Exiles Flee To Florida

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28784, 3 January 1959, Page 11

Exiles Flee To Florida

(Rec. 9 p.m.) KEY WEST (Florida)

„ , January 2. Cuban exiles and fleeing United States citizens last night swarmed into Key West; closest point on the United States mainland to strife-torn Cuba. They came by plane and boat.

A ferry boat arrived carrying about 200 persons, many of them American tourists.

United States immigration authorities were questioning score? of Cubans who swamped Key West’s immigfatidh facilities. One of the vessels which arrived at Key West was the former persona] yacht of the fallen Cuban President, Fulgencio Batista.

One Cuban, who refused to give his name, told a reporter that “everything is completely out of control” in Havana, and “the Army is doing nothing.’* The man said the police were powerless. He said rioters were burning and destroying the city. Many of the Cuban refugees were dressed expensively. Most refused to talk or give their names to reporters. Other vessels which arrived last night were a converted torpedo boat carrying high-ranking Cuban officers, a Cuban frigate which landed at the United States Nava] station and another unidentified Cuban yacht. At least four planes carrying Cubans landed in the Key West area early in the evening.

£lO Air Fare for Migrants.The first British migrants to fly to Australia under the new £lO air fare scheme will leave London airport in a Qantas Constella- , tion tomorrow night. They are the first of more than 1000 to leave Britain by air in the next six months. —London, January 1.