Building Up Again?

The uproar in the U.S. over Soviet Russia's military presence in Cuba grew louder by the week. Rising in the Senate, New York's Republican Kenneth B. Keating reported that "there is absolutely confirmed and undeniable evidence that the Soviets are maintaining the medium-range missile sites they had previously constructed in Cuba. This gives rise to the very real possibility that Russia hopes to return the heavy missiles to the island --or, even more ominous, that they may have left missiles on the island and need only to wheel them out of caves."

In recent weeks, said Keating, another Russian ship arrived with military hardware. The Communist buildup is rapidly approaching the point, he said, where the U.S. will find it "impossible to get the Communists out of Cuba with conventional weapons." Taking off from there. South Carolina's Democratic Senator Strom Thurmond charged that, contrary to official U.S. estimates of 16,000 to 17,000 Soviet troops in Cuba, the Russians actually have between 30,000 and 40,000 men on the island. Added Thurmond: There are from 100 to 200 ballistic missiles still in Cuba.

With such reports rumbling through Washington, Mississippi's John Stennis. chairman of the Senate's Armed Services Preparedness Subcommittee, promised a full-dress investigation. The Kennedy Administration did not seem alarmed. A Pentagon spokesman issued a statement repeating the position that the Reds had "broken up" their-missile bases and that two new shipments showed "no evidence of offensive weapons." The Defense Department sharply denied Thurmond's report of 30,000 to 40,000 troops. Even so, Secretary of State Dean Rusk conceded that "there is a significant Soviet military presence in Cuba."

Thurmond's estimates might be inflated. But it was worth remembering that Keating was talking about missile bases last fall well before the U.S. admitted the presence of any offensive weapons in Cuba. As it turned out, a good bit of his information was correct.

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