Bulldozer Deal In Jeopardy

Press, Volume C, Issue 29521, 24 May 1961, Page 13

Bulldozer Deal In Jeopardy

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright)

WASHINGTON, May 23.

The bulldozers-for-prisoners deal between the Cuban Government of Dr. Fidel Castro and a group of United States citizens was threatened with failure today after attacks from both Cuba and the United States.

Dr. Castro, who proposed the original deal at the weekend, changed his proposal to a new deal—the exchange of Cubans captured in the abortive April invasion of Cuba for what he called "political prisoners” held in the United States and some Latin American countries. If the man-for-man exchange was made. Dr. Castro said. “Cuba is ready to renounce all claims to material indemnification,” the Associated Press reported. “If the insults of Mr Kennedy’s agents continue with regard to the indemnification Cuba demands." said an official Cuban radio comments-

tor, “then all discussion will be stopped and the mercenaries (prisoners) will have to face the revolutionary tribunals of the Cuban people." Dr. Castro had been infuriated by the United States calling the proposal an exchange. He insisted it was indemnification for damage caused by the invasion. A.P. said. Exchange or indemnification, United States Senators attacked the proposal yesterday. The United States Secretary of State (Mr Rusk) was faced with angry demands in Congress that he say whether the Administration approves the private efforts to exchange earthmoving equipment for the freedom of 1200 Cuban invasion prisoners. A number of heated speeches In which Dr Castro’s proposal for such an exchange was described as a “heinous barter" by an “inhuman monster” kept the Senate in late session. A Democrat. Senator Wayne Morse (Oregon), chairman of the Senate Latin American Sub-committee, said the State Department owed it to the American people to make a statement of policy on the offer. He asked Mr Rusk to announce soon “what the position of our Government is."

The United States Ambassador to the United Nations, Mr Adlai Stevenson, said today that Cuba was the “first State” to become Communist “without use of force." He said there was a “growing realisation” in Latin America of the dangers of “thia type of aggression from outside the hemisr phere.” Asked whether he could foresee joint military action against the Cuban Government by the Organisation of American States, Mr Stevenson said: “There are a number of things that can be done to help isolate the infection. “The important thing Is for the governments of these Latin American States and the O.AB. to pay attention to the problems and to decide on a course of action. “We are engaged in consultation with our friends,” he added.