CUBA: PLAYING FOR HIGH STAKES

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75-00149R000600420007-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: November 11, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 26, 1999
• Sequence Number: 7
• Publication Date: June 1, 1964
• Content Type: MAGAZINE

After a year of pleading, training, and hoping, only garbled messages and a crescendo of rumors
CUBA: CPYRGHT ecognition, rendering it `meaningful ashore. Troop movements, were reported
ith arms and aid. almost everywhere in Cuba. Intra-island
Playing for High Stakes' If, on the other band,, Ray fails, the radio messages. were frantic-and gar-
xiles may give up completely, leaving bled. Rumors succeeded rumors in a'
On both sides ot the Caribbean cur- he U.S. with only one alternative: ' co- crescendo of tension: Ray was safe,:
tain last week, Cubans celebrated the 3xistence with Cuba. That, of course, is Ray was captured, Ray was shot,. Ray
2nd anniversary of the island's 'irtde- hat Castro wants; he has been seeking was not even in Cuba. Not since the
endence (May 20) from Spain with in "agreement" with the U.S. for some . 1961 invasion had Cubans so anxiously
jittery gloom Had "a new war of ime and last week, according to one waited for news-butnone came
independence" begun, as the anti eport, he was trying to get Spain to act
]aimed? Had JURE's brilliant young ure would obviously represent a severe
eader, Manuel Ray, been captured by low to all anti-Cvstroites since his
astro's militia, as Cuban sources URE, though perhaps too radical to
inted? In both Miami and Havana, uit U.S. taste, is by far the most re- ; j
ubans stayed glued to their radios eoted exile group in Latin 'America..
ioping to find out-while most of the.' Ignored and Scorned: Ray did. not
orld seemed not to care. ave such respect a year ago. Ignored '
To Castro's friends, Cuba's claims that . y the CIA for having fought with;
nd dangerous exaggeration. Apparently. el Artime, the CIA-backed chief of the-'
gged on by Nikita Khrushchev himself,. 3ay of Pigs. invasion, and distrusted by
I ugoslavia's Tito, Algeria's Ben Bella, nost Cuban exiles for his. left-of-center'?
nd Egypt's Nasser have reportedly told olitical philosophy (they ' called it
astro to soften his propaganda and lay' 'fidelismo without Fidel"), Ray had to
if the U.S. lest he jeopardize.the pros- pend a full twelve months rallying sig-
ects of an East-West detente. To Cas ificant support. Together with his chief,:
ro's enemies, meanwhile, talk of a new ide, Rogelio Cisneros, Ray journeyed
'invasion" was no more than _a publicity.', rom Puerto Rico to the U.S. and Vene-
rue or false, was only part of' an - in- He wanted his movement, Ray said,,:!!
ramural game. o be organized, controlled, and led by,
Tough Promise: Unlike most games,. ubans, not by the CIA. He wanted..
owever, this one has very high stakes.:: Juba to have a democratic regime, not
f, for example, Ray kept his overly new form of Batista tyranny. He.
iublicized promise to return to Cuba by anted to keep many of Castro's re-
is independence ' day, he would prove. orms-including an important part of
hat neither Castro's twenty Russian he crucial land reform-not give the
milt, radar-equipped torpedo boats, nor untry back. to its old exploiters.,?
is 100 or more Russian MIG's, nor his 3acked at last by the liberal leaders of
rmies of shore-patrolling militiamen are Venezuela and Costa Rica, and by',
insurmountable obstacles. Other exile uerto Rico's Gov. Luis Munoz Marl n, roues would then probably soon follow lay built u
his or
anization trained'
p
g
,.
ult. And, if Ray manages to set up a roops in New York basements and Cen- j
uerrilla operation in some Cuban , ral American fields, and finally won sup-
kroups may yet, put an end to their ? ljveek, his supporters claimed, he went
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