Castro Convertibles

Lawyer Fidel Castro's revolt against the regime of President Fulgencio Batista is the sort of affair that appeals more to young zealots than to common sense. Holed up in eastern Cuba's rugged Sierra Maestra range, Castro has sniped away for three months at overwhelming army forces, and has gradually bolstered his little band of men with young revolutionaries who slipped through the army cordon to join up. Last week the identity of three recent Castro recruits came to light, to pose a touchy problem for the U.S. State Department. They were Americans, teen-age sons of U.S. Navymen stationed at the Navy's Guantanamo Bay base near Cuba's eastern tip.

The boys--Victor Buehlman, 17, son of a commander, Charles Ryan, 17, and Michael Garvey, 15, both sons of petty officers--had been spending one day a week at a Cuban school, which is presumably where they picked up their sympathy for Castro. About three weeks ago they slipped away from home, eluded Cuban army patrols and reached the mountain stronghold, 125 miles from Guantanamo. There, according to rebel reports, they are now uniformed, submachine gun-carrying members of the Castro band, anxious for a crack at the Batista forces and worried only that they might lose U.S. citizenship for taking up foreign arms.

For the rebels it was good propaganda, and the Castro underground quickly smuggled out photographs of the boys in their battle dress. But for the Cuban government and for the U.S., which is officially friendly to Batista, it was an embarrassing affair. U.S. officials, with full cooperation from the Cuban army and police, planned to try to send an appeal from the boys' parents into the rebel camp. If that fails, U.S. emissaries may go in under a truce flag and try to talk the young volunteers into coming out.

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