Rally Round the Maypole

No matter how serious his economic troubles or how worrisome his new opposition in the hills, Fidel Castro can always make himself feel good again with one simple device: staging a rally, with chants, parades and a thunderous ovation from the excited mob. Last week, as May Day approached, Castro faced the threats of guerrilla war by former followers and heavy unemployment in the fields below once the sugar harvest was ended. He concentrated on producing the biggest May Day demonstration in Cuban history.

Slogans & Guests. Though full-page ads in the government press called for 1,500,000 workers, and Castro peered hopefully through field glasses, only an estimated 500,000 showed up. The Cuban Workers Confederation ordered workers to make no demands on May Day; instead they were ordered to carry banners bearing some of the 32 "suggested battle slogans," e.g., "We Salute the Cuban-Soviet Trade Agreement!" and "Down with Yankee Aggression!"

As guests of honor on May Day. Castro had invited his friends, the Communists. Delegations from Communist China, Russia, East Germany, Yugoslavia arrived in force. Castro was less interested in friendship with Cuba's nearer neighbors, both north and south.

Raps & a Reply. As always, the U.S. came in for raps. President Eisenhower, cried the government-owned Radio Mambi, was an "aged golf player" who needed a nurse to "wipe away the slobber that drools from his lips." But the U.S. was in good company. Chile's President Jorge Alessandri's democracy has been called "rotten," he himself "a servile satellite of the United States." Argentina's President Arturo Frondizi, said another Mambi broadcast, was "pro-imperialist, a man who rules his country with murderous bayonets," and Mexico's Adolfo Lopez Mateos was the "betrayer of the Mexican Revolution." Colombia's Alberto Lleras Camargo, said Mambi, plotted the recent uprising against Venezuela's President Romulo Betancourt.

Not even Betancourt escaped Cuba's wrath last week. Over the Eastern Radio Network, Castro's leading commentator, Jose Pardo Llada, called Betanceurt "vacillating," a "democratic anti-imperialist, but not much," "revolutionary, but not much." And that, said Pardo Llada, goes as well for former Costa Rican President Jose ("Pepe") Figueres and Puerto Rican Governor Luis Munoz Marin.

As if to exclude no neighbor from vilification, Castro's Foreign Minister Raul Roa accused Guatemalan President Miguel Ydigoras Fuentes of cooperating with the United Fruit Co. in planning a Guatemala-based, seaborne invasion of Cuba. Other Latin American leaders held their tempers. But Ydigoras issued his own May Day message to Cuba. He recalled his ambassador from Havana, and disgustedly severed diplomatic relations with Castro's government.

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