HAVANA, Aug. 11 (AP)—Fidel Castro’s battle against the first major conspiracy threatening his revolutionary regime swept into the Cuban countryside today.
New Arrests and armed clashes were reported. Officials claimed the plot was crushed. Unofficial reports said as many as 1,500 persons had been arrested.
A communications blackout in Las Villas province—Cuba’s agricultural heartland—hid developments there. But it was understood Castro forces fought skirmishes with opposing groups.
Havana was quiet after a night of disturbances. About a dozen cases of street shooting were reported, but no casualties.
Reports filtering through the military screen from Santa Clara and Cienfuegos said numerous arrests were made there.
Mass arrests appeared to have subsided in Havana, and police began sorting out those seized in the dragnet. Informed sources said many will be freed as soon as officials complete their investigations.
It urged Cubans to remain calm, and await Mr. Castro’s statement to the nation.
The Cuban leader gave no advance hint of when he might go on radio and TV, his favorite method of reaching the Cuban people.
One newspaper claimed he was mixed up in the plot. But a formal statement by the veterans of the second front of Escambray, a group that fought with Mr. Castro in his guerrilla war against the Batista dictatorship, credited Major Morgan and two Cuban majors with playing important roles in smashing the conspiracy.
Other rebel sources said Major Morgan served as an undercover Castro agent, pretending to join the conspirators in order to expose them.
(Major Morgan is the son of Mr. And Mrs. A. W. Morgan, 2909 Collingwood Blvd. He had served as a major in Castro’s revolutionary army and later as an adviser to Castro. He originally joined the Castro group after meeting the Cuban leader in Florida in 1957.)