‘Brzezinski manufactured lie’

Press, 15 June 1978, Page 8

‘Brzezinski manufactured lie’

By

JON NORDHEIMER,

, of

the “New York Times,” (through NZPA) Havana

President Fidel Castro of Cuba has charged that President Jimmy Carter has been manipulated and deceived by elements in his own Administration concerning last month’s invasion of Zaire’s Shaba province by Katangan troops. He blamed Dr Zbigniew Brzezinski, the President’s National Security Adviser. Dr Castro denied with great passion and heat the charges that Cuba had supplied the Katangan rebels and trained them before the invasion in the middle of last month, and said that it had been the policy of his Government to avoid encouragement of the Katangans since the cessation of the civil war in Angola in early 1976. In the late-night interview in his office, Dr Castro also said that the developments had caused Cuban-American relations to sink to the lowest point since Mr Carter took office, although, he added, “it is not as bad as it was during the Nixon Administration. “It is not a half-lie,’’ he

said with regard to the charges in Washington that Cubans were involved in the Shaba invasion. “It is an absolute, total, complete lie.” Dr Castro, when asked why Mr Carter’s close advisers would manufacture such allegations, said, “I suspect these lies were manufactured to justify the intervention in Shaba,” referring to the use of French and Belgian paratroops. He was careful to avoid suggesting that Mr Carter personally had taken a hand in producing what he called a gross fabrication about the Cuban role in Africa. “It was a manufactured lie — manufactured in Brzezinski’s office,” Dr Castro said. “I think Mr Carter has been confused and deceived, but I do not think Mr Carter has deliberately resorted to this himself.” The Cuban leader said, “without doubt people inside his Administration want to manufacture their own Gulf of Tonkin in order to intervene in Africa.” He was referring to the incident involving American warships in the early stages of American involvement in the Vietnam War. He said that before Washington charged that Cuban

troops were involved in the Shaba incident, he had supplied the United States Government with information about rumours to the effect that Katangan rebels were preparing to invade Shaba. He added that “this was the first time in my career that he had given Washington such information.” He also gave this account of his exchanges with Washington in mid-May: “Between the eleventh and twelfth of May the first news was released of the Shaba events-,” he remarked. “Between the twelfth and fifteenth of May two statements were released by the United States Government that contained the truth saying there was no evidence Cubans were involved in this operation. “On the fifteenth, through the United States interests section here, we received a message coming from officials of the United States Government on the highest level. In our opinion that was the message on Africa that was constructive and positive.” At first Dr Castro resisted naming the source of this message, but later in the conversation he explained that he had been advised

that his original message had been conveyed to the Secretary of State (Mr Cyrus Vance) who in turn gave it to Mr Carter, and that the return message apparently was the product of both men’s thinking. He said the message com veyed to him by the United States Government “contained a kind response and expressed satisfaction of my talk with Lyle Lane,” the chief of the diplomatic office that the United States maintains in Havana. “Within hours,” the Cuban leader charged, “the content of his messages to Washington had been leaked to the American press,” “Not all of it was leaked,” he said, “but part of it that we had given assurances to the United States Government that we had no role in Shaba.” By that evening a State Department spoksman inl Washington made the accusation that Cuba had a role in the Katangan invasion. “It was a brutal way, a really gross and offending way that had no consideration at all for us,” he continued, his voice showing occasional anger. “It was something really strange. If the LLS. had any doubts it

could have conveyed those doubts to us through Mr Lane, but it all happened Within hours.” He said that the closing of the American diplomatic office in Havana, a step that has been recommended by some key American political figures, would be counterproductive, and would force the closing of the equivalent Cuban office in Washington. Regarding Dr Brzezinski, the Cuban leader said that “in my personal view the President’s National Security Adviser has made deliberate attempts to use the African problem to worsen CubanAmerican relations, he has used blackmail as an irw strument against us.” His voice rising with emotion, he reiterated his assertion that Cuba had not supplied arms, training, or advisers to the Katangans, and in fact had deliberately avoided contact with them because Havana feared that an attack on Zaire would divert world attention from the struggle against the Governments of Rhodesia and South Africa. “We assist liberation movements in South Africa and Rhodesia and we do not deny that,” he said.