CUBA

Less than seven weeks after he restored personal freedoms in Cuba, President Fulgencio Batista snatched them back again. Last week the eighth suspension of constitutional guarantees since Fidel Castro began his revolt 15 months ago renewed for 45 days the government's power to censor the press, disperse public meetings, raid homes without warrants, jail citizens without charges.

With that went glimmering the last faint hope of settling the rebellion peacefully. Castro, in effect had already rejected the Roman Catholic Church's proposal for a government of national union declaring that "no self-respecting Cuban could sit in Batista's Cabinet," and the church-supported Conciliation Commission collapsed in futility.

Batista's crackdown on liberties now killed off whatever chance remained of free presidential elections on June 1. Though the government stubbornly pressed preparations for the balloting, the only major opposition candidate, ex-President Ramón Grau San Martín, 70, warned that suppression of free speech and assembly made campaigning impossible. There were indications he might withdraw.

In gutting the elections, Batista made propaganda for Castro. From the start the rebel boss had denounced the "electoral farce," refused to nominate a candidate, and insisted that the only way to deal with Batista was violence. Batista also put the friendly U.S. State Department, which had been urging elections on him, in a most unhappy position. In effect, the U.S. policy had now been rejected by all sides.

The force that impelled Batista to drop the mantle of conciliation and move to open dictatorship was a sudden, unexpected threat from Cuba's judiciary. While proclaiming "we love democracy," the President had long winked at the activities of a small group of police and military men whose rough stuff and tortures helped to cow the discontented. Three weeks ago during the "free" period, eleven Havana judges hit at the police for refusing to honor writs of habeas corpus, declaring they had "never seen the administration of Cuban justice so mocked and reviled." A fortnight ago, the judicial attack sharpened. A judge demanded that the police produce in court a captured rebel suspect; when the cops failed to do so, he boldly charged two notorious police torturers with mistreating and killing the prisoner, then ordered them arrested and held without bail. Afterward, the judge went into hiding.

As Batista decided that his regime's future lay with cops rather than conciliation, the army announced that it would augment its 22,000-man force by calling up another 7,000 recruits.