New York Times
April 17, 1961.  p. 3.

Challenge by Castro

By R. Hart Phillips
Special to The New York Times

        HAVANA, April 16--Premier Fidel Castro challenged President Kennedy today to present before the United Nations the fliers who bombed Cuban air bases yesterday.
        He called on President Kennedy to prove that the fliers had been defecting from the Cuban Air Foce when they carried out the raids.
        Dr. Castro denied a statement made in Florida by one of the pilots, who declared that he had just defected. The Premier said they had come from Guatemala.
        The Premier charged that the United States not only was directly responsible for the air attacks, in which three bases were hit, but also was trying to deceive the world be declaring that the fliers were defectors.
        The Cuban leader made his remarks at a funeral oration for members of the air force and militia killed in the attack on Camp Libertad, on the outskirts of Havana. A munitions dump exploded there.
        Premier Castro said for the first time that this revolution was a "Socialist revolution" carried out "under the very noses of the Yankees." This brought from the crowd the response, "Fidel, Khrushchev, we are with you both!"
        Dr. Castro, who has been feuding with the United States and accusing it for months of planning to invade Cuba, said in his oration:
        "The United States has no choice but to confess that the bombs were theirs and the planes came from bases in Guatemala but could not return there and had to land in the United States."
        He compared the bombings to the attack by the Japanese on Perl Harbor. At least Japan did not try to escape her responsibility for the attack, he said.
        "If the attack on Perl Harbor is considered by the American people as a criminal, traitorous, cowardly act, then our people have a right to consider this act twice as criminal, twice as cunning, twice as traitorous and a thousand times as cowardly," Premier Castro said.
        In another development, a bomb exploded at the Havana international airport, causing much alarm but no damage. The explosion was reported to have occurred inside the administration building.
        Dr. Castro's oration, which was broadcast on radio and television, lasted two and a half hours.
        "The United States delivered the planes, the boms and trained the mercenaries," he said. "The Yankees are trying to decieve the world but the whole world knows the attack was made with Yankee planes piloted by mercenaries paid by the United States Central Intelligence Agency."
        With heavy sarcasm, the Premier read a translation into Spanish of dispatches sent by American news services from Maimi, where one of the pilots landed. These reports were sheer fantasy, Dr. Castro said, and "even Hollywood would not try to film such a story."