GUANTANAMO BAY - US NAVY'S 82-YEAR-OLD CARIBBEAN TOEHOLD

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000302550007-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 21, 2012
• Sequence Number: 7
• Publication Date: December 3, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/09/21 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000302550007-3
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CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR
3 December 1985
Guantanamo Bay ? US Navy's 82-year-old
Caribbean toehold
This survivor of Cuban revolt and
Pentagon budget cutters continues
its vigil over Caribbean sea lanes
By Peter Grier
Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba
The marine, helmet on and rifle by his side, peers
from the height of Guard Tower 21. "See that?" he asks.
"It's a Cuban patrol boat."
Half a mile away the boat swings sleepily at anchor
under an azure West Indies sky. It could be a pleasure
cruise in search of langouste, the local version of lobster
? but the two men on deck are wearing battle fatigues,
not swimsuits.
Welcome to the US Navy installation at Guantanamo
Bay, Cuba, the base that geopolitics forgot. The oldest
US post on foreign soil, it is also the only one in a com-
munist country.
Cuban leader Fidel Castro has never seriously tried to
dislodge the Navy here. He does, however, refuse the an-
nual $4,085 payment proffered by the United States for
use of the base. "The story is we rent the place, but he
doesn't cash our checks," says Capt. John Condon, base
commander.
Guantanamo, a lovely bay on Cuba's southern
haunches, has been a favored spot of sailors for centur-
ies. Christopher Columbus landed here in 1492 in search
of gold and fresh water; in the mid-1700s the British
West Indies Squadron occasionally used the harbor as a
base. The US arrived during the Spanish-American War,
when marines landed at Guantanamo for a campaign in
the nearby hills. After the war, in 1903, a treaty gave the
US rights to the base indefinitely.
In 1956, Castro launched his revolution from the Si-
erra Maestra mountains just west of here. Occasionally
the rebels would harass the nearby base. At one point
Castro's brother kidnapped 29 US servicemen returning
from leave, but eventually released them unharmed.
On the January day in 1959 when Castro trium-
phantly raised his flag in Havana, the naval base gates
were closed. Ever since, US and Cuban riflemen have
eyed one another across a demilitarized zone of mine
fields and fences, as unlikely neighbors as history may
produce.
"They'll do weird stuff, call you names, throw rocks,"
says Marine Sgt. Mark Floresca of his Cuban counter-
parts. "But it's not too bad."
The most visible victim of the standoff here is the base
golf course, once one of the finest in the Caribbean. In the
early '60s Castro cut off the base's water. The Navy built
a desalinization plant in response, but the water the plant
produces is so expensive only the course greens and tees
are now watered. "The fairways get pretty brown," says
one base officer wistfully
From the top of a hill at its center, the base looks like
any military post with 6,500 residents, one stoplight, four
outdoor movie theaters, and a McDonald's under con-
struction. As a fighter plane makes sporadic runs at the
target range, its machine guns rasping, frigates glide in
and out of the emerald bay
During the Carter era, some high Pentagon officials
judged Guantanamo an anachronism and considered
abandoning it. But the base's utility as a training center
for the Atlantic Fleet makes it worth keeping, claim offi-
cers here. The harbor is uncluttered, and deep water be-
gins just offshore; so ships can be on?statiim urminutes.
Last year, 83 vessels came through for maneuvers.
One of the last US outposts in the Caribbean, the base
might prove vital if conflict threatened nearby shipping
lanes, says the Navy
If Cuba were a party to that conflict, Guantanamo
would likely spend much energy just fighting for itself.
Marine guards admit that the base's main airstrip, for in-
stance, is within easy rocket and mortar range of the sur-
rounding Cuban-held hills.
The large radar on one side of Guantanamo is prob-
ably an unstated reason the US wants to keep the base.
Asked its purpose, officers here refuse to say, and then
change the subject. A toehold in a foreign land, Guanta-
namo would be an ideal spot for gathenng electronic in-
telligence, such as monitoring Cuban air traffic and radio
signals.
For the Navy, there is also perhaps emotional satis-
faction in retaining Guantanamo: What better way for
the US military to thumb its nose at Castro? "This is a
highly visible reminder of our resolve," says Captain
Condon.
The place this resolve would be put to the test is the
Guantanamo fence, a 17-mile perimeter where Marine de-
fenders face a Cuban brigade. In a dusty ride along a
stretch of this frontier, Cuban soldiers are not much in
evidence. Their guard towers top a few far hills. Bunkers
with slit windows are scattered in no-man's land. A mili-
tary truck stops on a ridge a mile away; the patrol boat
sits still in upper Guantanamo Bay
In late July, the Cuban premier visited Guantanamo
City, 10 miles to the north, to celebrate the anniversary
of the revolution. The Cuban brigade was more active
then, and the Marines double-manned their posts, for
precaution's sake. But for the most part the standoff here
is no longer very tense, according to the Marines. The
most serious incidents occur when Cubans sneak up to
the fence at night, and toss rocks on
the tin roof of the Marine forward
barracks.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/09/21 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000302550007-3
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/09/21 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000302550007-3
"We're safe," says Col. Sam Ad-
ams, commander of the Marine force.
"My Mom worries all the time. I keep
telling her, 'Hey Mom, it's all right.'"
Still, the outer regions of the base
are strewn with obstacles to impede
any Cuban incursion. "Anchor Val-
ley" is a gulch filled with old anchors
to slow down tanks; another valley is
studded with rusty buoys. The only
live mine fields maintained by the US
military are here, carefully marked on all sides by red
signs in English and Spanish. They are a great danger to
the local wildlife.
The Cubans on the other side of the fence have mine
fields of their own, put in after the 1982 US invasion of
Grenada. They are not so well marked. The Cuban sol-
diers, say US officers, are here not so much to keep
Americans out of their country as to keep other Cubans
in. Commanders refuse to say how often Cubans seeking
asylum jump the Guantanamo fence. They say only that
such events occur frequently. Not everyone who tries
succeeds. "You see lights, you hear shots, you hear
screams," says Colonel Adams.
About 65 Cuban nationals do cross the fence every
day at its northeast gate, without incident. They are com-
muters, coming from nearby towns to jobs on the base.
The remnants of a once-large local work force, all held
their positions before US-Cuban rela-
tions soured in 1959.
When they arrive each morning,
Marine guards escort them in and ex-
change their Cuban identity cards for
American ones. When they leave each
night, they pass through a Cuban
search station on the far side of a
ridge, where they are made to change
clothes so they cannot smuggle out
anything salable.
The commuters say their daily jour-
ney from communism to capitalism
and back is now routine. Disparities
between the two worlds remain great; food is plentiful on
base lit will be even more plentiful when the McDonalds
opens in Feburary), but it is still rationed in Cuba.
Rasman Henry Cook is 61, a local pipe fitter. "It's
been a long time since this gate's been closed," he says,
looking across at a faded sign that announces entry into
the Republica de Cuba.
Will the gate ever open again? "I don't know. I sure
wish and hope that would happen," he says.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/09/21 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000302550007-3