Containment Shuffleboard

The nearest encampment of Russian forces is only 36 miles from the U.S. naval base at Guantdnamo, Cuba. Motorized Communist-bloc artillery waits at the end of specially cleared roads pointing toward the perimeter. Inside the 45-sq.-mi. base (see map), the 4,000-plus U.S. sailors and marines hold their tempers, their fire and their ground. Last week TIME Correspondent William Rademaekers flew out of Guantdnamo with a report on the base's situation and readiness:

After weeks of ominous silence, the only hole in Castro's Cactus Curtain, Guantanamo's northeast gate, has now become the scene of a tense drama. Over the weekend, Cuban militiamen threw up a type of cattle chute--parallel lines of wire fencing some 300 yards long--through which the 2,300 Cuban civilians who work on the base were forced to pass. At 7 a.m. on Monday, as the first workers arrived, the shakedown began. Some men were stripped naked, each item of clothing carefully inspected for "documents." Others had their shirts or pants removed. Some were forced to kneel as tough Cuban guards emptied their pockets, spat at them, and shouted such things as "Why do you work for the Yankee bastards?" The inspection took 2% hours before all the Cubans got through, and in the evening, as cows grazed peacefully outside the chute, Guantanamo's Cubans waited and sweated for an hour or more as the process was repeated before they were allowed to go home.

The new harassment has braced officials at the base for a harder time. The tactics are obviously designed to choke off the base's local work force--and also halt the embarrassing trickle of post exchange food that Cuban workers have been able to carry home with them. People living in Oriente province, which surrounds the base, have been especially hard hit by the breakdown of Cuba's distribution system. Beef and chickens, frozen when they leave Havana 600 miles away, arrive in Oriente in an advanced state of decay; so do dairy products. Said one Cuban on the base: "Our meat sometimes has worms, and when it doesn't it smells to the heavens. I do not know how long we can live like this." Added another: "Now they tell us, 'You won't stick it out until January--we promise you.' It is very difficult to be a hero when you have a family. It is now very difficult to work for the Americans."

Rear Admiral Edward J. O'Donnell, Guantanamo's base commander, says that he can remain operational without the Cuban workers, just as he can stay in business without Castro's water, still being piped in from the Yateras River four miles away. In case Castro tries forcible eviction, the base's perimeter is guarded by combat-ready U.S. marines equipped with tanks and artillery. However, the bulk of the firepower comes from the ships using Guantanamo's training facilities. Destroyers, cruisers, battleships and carriers come and go without apparent plan. Yet a substantial part of the fleet is always near, and there is more than a touch of seriousness in the way the crews go through their paces.

Guantanamo's personnel know that they can be burned for publicly talking "politics," but privately they exercise their rights as U.S. citizens. Many are angry, frustrated and disillusioned, worried about "instant appeasement" and "going under painlessly." At one of the clubs on the base, they play a game bitterly called "containment shuffleboard--a game you don't try to win, but simply try to keep your opponent from scoring too high." As one sailor put it: "I'd like to think that one day we would have the guts to do something--but I doubt it." "It's hard to hold your head up these days when you see these Cubans being mauled at the gate by Communists," said another. "I never thought I'd see the day when in a place 90 miles from the States. Commie guards would keep me from taking liberty."

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