Thursday, March 24, 1969
THE MICHIGAN DAILY
Thursday, March 20, 1969 THE MICHIGAN DAILY
Cubans
By BILL FREELAND
College Press Service
"On this anniversary," he began,
"our celebration is characterized
by simplicity." He was speaking to
800,000 Cubans gathered in Ha-
vana's giant plaza. It was Jan. 2,
the tenth anniversary of the Rev-
olution.
True to his word, there had been
no military parades and almost no
ceremony and Fidel (nobody calls
him Castro) would be the only
speaker. "We decided not to. use
up one' single gallon of fuel or
stay away frornwork one minute
longer than necessary," he told
his audience.
. With that short explanation he
was ready, by the beginning of his
second paragraph, to come to the
point . of \ his remarks: "Today
marks the beginning of another
year of great effort," he said. Thus
for the next two hours the anni-
versary was all but forgotten in
a discussion of tractors and fer-
tilizers, of the surly zebu cows and
the coming cane harvest-subjects
of 'overwhelming importance for
a nation where now farmers, not
guerrillas, are making the revolu-
tion.
Program Information 2-6264
gma or I
in
'69:
FIDEL'S 'DECISIVE EFFORT'
'A better life tha
Cubans will always applaud deeply committed to making their were about 7,500 schools, now there
Fidel, but on this occasion, the country work. are nearly 15,000.
cheers came mixed with a certain As for the political system, I What those figures do not tell
sense of distraction. It was a found its operation at times per- is who is going to school. Before
sobering speech for a people stand- plexing. At one point I was ordered the Revolution, schools were open
ing at a critical point in their to leave the country after I was only to' those who could afford
history. The year ahead would suspected of holding views hostile to attend, while today every child
probably be more important than to the Revolution. I came away is required to have 13 years of
any in the past, the second decade convinced, however, that I had education. Nor do those figures in-
of the Revolution more crucial witnessed the most promising so- lude the masses of adults who
than its first, cial experiment in Latin America are now required to have a mini-
Fidel spoke to those feelings in today. mum of six years of education-
his closing words: "What remains The accomplishments were just some of whom are involved in-
to be done," he said, "is to name too clearly evident: every Cuban crash programs in which they
this year." He listened for a mo- now had adequate food, shelter actually spend more time studying
ment to suggestions shouted at and clothes, and every child had than they do working.
him from the crowd. "If you the opportunity for an education. But the decisive area of Cuba's
agree," he said at last, "we shall That is a statement that can be planning program is in agricul-
baptize this year, 1969, the year of made nowhere else in Latin Amer- ture. It is here that the country
the Decisive Effort." ica and almost nowhere else in the must succeed if Cuba is to de-
That was my introduction to entire "developing". world. . velop the economic base' needed
Cuba. For the next five weeks I It is certainly an experiment to provide all the other services.
would tour the countryside a n d Next year, according to Fidel,
travel freely about Havana and that has the endorsement of the Cuba's annual agricultural produc-
neighboring villlages, finally piec-mhsajority of Cubans. Seduced by tion will double what it was when
ing together enough college Spen- tescientic mehod, nd om- he took over in 1959. That statis-
ish to converse with the scores of mitted to comprehnsive national tic is even more surprising when
Cubans anxious to speak with planning, they have been taken you consider the obstacles of poor
Cubansy anxioussctoaspeakitwith
"nortamericanos." over by utter fascination with the planning early in the regime that
During my the ~possibilities of their own future. hdt-b vroe
During my visit I found the Ssbiie fsecsFd u had to--e overcome.
Cuban people optimistic, if some- begins talking about Socialism af-h d In the early 1960s, the planners
times overworked; disarmingly rte he has run out of statistics. The made the mistake of neglecting
non-political in the, mass, but reason seem clear: statistics tll agriculture in favor of a crash in-
a story the people can understand. dustrializa'tion program. That at-
stFROM RUSSIAo ry phaseoof duad tempt flopped and, in 1965, t h e
FI government called for a m a j o r
WITH LOVE" tion, the statistics, when compared shift in the economy based on a
.. of1, 510, 9:20 I with 1959 when the revolutionists!- _____
n their parents
massive redevelopment of the su- be developing. From my conv
gar industry, backed by similar tions with numerous Cubans,Y
strides in citrus fruit, tobacco, and ever, the adults find these chi
cattle production. es much harder to accept than
But sugar cane, which now pro- children. One middle-aged
vides 85% of Cuba's total ex- told me: "I love the revolt
ports, is a crop which requires at and all, but if I have the chan
least two years of cultivation be- pick up something a littlee
fore it can be harvested. So the now and then, I'd be a foo
benefits of much of the work of to do it."
the past four years are just now When you speak with s
beginning to be realized. children, however, particular
"We Are not saying that Cubans the rural boarding schools,
are the best workers or that any- are studying in schools, we
one knows more than anyone clothes and eating food all
else," Fidel says with unexpected vided for them by the governn
modesty. "We have had the good They have almost no contact
fortune of certain factors coincid- money for they have no needt
ing at the same time: the concept When they finally do go toa
of agrarian reform, the mass ap- they will be paid, but on a
plication of technology and above very similar to their friends,
all, a people carrying out t h i s if they don't do the same ki
program in a tropical climate." work
What the Cuban experiment is
attempting to demonstrate is that They will almost certainly
a society formerly composed of a joy a better standard of i
mass of peasants ruled by a wela- than their parents did. Per
thy elite can be transformed into they will be unaware of it (
a society with real quality based still being very isolated from
on Socialist principles of collective de influence), but they wi
effort and collective responsibil- living in a world quite diff
ity. Indeed, they claim that such from anyone else in this he
a society can revolutionize t h e phere. If they are not "newr
individual as well - the ideal re-
presented by their concept of the they will almost certainly be
"new man." "different" men from those w
At least that is what seems to used to seeing.
ersa-
how-
hang-
n the
man
ution
ce to
extra
i not
chool
ly in
they
aring
pro-
ment.
with
of it.
work,
scale
even
ind of
y en-
lyving
Cuba
out-
Ill be
erent
emis-
men"
very
e are
'
F
WATCH FOR
"THE SERGEANT"
i
E
"THUNDERBALL"
at 2:55, 7:05
DON'T MISS EVEN I MIN.
OF THIFATION! 'f
took over, seem to have doubled:
-Before' the Revolution there 1
were about 800,000 students in B ritl ain s
public schools; now there are 1.7{
million.
I-Ten years ago those students
were being taught by about 20,000, rc
while today there are nearly 60,000
teachers.
-Before the Revolution there LLANTRISANT, Wales W) -
---- "Fort Knox has got nothing on
University of Michigan our place,".said the Welsh farmer.
He was looking across the val-
DA NCE ley at Britain's new $16.8-mil-
lion Royal Mint now nearing
CC Rcompletion in remote hill country
DANCE STUDIO north of the Welsh capital of
DANCE R-GMSTU MCardiff.
BARBOUR4-GYMNASIUM "It looks like it will stand a
Fri., March 21--8 P.M. nuclear attack," the man said.
Sat., Mar. 22-2:30 P.M., 8 P.M.
Sun., March 23-2:30 P.M. . The low, single-story buildings
Eves.-.00rc2 Min ee$1 .50 of brownish concrete do have an
Eves-$200 Mtines--1.5 impregnable look. There are few
Tickets at Barbour Gym 1-4 P.M. windows and the slab-like walls'
or Reserve by Mail: Mr. Ada mson, give a bunker appearance.
Barbour Gym, U.M. The first task of the new mint
royal Mint geared to
new decimal coinage
will be to produce Britain's new
decimal coinage-an estimated
6,000 million coins.
Prime Minister Harold Wilson's
government is shifting the Mint
from London to Wales because the
old plant is too small.
The existing Mint has stood
near the -Tower of London since
1811 and before that was operated
for some 500 years inside the tower
walls.
"The current Mintand its ma-
chinery were designed for a far
smaller turnover," said a Mint of-
ficial.
"The present coinage won't go
out of use until 1971 onwards.
On D-day itself-Feb. 15, 1971-
we shall have to have an enorm-
ous stockpile of decimal coins."
A work force of 400 will start
on producing the decimal coins
at the new Mint. Another 1,300
men will arrive at Llantrisant
when the move from Tower Hill
is completed by 1973. The switch
is being done over a number of
years to avoid disruption of pro-
duction.
As well as producing Britain's
money the Royal Mint is the
world's largest exporter of ,oins.
Last year it sent overseas 930
million coins out of a total of
1,365 million produced. The coin-
age was minted for British Com'-
monwealth countries, Colombia,
Costa Rica, Dominica, Ethiopia,
Iceland, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait,
Panama, Philippines, Somalia and.
Venezuela.
Work at the Mint has trebled
since 1955 and annual overseas
earnings now-stand at $16.8 mil-
Pion.,
the
news today
by The Associated Press and College Press Service
JAMES EARL RAY plans to seek a hearing to review
his guilty plea in the murder of Dr. Martin Luther King,
Jr.
A Memphis newspaper reported Ray wants to withdraw
the guilty plea and stand trial as previously planned.
Trial Judge W. Preston Battle,,Jr., confirmed yesterday
that Ray had written him from the Tennessee State Peni-
tentiary in Nashville to inform him of the decision to seek a
hearing. Ray also wrote he had fired his lawyer, Percy Fore-
man.
Ray, who had been scheduled to stand trial April 7,
switched plans and pleaded guilty to the crime on March 10.
In a pre-arranged deal he received a 99-year sentence.
" 0 *
DEFENSE SECRETARY MELVIN LAIRD said yester-
day American military commanders in Vietnam think
there can be no reduction of American troops in South
Vietnam until all North Vietnamese are withdrawn.
In testimony before the Senate Armed Services Commit
tee, Laird declined to say whether he agreed with that assess-
ment. He later told reporters, "I don't think there is a possi-
bility for any troop withdrawals in any significant numbers
today."
SECRET NEGOTIATIONS have b e e n going on for
some time between the U.S. and Vietnam at a site other
than Paris, authoritative sources revealed yesterday.
The ,reported contact site is Vientiane, Laos, where the
negotiations that started the Paris peace conference were
held last April. The U.S. ambassador to Laos, William H. Sul-
livan, has been recalled along with Ellsworth Bunker, ambas-
sador to South Vietnam, to Washington for consultations this
weekend.
The subjects of the talks are reportedly troop withdraw-
als and prisoner exchanges.
AMERICAN AIRLINES employees accepted a n e w
contract offer and ended their three week strike yester-
day.
An American Airlines spokesman said full flight opera-
tions would resume at 8 a.m. today.
The contract agreement, signed by Transportation Work-
ers Union, provides wage increases of 25.5 percent over a 26.-
month period.
THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES passed a $12
billion increase in the national debt ceiling yesterday by a
vote of 313-93.
The approval followed a plea by President Nixon that the
measure be promptly approved. Nixon wrote Speaker John W.
McCormick (D-Mass.) that passage of the increase was "of
the highest importance."
THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT asked t h e Supreme
Court to modify a wiretapping decision that could allow
criminal defendants to see bugging files related to exter-
nal security.
In a plea entered by Solicitor General Erwin N. Griswold,
the government asked the Supreme Court to exempt national
security cases from a March 10 ruling which requires the gov-
ernment to show eavesdropping transcripts to defendants.
* 0 *
A BRITISH MILITARY FORCE invaded t h e small
Carribean island of Anguilla yesterday, putting an end
to a three year revolt there.
About 135 paratroopers, marines and Scotland Yard po-
lice landed at dawn from helicopters and warships and took
control of the island in a bloodless operation. More troops are
scheduled to follow.
celebrates spring with
DAVIDACKL ES
Electra Recording Artist
FRI. f1ee'2as
SAT. 8:00 P.Mv. ADMISSION$17
SUN. ($1.25 after 2nd set)!
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GENERATION
Presents The
EAST BOUND MOUND
IN A ROCK CONCERT
FAITEBUtY f2Ot
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Thurs., March 20
8:00 P.M.
Also Appearing Are Finalist
In the SPRING HEAT Competition
ADMISSION-$1.50 at door
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Thursday and Friday
General Della Rovere
directed by ROBERTO ROSSELLINI, 1959
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