Circus in Town

In the whole mad course of its 13-month revolution, Cuba never had a more daffy week. The major eruption came on one of Castro's beloved late-night "interview" shows, The Television World Asks. Hardly letting newsmen get in a question, Castro said in the course of a long ramble that the U.S. and Spanish embassies had been helping anti-Castro Cubans get out of the country. "I have always greeted the Spanish ambassador," said Castro in mock surprise. "I did not know he could dedicate himself to counterrevolutionary matters."

"I've Been Slandered!" Watching the show at his embassy, the Spanish ambassador, Juan Pablo de Lojendio, 53, who is the Marquis of Vellisca and normally the picture of diplomatic decorum, seethed with anger, jumped up and went to the studio. Bursting in, he bellowed: "I demand the microphone!" All Cuba, for which Castro tirades are the standard late late show, watched bug-eyed. Castro, taken aback at first, took charge of the show to shout: "A breach of conduct! You are not in Spain but in the Republic of Cuba." The picture went off the air, but the sound channel carried Lojendio's shout: "I have been slandered! I have been slandered!" Guards then hustled the marquis off to his residence.

Nine minutes later, TV screens lighted up again, and Castro, chomping nervously on his cigar, told the audience: "He came here to create an incident. Lojendio must leave Cuba within 24 hours!" At a glance from Castro, Cuba's puppet President Osvaldo Dorticos shot up to the mike to agree: "The national dignity permits no other solution. This is official!" Solemnly, Boxer Joe Louis, a perennial Castro guest, rose from the audience to praise the rebel soldiers for the way they had "protected" Lojendio from the studio crowd.

At the sight of Castro's anger, his labor-union bosses called out the mob. Descending next day on the Spanish embassy, deserted in the nick of time by Ambassador Lojendio. the crowd ran up the Cuban and Spanish Loyalist flags on the embassy pole, threw tomatoes, shouted and waved banners reading DOWN WITH FRANCO! OUT WITH LOJENDIO! TO SPAIN OR TO PRISON ! Another mob trailed Lojendio to the airport next morning, yelling as he boarded a plane for home: "Get out, you jackass! Get out!"

Favorite Target. The anger thus generated turned naturally on Castro's favorite target, the U.S. On his TV marathon, Castro had charged that U.S. business was responsible for Cuba's history of "stealing, killing, granting concession, subjugating national interests." He accused the U.S. of sending light planes to make incendiary raids on Cuban sugar fields, and charged that "a certain chancellery" was plotting his assassination. "That is the Alpha Plan of the counterrevolutionaries" he said sneeringly.

Stepping up the attack, Castro's newspaper, Revolucion, described Vice President Nixon as "an impenitent disciple of the gloomy and obstinate Foster Dulles." The paper denounced President Eisenhower for having "embraced the butcher Franco" on his recent trip to Spain. Philip Bonsai, the U.S.'s popular Ambassador to Cuba, was a different problem: Cubans have lately been cheering him in the newsreels. "How debased are those who applaud Bonsai!" said Revolucion. "What an inconceivable alliance--Bonsai, Lojendio, the traitors, the war criminals, the big landowners and the thieves."

Washington, like most of the world, watched the sad-sack circus with incredulity, but in the end decided that the national dignity called for action. Secretary of State Christian Herter called Ambassador Bonsai back to the U.S., apparently to stay as long as he cannot live in Havana without insults. Herter told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that he was "deeply worried" over Cuba's course, conferred with President Eisenhower on worst-ever U.S.-Cuban relations. The Administration asked for a new law giving the White House authority to change quotas on the high-priced U.S. sugar market at will--and thus hold out the threat of economic retaliation to Castro.

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