New York Times
April 17, 1961. p. 1.
Invasion Of Cuba Reported Begun By A Rebel Force
Miro Cardona Says Group of Hundreds Has Landed in Oriente Province
--
Confirmation Lacking
--
Castro Challenges Kennedy to Produce the Air Base Raiders Before
U.N.
A sea-borne invasion of Cuba
has been launched to overthrow the Government of Fidel Castro and invading
Cuban troops have successfully carried out the first stage, revolutionary
headquarters disclosed early today, according to United Press International.
Dr. Jose Miro Cardona, president
of the Cuban Revolutionary Council, announced that "hundreds of Cuban army
of liberation troops" went ashore in Oriente Province in eastern Cuba Saturday
night.
Dr. Miro Cardona said the
Cuban anti-Castro forces had "infiltrated" the area and encountered "no
opposition."
The area from which they
sailed was not disclosed. However, it has long been known that revolutionary
Cuban forces were training in Guatemala.
A Castro Government radio
said landings also had been made early today at three places on Cuba's
southern coast, one only ninety miles southeast of Havana.
Dr. Miro Cardona said a
prearranged signal to bring an internal uprising among underground forces
in Cuba had been broadcast beginning at 10 P.M. yesterday.
Matanzas Fighting Reported
A Cuban Army radio station heard
in Miami reported at 3 A.M. today that an invasion force had landed on
the southern coast of Matanzas Province.
The broadcast said a landing
was "under way" at Playa Larga and that Castro militia-men had called for
reinforcements. The radio said gunfire was "growing steadily more intense."
That report would place
fighting on Cuba's southern coast about 500 miles west of Oriente.
Reports from the secret
Cuban revolutionary general headquarters said sabotage already had begun.
A bridge in Oriente Province has been dynamited and communications cut,
the reports said.
The signal to begin the
struggle against Dr. Castro was contained in a mysterious coded message
broadcast by a clandestine station and repeated continuously through the
night.
The fifty-six-word message,
which sounded like a poem, referred to a rainbow, the running of fish,
the sky and "Chico." They were pre-arranged orders to begin an uprising.
A Havana Government radio
inquired about the nature of the Matanzas fighting. It asked confirmation
that a landing was under way before reinforcements were sent. The Matanzas
station replied the situation was too delicate to discuss by radio.
The fish has been the symbol
of the Cuban underground for months. It has the same significance as the
fish drawn on the ancient catacombs of Rome by persecuted Christians.
The Government radio station
was asked by Havana if airplanes were involved. The answer was garbled
but the last word was recognized by monitors as "positive."
The revolutionary announcement
of an invasion beginning Saturday night followed the attack on Cuban military
installations by defecting air force pilots.
Premier Castro, in a speech
Sunday, asserted that the United States had been responsible for the attacks.
Havana Is Quiet
A telephone call from New York
to the Presidential Palace in Havana this morning found nobody at hand
willing to speak for the Government, and no apparent excitement.
In the office of Revolucion,
semi-official organ of the Castro regime, a spokesman said he had heard
of no landings, though he added that there were always "many rumors."
"We are all vigilant against
a possible aggression," he said.
U.S. Denies Knowledge
Special to The New York Times
WASHINGTON, Monday, April 17--Joseph
W. Reap, spokesman for the State Department, said this morning that the
"State Department is unaware of any invasion." The Department of Defense
said that it knew nothing except what was in news dispatches.