The Proconsul Arrives

Anastas Mikoyan went to Havana last week and in effect told Fidel Castro that Moscow, mother of revolutions, thought well of Castro's little revolution and was willing to help it out. The Soviet First Deputy Premier went at Cuba's invitation, delivered to him by a special envoy two months ago while Mikoyan was in Mexico opening the Soviets' touring scientific-cultural exposition (TIME, Nov. 30). Ostensible purpose: to open the same fair in Havana.

At Havana's airport, Mikoyan climbed out of his plane from Moscow in the manner of a proconsul come to view his latest province. Waiting and happily savoring the event were Fidel Castro and Major Ernesto ("Che") Guevara, president of Cuba's national bank and the government's leading Red.

Battle of Wreaths. Next morning at 11:30, Mikoyan laid a hammer-and-sickle wreath on the statue of Jose Marti, Cuba's George Washington, and took off for the Palace of Fine Arts, two blocks away, to open the exposition with an outdoor speech. A few minutes later a small group of students approached the statue with their own wreath, bearing a ribbon that said: "Vindication for the visit of the assassin Mikoyan." When cops waved them off, a student shouted: "If he can place a wreath, why can't we?" Soldiers guarding Mikoyan at the exposition rushed up on the double, began firing their new Belgian automatic rifles wildly in the air, and one student was wounded.

Screened by buildings, Mikoyan and the assembled dignitaries two blocks away heard the shots, and the bewildered audience began to scream. Soldiers aimed their guns at rooftops. Mikoyan slid indoors but reappeared in a few minutes, and the speeches began. Cuba's Commerce Minister warmed up the crowd with the marvelously fortuitous news that he had just received a cabled order from Moscow for 345,000 tons of sugar worth $21,500,000. Then Mikoyan moved in. His theme was to identify Russia and Cuba as comrades fighting the same fight against the U.S. and capitalism. Said Mikoyan: "You Cubans will understand me if I tell you that the imperialists invent more lies about us than they do about you. They try to bury the truth in slime."

And the truth? Russia is "rapidly overtaking the U.S. in all production indices." Russia's technique, the professional revolutionary told the amateurs, was that it took over agriculture and industry and gave them to their "rightful owners, the people, confiscating without compensation all the means of production." In the same groove Banker Guevara, over TV the night before, announced that the revolution planned to take over at least 51% control of the basic industries in Cuba.

Mikoyan, whose government has not had diplomatic relations with Cuba since 1952, pointedly called for strengthening "economic, cultural and other types of relations." During Mikoyan's week-long stay, he planned to invite Castro to Moscow, and confer at great length.

"Boarded by Pirates." Was Mikoyan boldly grabbing Cuba? New York's Senator Kenneth Keating heatedly called Cuba "a ship boarded by pirates." But official U.S. policy toward Cuba, as written by President Eisenhower, is to keep calm and wait it out, letting the Cuban people, who have a long history of hating totalitarianism, handle their own problem. Amidst signs of Mikoyan's success there were counter-signs that Cuban love of liberty was at work. The student demonstration was a blow at Castro, and the perils implicit as Mikoyan courted Cuba were the topic of many a sidewalk debate.

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