30 U.S. Servicemen and 4 Civilians Still in Hands of Castro Insurgents

By Peter Kihss
Special to The New York Times

GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba, July 7- A United Stated Navy helicopter brought out three more American civilians released by the Cuban rebels today.
 This made sixteen freed, leaving all thirty servicemen kidnaped June 27 and 28 still in rebel hands along with four civilians, including a Canadian.
 Rear Admiral Robert B. Ellis, Guantanamo Bay Naval Base commander, said Park A. Wollam, united States Consul, was still in the mountains negotiating for freedom of the rest. Admiral Ellis said Mr. Wollam had “not run into any hitch” but was encountering delays because of problems rounding up the victims, who had been widely dispersed.
 Later a helicopter took off for a second flight into the mountains but had returned without passengers.
 Rescued today were Sherman Avery White, 51 years old, general manager of the United States Government-owned nickel plant at Nicaro near Preston, seventy miles northwest of here; his assistant, James Andrew poll, 37, of Grand Rapids Mich., and James P. Stevens of Edmond Okla., a United Fruit Company official. All three were abducted June 30.
 They said they left Mr. Wollam and Vice Consul Robert Wiecha at a rendezvous with the rebels with no other Americans on Hand. Mr. Stevens said he believed that the civilians’ release would be completed first and that all servicemen might be brought out at one time.

 Ground Signals Spotted

 Mr. White live at Nicaro, but gives his home address as Johannesburg, Calif.
 Admiral Ellis said the helicopter flights took place after a display of prearranged cloth panels on the ground were sighted by United States airmen.
 Another indication that the rebels were moving toward the release of all those they had abducted came in a message here from Robert Taber of New York; a Columbia Broadcasting System reporter who managed to reach the rebels led by Raul Castro in a direct trip from the United States.
 Mr. Taber wrote: “Raul Castro is aware that there will be hell to pay once the Yanks have gone and the truce ends. Preparations are being made accordingly. Bomb shelters are being dug to protect both the people who live in the houses which have been used as command posts and the rebels themselves, although my guess is that they will steer clear of the villages once the shooting starts. I am told that government troops are being staged in several areas ready to move in.
 “Raul Castro makes a point of impressing on me that this is an actual front. He says that it is no longer a guerrilla operation but a war with fixed lines and established areas of control.”
 Mr. Taber said the rebels’ basic demand “seems to be for some sort of formal diplomatic recognition,” which the United States representatives say “cannot be given.”
 He added that they wanted an ambassadorial or State Department rather than a consular declaration barring the Cuban Government from the use of United States arms or the Guantanamo base in combat operations against the rebellion.
 Mr. Taber asserted the abduction campaign “undoubtedly was conceived on the highest level of the [rebel] movement” and “certainly it was not a field decision.”
 Admiral Ellis said an amateur radio operator on the base had heard a broadcast supposedly from Fidel Castro, Raul's brother and chief, who operates west of Raul. The message said that Fidel had asked the Guantanamo base to send a helicopter to him so he could send a representative to Raul to expedite the releases.
 The admiral said that there was nothing to show the broadcast was actually from Fidel Castro. Anyway, he said, a helicopter lacked the capability to go up to Fidel?s mountainous fastness.
 Twenty correspondents here asked Admiral Ellis to relay a protest to Admiral Earl E. T. Smith and thence to the Cuban Government against censorship of telephone communications from the leased United States base.