[104-10173-10170.pdf — page 58]
KRI-913page 23.  The evening's program included speeches by four persons, representing the Ortodoxo party and Cuban youth, who attacked the economic, labor, and social policies of the Government, the absorption of Cuban soil by "Yankee imperialists," the interference of the United States Government in the affairs of the Latin American nations and its support of those which were dictatorships, as well as the proposed plan of the Cuban government to build a canal which would involve the ceding of core Cuban territory to foreign interests (i.e., the United States).    The meeting closed with the creation of committees charged with fomenting public protest throughout Cuba against the present regime and against "Yankee imperialism."4.  In addition to the role it played in organising the meeting at radio station C.O.C.O. on 16 December 1954, the PSP has also succeeded in arousing popular contingent against the proposed canal among the university students, members of labor unions, and members of educational, cultural, and civic institutions. It has been stressing in its propaganda that the canal will constitute a principal military threat and place the country in the danger zone of atomic-nuclear bomb warfare. The PSP leaders consider this anti-canal movement as a rallying point for all anti-Batista elements which can possibly be converted into the long-sought "National Democratic Front." Jose Pardo Lliada who championed the "Voto Negativo" (vote against BATISTA) prior to the general elections of 1958 has also seized on the matter of the proposed canal to attack the present government by calling for a "total union of the masses in defense of the national integrity and the complete liquidation of the present regime" during his television program on 17 December 1954. Another vehicle being used by the PSP to spread its anti-canal propaganda is the Asociación Latino-America Libre, a cultural organization reported to be a Communist front, whose board of officers includes a Communist leader and a Communist youth leader of national standing, Jare PAYAL and Gregorio M. ORTEGA Suarez, respectively.Field Comments:1.  *Carta Semanal* (clandestine Communist publication), No. 69, dated 8 December 1954, contained an article which denounced, in very strong language, the plan to build the "Via Cuba Canal." Approximately a week later the overt Cuban press took up this subject, presenting the pros as well as the cons, and was still carrying articles on it as late as 26 December 1954.2.  President-elect Fulgencio BATISTA and the present chief of the Cuban Navy, Contralmirante Jose FUENTES Rodriguez Calderon, have issued public statements defending the plan to build the canal and blaming the Communists for launching "an insidious campaign against a project as nationalist as the 'Canal Via Cuba' would be" and censuring the opposition elements who have taken advantage of that campaign to attack the present government. Despite these statements and others by other government officials, the defense of the proposed project has been too weak, both technically and politically, that public sentiment against the project has apparently increased considerably since mid-December 1954.