Cuba hails Brezhnev

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33446, 30 January 1974, Page 17

Cuba hails Brezhnev

(X.Z.P.A.-Rruter— Copyright > HAV V\ \. January 29. The visiting Soviet leader. Mr Leonid Brezhnev, was expected to address a mass rally in Havana after receiving the warmest welcome ever given to a foreign visitor.

The Soviet Communist Party chief got down to talks with Cuban leader-, yesterday after a bear-hug: greeting from the Prime Minister. Dr Fidel Castro at Havana’s Jose Marti airport.

The First Deputy Prime Minister (Mr Raul Castro) and President Osvaldo Dorticos joined Mr Brezhnev and Dr Fidel Castro for the talks, which were described as “friendlv and cordial.” Other Cuban Communist Party leaders also took part. At yesterday’s airport welcome. thousands of Cubans and Soviet residents cheered and waved flags of the two

'countries as Mr Brezhnev stepped out of his Ilyushin 62 airliner. The smiling Mr Brezhnev, the first Soviet party-leader to visit Cuba, acknowledged the cheers of rhe crowd and raised the arms of Dr Castro and Mr Raul Castro as he posed for photographs. Huge placards reading “long live the great October revolution" and “Long live 'Soviet-Cuban friendship" in both Spanish and Russian wm displayed on the air- ! port's main building. Mr Brezhnev’s visit is exjpeeled to last about a week, ’but observers expect no new I major economic agreement 'during what the Cuban news media has hailed as "the imost important visit ever to take place in our revolutionary homeland.” I Mr Brezhnev’s visit to (Cuba is at the invitation of Dr Castro, made during the j Cuban leader's fourth and last visit to Moscow in December. 1972. The Soviet delegation includes the Foreign Minister (Mr Andrei Gromyko) and the Civil Aviation Minister (Mr Konstantin Katushev).

There was no confirmation that Mr Brezhnev would meet leaders of Latin American Communist parties during his stay. As his jet passed close to United States shores on the way to Cuba, Mr Brezhnev dispatched a telegram to

President Nixon, the Soviet Tass news agency said. “Flying close to the shore of the United States of America, I express the best wishes to you, Mr President, to the Government and the people of the United States,” the telegram said, “I am confident that relations between the Soviet Union and the United States will be developing further to the benefit of the peoples of our two countries, in the interests of the international security and universal peace.”