February 11, 1965

WASHINGTON - A United States shrimp boat with three crewmen aboard was apparently captured by Cuban vessels today off the Cuban coast.

News of the capture came in an intercepted short-wave message from a Cuban fishing boat to a land station. The message was monitored here.

Partly garbled, it said that "there are wounded in the helicopter," suggesting that copters were used in the capture. Cuba normally employs helicopters to patrol her coasts.

The State Department said it had no additional information, but that it was investigating the situation. A question raised here was whether the shrimp boat was captured within Cuban waters or international waters.

The radio message, reporting that an American shrimp boat had been seized and was being taken to shore, was sent by a Cuban fishing boat identifying herself as "Cardenas-18." It was addressed to a land station at Batabano on the southern coast, officials here said.

This suggested that the shrimp boat had inadvertently ventured into the Cuban defense area between the coast of the Gulf of Batabano and the Isle of Pines.

In past instances, Cuban authorities have released American fishing boats that have accidentally penetrated Cuban waters. However, the report of wounded persons raised concern here.

A group of center-right Cuban political figures, which is seeking recognition for a Cuban government in exile, has begun giving instructions here in the use of the Garand M-1 rifle.

The spokesman for the group said the aim of the program was "to form an army to fight against Castro when the right time comes."

The training is conducted each Saturday from 8 to 10 P.M. and is expected to take six months, three in the classroom and three this summer at a "camp somewhere in New Jersey," according to Cubans involved.

The instruction in the M-1 is being sponsored by the Committee for the Freedom of Cuba, which maintains offices and holds its training sessions at 100 West 72d Street.

The instructors, working on a volunteer basis, include a former Cuban Army captain who was an instructor at a Cuban Government military academy and a Cuban who learned how to use an M-1 as an enlisted man in the United States Army.

Their textbook is an abridged mimeographed version in Spanish of the United States Army training manual for the M-1. Subsequent training in the use of explosives will also be based on United States Army manual.

The committee, whose president is Dr. Carlos Marquez Sterling, also expects to give instruction in logistics, armaments, tactics of war, guerrilla warfare, conventional warfare and military hygiene.

At the first session of the group last Saturday, attended by 24 Cubans and one Puerto Rican, instructors told participants they would have to learn how to take apart an M-1 and put it together in one minute. They also were told that since no funds were available at present they would have to buy their own arms.

A spokesman for the group said it had eight "old" M-1 rifles and one .45-caliber pistol. He said he had consulted a lawyer about the program and was advised that "there's nothing illegal about it."

Under New York state law, United States citizens can possess a rifle without a license. They are not permitted to fire it in the city limits except at an authorized shooting range. Police officials here said that, in the case of aliens, they could not comment on legality until more details were known.

Dr. Marquez Sterling, 66-year-old head of the organization, is a former Cuban lawyer and a long-time professor at the University of Havana. He now lives in Manhattan.

He has served as President of the Cuban House of Representatives, President of the Constituent Assembly that drew up the Cuban Constitution of 1940 and as Minister of Labor.

Dr. Marquez Sterling is working with Dr. Carlos Prio Socarras, who was president of Cuba, from 1948 to 1952, to obtain recognition for a Government in exile.

The site of the group's planned summer training camp has not been disclosed.

Exiles in New Jersey said yesterday that a former Cuban Army major, Ramon Martinez Morejon, now of Astoria, L. I., had trained a group of Cubans on a Hope, N. J., farm owned by John A. Perini.

Mr. Perini, reached at his home in Hope, confirmed that he had permitted Mr. Martinez Morejon to use the land last year. However, he added that he had told Mr. Martinez Morejon "he couldn't come back next year." He said he had acted after a visit by Federal Bureau of Investigation agents.

"I was told that assembly under arms might be a violation of the Neutrality Act," he said.