Visit to Fidel

While the tractors-for-prisoners negotiators cooled their heels in their Havana Riviera suites (see THE NATION), the bearded dictator was having a high old time with the U.S. reporters who flew down to cover the proceedings. The tractor experts saw Castro only for 5 1/2 hours. The press got a lot more of him.

In a marathon of press conferences and tours, the first U.S. newsmen permitted into Cuba since the invasion were treated to the spectacle of Castro the leader, Castro the soldier, Castro the continental showman. The correspondents had barely unpacked their suitcases when Castro in vited them into his office in the Agrarian Reform Building for a two-hour interview. Next day, it was off on a 14-hour guided tour past cheering collections of collectivized peasants to the Bay of Pigs.

"Not Very Bold." Clomping around in green fatigues and combat boots, Castro pointed out the sunken invasion ship Houston, its hull sticking out from the shallow water. He expertly described the rebel landing, his own counterattack.

"Those who prepared the attack tried to achieve a maximum result with a minimum of maneuvers, but they were not very bold thinkers." Castro added gleefully: "For the first time the United States could not destroy a government."

At the sugar-mill town of Jagiiey Grande, where Castro gave a speech, one U.S. reporter asked Cubans standing around him if anyone was against the revolution. The answer was cheers and clenched fists. No opposition? Said a Castro aide sagely: "If there were, they wouldn't be here."

The newsmen could see that for themselves. At Havana airport, a large sign warned : "Those who do not feel they can be soldiers of the people . . . get out."

"They Know Everything." As U.S. reporters got their conducted tour, a young man with the code name of "Pepe" who had escaped to Fort Lauderdale, was describing the hard lot of the anti-Castro underground. "Things in the underground seem impossible," he said. Reports that most of the underground had survived the mass roundups, he said, were overly optimistic.

"All we have been able to do since the invasion is hide and whisper," said Pepe. Castro boasts that he has 500,000 of Cuba's 6,000,000 people spying for him. On the 15-mile drive from his home to Havana, Pepe had to run ten checks: "Each time, they open the hood and look for guns in the engine. They look under the seat, in the trunk, everywhere. They take pictures, too," said Pepe, "of people going to church, going into certain offices, even just on the street." Recently, a wounded saboteur was making his confession to a priest from his hospital bed he later learned that a microphone hidden in the mattress had recorded everything.

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