The Catholic times. [volume] (Columbus, Ohio) 1951-current, 1960-02-19

Cuba In
Grave Peril

DALE FRANCIS, once a Protestant minister in
Ohio, now a Catholic journalist of considerable attain
mentS, was the first to defend the Castro revolution
In Cuba-and among the first to condemn it.
Why? The answer is simple enough.
Francis had spent a year in Cuba, doing his bit
to improve the lot of the people. He was keenly aware
of the social injustice there, and the brutal tyranny
of the Batista government which Fidel Castro over
threw.
HIS OBVIOUS first task as q newspaperman was
to publish what he knew about the causes of the
revolution-the tortures, murders and corruption of
the Batista crowd.
a dictatorship, and the advent of a new regime which
spoke in terms of high idealism and of a new era of
justice for Cubans.
FRANCIS, HOWEVER, did not drop the subject.
He had unusually good sources of information from
inside Cuba, and he kept in touch with them. He
soon discovered that Castro was not establishing a
stable, democratic government, but was allowing dam
gerous communist elements to get into positions Of
power.
Francis was only proving himself to be a sound
and honest neWspaperman when, having exposed the
crimes of the overthroWn Batista regime, he began
warning Americans of the errors and neglects, and the
Woolly-mindedness, of the new government.
He could not fairly be accused of flipflopplng:
as he said, it was not he who had changed, but the
situation.
Nevertheless, many of us withheld final iudg-
ment. as seemed wise to do.
1T REMAINED PosSIBLE-as Dale Francis adj
mitted-that Fidel Castro might get over his fam
boyant period of endless harangues, cut out his fir
~ingsquad method of rule, and settle down to giving
Cuba the civic peace and economic reform SO deSper-
stely needed.
A SERIES OF articles by Patrick ]. Whe1an of the
Times-RevieW, newspaper of the La Crosse, Wis, do
cese, bolstered that hope. The articles we're distribute
ed by National Catholic Welfare Conference News
Service.
Whelan had made a fact-finding tour of Cuba,
during which he talked mainly with W~orkaday Cubans,
who understandable retain their faith in Castro be-
cause Castro freed them from the cruelties of Batista.
IN THE MEANTIME, Jaime Fonseca of NCWC
News Service was making a painstaking study of the
whole Cuban situation. For this purpose, he went to
Cuba three times.
Fonseca is chief editor of all news sent to or from
Service. He has a remarkable background of expert
ence and training, and his news sources are among
the best.
Fonseca, further, is very conservative. He was
SloW-lndeed reluctant-to come to the conclusions
reached by Francis almost a year earlier. But to those
conclusions he was forced by his researches.
BRIEFLY, Fonseca now has reported, in a series Of
articles for NCWC News Service, and reported in The
Catholic Times, that communists are stealing
Castro's revolution, y and that Castro will hardly be
able to reverse the trend,
Fonseca found communists worming into vital
positions In the regime and the army. and fostering
hatred. suspicion and class conflict among "the tradi-
tionally good-natured Cuban people"
REHlND THESE communists are Soviet agents,
money and knoW-hoW, Fonseca reported, and the Reds
are stockpiling arms for the purpose of taking con-
troll of Cuba by force if necessary.
Chinese communists also are active. A disciplined
force of 20, 900 Cuban Reds is at the command of the
communist Peoples Socialist Party.
THE SITUATION is ominous. Will the 1869
agony of Spain be repeated in Cuba, which had SEEM
ed at last to be on the way to a better life after its
long suffering under Batista?