" to

est hope of surpassing Russia in space exploration.

a veral.

The new. Saturn, 1 four- rk's pay-loads, but this Saturn launching site at Cape Cana- stage vehicle easily capable of "gives the United States delivering a three-ton load to possibility of surpassing Russia," The first stage of the rocket the moon, is being developed says Mr Wika Mrazek, a is scheduled, to make its maiden looks. No barley sugar. Crew- by Dr Wernher von Braun, the director German-born rocket

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America's laboratory in Huntsville,

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Huntsville fight

TOW DOWN-RIVER

·with dummy upper stages during the next year.

The first three stages of the missile will be tested in. 1983. The missile is so gigantic, be And by the following year the says, that the scientists Arst Saturn is expected to be ready No existing American missile problem is that of transporting for routing space misdome,"

to match the Sput- it can hope

trom Huntsville 16 the

London Express Service).

It had called for a colleague who had tried to leave. by an Carlier plane. I stared straight ahead at the steward who was offering me nothing but sullen

The Jeep cut nudged me. was coming. I got ready

like a leave with something stiff upper lip. But it deposited the two American girls and drove away.

The plane took

to.

off. I have never been, sa thankful to be airborne.

BEIRUT

FRANKFURT

SHOULD AN AMATUR PLAY AMEN

LOUBLÉ FAULT)

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Than Then Aandra Hai Han Koi -

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