New Russian Offensive

When a five-man Soviet trade delegation arrived in Colombia three weeks ago, Castroite guerrillas took the occasion to bomb a train and ambush an army patrol, killing 15 persons. In reprisal, President Carlos Lleras Restrepo jailed 200 Communist Party leaders, most of whom were uninvolved in the terrorism. The Russians did not blink an eye or utter a protest; they just pressed right ahead with discussions for expanding last year's $3,000,000 worth of trade between the two countries and setting up consular relations.

Last week the Russian delegation, scheduled to meet with Lleras Restrepo when the violence broke out, was still cooling its collective heels in Bogota's Continental Hotel waiting to see the President. The Russians seem to have almost infinite patience. Throughout Latin America, on which they have long cast covetous eyes, they are intensifying their efforts to step up trade and diplomatic relations.

Unexpected Visitor. In Brazil, the Russians have developed surprisingly close commercial, cultural and personal ties with the country's tough, anti-Communist military government. Last August, Russian Foreign Trade Minister Nikolai Patolichev visited Rio and signed a four-year $100 million credit agreement, making Brazil the biggest recipient of Russian aid in Latin America after Cuba. In Argentina, Soviet relations are almost as cordial with Strongman Juan Carlos Ongania's military government; total trade between the two has gone from $18 million in 1964 to $110 million last year.

In neighboring Chile, where President Eduardo Frei dealt the Communist Party its biggest election defeat in Chilean history, Russia has let bygones be bygones, last January signed $57 million worth of credit and technical-assistance agreements with Frei's government. Last week, as the two countries were putting the final touches to a cultural-exchange pact, Frei was considering a state visit to Moscow. And in Venezuela, Russia has been quietly pushing its desire for trade and some type of diplomatic relations. A few weeks ago, Russia's amiable Ambassador to the U.S., Anatoly Dobrynin, dropped into Venezuela's Washington embassy for a reception--despite the absence of relations between the two countries.

Help for the Oligarchies. Cuba's Fidel Castro angrily seized on Dobrynin's embassy visit as proof of what he has suspected for some time: that the Russians are pursuing their own, quite independent aims in Latin America. "Not everything is rosy in the revolutionary world," Castro stormed in a three-hour harangue at Havana University. "Whoever helps the oligarchies where our guerrillas are fighting is helping suppress the revolution. What would the revolutionary Vietnamese think if we sent delegations to South Viet Nam to trade with the puppet government of Saigon?"

Castro realizes all too painfully that his own campaign in Latin America--in the form of his vicious little "wars of liberation"--has been a dismal failure. Russia's new emphasis on broader trade and diplomatic relations can only further hamper that campaign. For their part, the men in power in Latin America see it as an opportunity to drive an even deeper wedge between Moscow and Havana, and possibly even get Russia to tone down Cuba's guerrilla wars. Venezuela's own Communist Party, for example, recently called for a "tactical withdrawal" from guerrilla war and a "democratic peace."

So far, Castro is not bending. Speculation about his worsening relations with Russia increased sharply last week when he announced that his brother, Raul, Cuba's second-in-command and the island's main contact man with Russia, had been replaced "temporarily" as armed forces minister. Since it is getting $1,000,000 a day in Soviet aid, Cuba could hardly afford a complete break. But the new Russian overtures in Latin America do show that there is a split, and the split is widening.

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