Protest Against Theft

Angry, aware that the answer would be nothing but an outburst of hysteria, the U.S. State Department last week once again protested to Cuba not over the expropriation but over the theft of U.S. property. The U.S. said that in seizing a third of the $850 million U.S. investment in Cuba, Dictator Fidel Castro is violating both "Cuban law and generally accepted international law." Examples:

P: Near Varadero Beach on Dec. 7, a contingent of bearded Cubans headed by Communist Major Ernesto ("Che") Guevara boarded a seagoing hydraulic dredge owned by the M & M Dredging & Construction Co. of Miami, pulled down the U.S. flag, seized the dredge, a derrick barge, two seagoing tugs and an auxiliary boat worth a total of $500,000.

P: A 23-year-old Guatemalan Communist, appointed by the Labor Ministry, took over the Havana office of the Otis Elevator Co., fired the manager, put himself on the payroll, and began managing the business so that the company fears ruin.

Inevitably, such acts are building pressure in Congress for a change in the sugar quota system under which Cuba supplies one out of every three teaspoons of sugar used in the U.S., and at the premium price of about 5-c- per lb. v. 3-c- on the free market. This subsidy of $180 million a year to Cuba was once balanced by Cuba's preferential tariff rates. Now Cuba has raised tariff walls 30% to 100%, cutting back its imports from the U.S. by $156 million last year (to $390 million).

Though subsidizing a government that has openly set out to break all historic ties with the U.S. is unpalatable, cutting the quota might spur such a reprisal as abrogating the treaty giving the U.S. the Guantanamo naval base, or might actually strengthen Castro's support by increasing anti-U.S. sentiment. Chairman Harold Cooley of the House Agriculture Committee would like to keep the quota law on a year-to-year basis. Another talked-of solution: a bill giving the President the authority to change quotas at will.

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