8

8. THE CASE OF PUERTO RICO
The situation in the U.S. island of Puerto Rico presents considerable cause for alarm and calls for immediate attention. Latin Americans in culture and outlook, the Puerto Ricans are, as Soviet delegate Sharaf Rashidov himself declared, prey for Communist penetration and terrorism.

The history of Communist subversion to the present is considerably more alarming than is generally recognized. Some of that history was revealed by Norman Pietri, Puerto Rican delegate to the Havana Conference. He said: "Armed struggle has taken place in Puerto Rico. The struggle for independence has continued 'In the streets, and is becoming stronger daily."

Another Puerto Rican delegate, Narciso Rabell Martinez said: "The independence movement is continuously being organized among the Puerto Rican people so that we may unflinchingly confront U.S. imperialism. It is a fight waged from within the very heart of the monster. But as Jose' Marti said, 'although we are living in the heart of the monster, we also possess David's sling.' The possibility of obtaining Puerto Rico's independence is clear and present, and we believe that, with the burgeoning of the mass movement now surfacing, Puerto Rico will also soon become a 'free territory of America.' "

Cuban intrigue has converged on Puerto Rico through roughly three different means-drug trafficking, terrorism, and diplomacy and propaganda.

Puerto Rican police and the FBI nipped one plot by Cuban trained Puerto Ricans to assassinate John Bishop, FBI chief in San Juan, and to kidnap high-ranking Puerto Rican officials. One of those captured testified that contact with Cuba was carried out through agents in the Dominican Republic. Interception of the terrorist group, the so-called Armed Movement of Puerto Rico, was made outside Ramey Air Force Base, one of the largest military installations on the island. Propaganda "which declares war against the United States" was found along with rifles, pistols, field telephones, and large amounts of ammunition.

Chronic riots at the University of Puerto Rico are attributed to student agitators following instructions from Cuba's government controlled subversive student organization, the University Student Federation (FEU).

Cuba has also become an important way-station for the transfer of drugs from Red China to Puerto Rico and thence to the mainland United States. A break in one drug ring came in December 1964 with the arrest of Castroite Cubans Carabeo Nerev and two accomplices. Eugene Marshall of the Federal Narcotics Bureau in Miami revealed that the three had been back to Cuba several times since they entered this country under the cover of "exiles." The conclusion drawn is that Castro agents have entered Puerto Rico and Miami in the guise of "political exiles."

On September 24, 1964, the New York Times reported: "There are strong suspicions that Communist Cuba is making an attempt to flood Puerto Rico with drugs via Havana in an effort to undermine the economy of the island." On January 6, United Press International reported that marihuana was arriving in the United States from Cuba "in great quantities."

In an interview with New York police inspector Ira Bluth, UPI reported that "marihuana used to come to New York almost entirely from Mexico, but recently a large amount of drugs from Cuba have been discovered * * * they have .. been introduced into this country from Cuba through Florida. * * * in the past few months of 1964, 697 pounds of drugs from Cuba had been found, compared with 241 pounds in 1963. * * *"

It is believed that the sale of drugs, particularly heroin, in the United States and other Free-World countries provides a considerable amount of foreign exchange by which Cuba finances guerrilla activities. Connection between Cuban terrorism and drug traffic was brought out in other evidence. When Carabeo Nerey was arrested in Miami, he was accompanied by two Puerto Rican females, sisters Nellie and Doris Antuna. Doris, said the report, had been living with a Wilfredo Jesus Risco, who earlier had been uncovered as an intermediary in supplying Puerto Rican terrorists with money.

Sabotage, little reported and less understood in mainland United States, has taken and is taking its toll in Puerto Rico. In December1964, San Juan's newspaper, "El Madro" reported "a wave of incendiaries which swept the area. The targets were mainland U.S. companies-Levittown Construction Co., Barker's Department Store, Woolworth's, the Bata Shoe Factory, and Bargain Town.

Eight attempts were made to burn Woolworth's, but vigilance cut down the damage considerably. However, Barker's loss was placed at $4 million; Bata Shoe Factory was completely destroyed at a loss of $3 million. Newspaper accounts drew the obvious of parallel between what happened in Puerto Rico and the tactics being carried out by National-Liberation Front terrorists in Venezuela and Colombia.

Incendiarism and other acts of terrorism have been accompanied, in the past, by bloody, Communist-led student riots. Puerto Rican Congressman Carlos Westerbrand has moved to establish laws to outlaw such Communist infiltration in student organizations citing incidences of such infiltration even among the high school student bodies. Venezuelan Pedro Medina Silva is leader of the Latin American committee to carry on terroristic wars in Latin America. He is also chief of the Venezuelan Armed Forces of National Liberation. Speaking in Havana on February 8, of this year, he announced that Venezuela, Puerto Rico, Chile, and the Dominican Republic were on the Tri-continental General Secretariat charged with carrying out terroristic wars. He said of Puerto Rican participation: " This is very important. For the first time, Latin America achieves integration (in the world war of subversion). This is the first time that Puerto Rico -Participates in an organization as important as the General Secretariat." He added: "We feel that this is a debt we owed Puerto Rico, one we have now paid by incorporating that country on a tricontinental scale in an organization which will enable it to see and observe, and above all, to contribute to its own final liberation so that it can stop being a Latin American colony. The remarks of Soviet delegate Sharaf Rashidov, when he included Puerto Rico as a target of tricontinental subversion, recall the fact that Russian interest in that island goes back a few years. It records Soviet manipulation of Cuba for political, military, and propaganda purposes. Back in 1954 ' the Soviets sponsored a "World Peace Conference" in Prague. This led, in 1957, to the establishment of the Afro-Asian Conference held in Cairo. Rashidov, it should be noted, headed the Soviet delegations to the Prague and Cairo Conferences. He was responsible for the behind-the-scenes maneuvering at the Cairo Conference of "non aligned" nations in late summer 1964 which, with very little persuasion it, n-tai, be deduced, led Cuba to introduce a resolution demanding that the United Nations call for a debate on the "colonial status of Puerto Rico."

The Cairo delegates accepted the resolution and, on November 20, 1964, the U.N. Committee agreed to the debate. The U.N. Committee debate is outrageous on the face of it. It completely ignored the fact that in November of 1964 the Puerto Rican people went to the polls, and cast 778,000 votes out of a total cast of about 860,000 affirming their status as U.S. citizens in a "Free State Associated with the United States"-an association that has brought Puerto Rico out of grinding poverty.

However Soviet-Cuban maneuvers lurks the kernel of Communist policy toward Puerto Rico. That policy is to force the retirement strength from the Caribbean and eventually from Latin America. It is also to be noted that U.N. acceptance of the debate came just prior to the visit to the United Nations by Major Guevara. What he said regarding Puerto Rico exposes some of that kernel. He said that the "use of Puerto Rico as a military base by the United States threatens the peace." It may be considered no co-incidence that Guevara's views were echoed by Norman Pietri, Puerto Rican delegate to the Tricontinental Conference. He said on January 10 in Havana that "14 percent of the national territory of Puerto -Rico is occupied by nine immense U.S. military bases designed to strengthen Yankee domination in Puerto Rico ***exposing the rest of the Latin American peoples to the constant threat of direct imperalist military aggression. ***" There is little difference, except in the wording, between what Guevara hinted at, and what Puerto Rican Communist Norman Peitri actually said 1 year later.

Pietri went on to spell it out: "Imperialism has everything in those gigantic bases--long-range guided missiles, super bombers loaded with atomic bombs, nuclear submarines at Roosevelt Roads, and special anti-guerrilla troops. From this stems the imperative need to win national independence in order to promote conditions conducive to total eradication of Yankee military installations in Puerto Rico and the threat they pose to the rest of Latin America."

The climax of several years intervention in Puerto Rico by the Russian-Cuban combine came on February 10, following the Tri-continental Conference. On that day, Puerto Rican terrorists actually established a "Free Puerto Rico Embassy" in Havana. At the same time, the Puerto Ricans signed a so-called "pact of solidarity" with the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam in the latter's Havana headquarters. Aping the tactics of the Viet Cong, the Puerto Ricans claimed that they (the equivalent of a National Liberation Front) were "recognized as the only legitimate representative of the Puerto Rican people."

Following that announcement, and the establishment of the Communist Puerto Rican "Embassy," 26 Latin American Communist delegations said they would establish in their countries, "national committees of solidarity with Free Puerto Rico." Viet Cong military representatives immediately added their voices to the throng, saying that "the enemy of both our peoples, and of humanity, is North American imperialism."

Norman Pietri invited Puerto Rican newspapers to send their journalists to Havana, offering to pay then- fare of $1,400 round trip, San Juan-New Orleans-Mexico-Havana, and from Havana back to San Juan via Spain. He used the precedent, or alleged precedent, of the travel of U.S. "students" to Cuba in 1963 and 1964 and their defiance of State Department regulations as justification. Eschewing United States citizenship, which the Puerto Rican group is dedicated to sever, Pietri screamed that freedoms granted under that citizenship were being violated by not permitting travel between the United States and Cuba.

Geographically, Cuba, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico extend in that order in a straight line across the Caribbean from the tip of Florida to the Leeward Islands. Under Communist control, and appropriately equipped militarily, the letter three could effectively block sea and air approaches to northern South America and the Panama Canal. Cuba alone virtually commands the access routes to the Gulf of Mexico and Central America.

This is the political and strategic significance of Puerto Rico in the communist master plan for the Western Hemisphere.