Pearson in Bongoland

Among newsmen in Havana last week, a tall tale or an outright lie drew the same jeering rejoinder: "Even Drew Pearson wouldn't believe that!" The catch phrase was inspired by a recent seven-day vacation in which, Columnist Pearson explained, he planned to "get away from the incessant drumbeat of American politics . . . into the more romantic bongo drumbeat of Cuban politics."

But Drew Pearson thumped the bongo drums for President Fulgencio Batista too fervently. In return, Havana's leading newspapers and magazines last week were busy thumping Pearson. "If Truman called Drew Pearson a liar," declared Mario Kuchilan in Prensa Libre, "he was being generous." Columnist Jose Pardo Llada, who once hailed Pearson as an "ideal commentator," wrote in Diario National: "Our illustrious friend Drew Pearson has defrauded us." So fulsome was Pearson's praise for the Batista regime that even a Batista booster, Diario National's Luis Manuel Martinez, objected. He called Pearson a "gringo with a superiority complex, a frivolous tourist."

Penthouse Reporting. In Havana, Pearson stayed in a luxurious penthouse placed at his disposal by Amadeo Barletta Jr., son of a rich Batista crony. The columnist visited Strongman Batista twice and was steered around town by Batista's American Pressagent Edmund Chester. Pundit Pearson irritated Cuban readers with his naive reporting and prize factual boners, e.g., Pearson wrote that Batista "once threw out Cuba's most hated dictator," although, as every Cuban schoolchild knows, Batista had nothing to do with Dictator Gerardo Machado's ouster in 1933. Quipped El Mundo Columnist Carlos Robreno: If Batista's cronies had given "one more lunch in his honor," Pearson might have written that "Batista also led the revolution against Spain in 1868 and started the War of Independence of 1895."

Pearson also pictured Batista as a staunch foe of Communism, but neglected to mention that the President had legalized the Communist Party and won its support in the 1940 elections before finally outlawing the party. When Pearson wrote that "not even an armed sentry paced outside" the presidential palace--which is guarded night and day by up to six sentries in plain view--Diario National Columnist Luis Conte Aguero exploded: "Too ridiculous to comment." Although intensive security precautions are taken to protect Batista wherever he goes, Pearson wrote that the President "had no secret service" at a political rally in central Cuba, "literally fought his way . . . through a sea of admirers." Snorted El Mundo's Editor Raoul Alfonso Gonse: "Pearson saw only one side of the coin."

Columnist Perez. The hardest blow was struck by Columnist Milton Guss in the English-language Havana Post, which usually carries Pearson's column. Instead, Guss introduced readers to "Don Perez,' famous Havana columnist, whose predictions are 98% correct--2% of the time." Wrote Guss:

"Perez is an expert on North American affairs, having just returned from a comprehensive twelve-hour trip to Washington ... Of course, Perez speaks no English. But that just made the assignment more of a challenge. While he was mingling with the natives, he visited the country club, had lunch with John D. Vanderfeller (he owns the southern half of Maryland), and stayed at the penthouse on top of the Washington Star building . . . Here then is [America] as Perez sees it:

" 'The first thing that impresses one about Washington is the lack of guayaberas [the loose-fitting Cuban shirt]. I failed to find even one in the U.S. And so my first prediction for today is: the guayabera will never catch on in Washington.

" 'I was amazed to discover that when the natives drink milk, they do not flavor it with salt and sugar ... I predict that the next North American newspaperman who writes an expert's opinion of Cuba will know less about Cuba than I know about the States.' "

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