The Herald

CUBA'S DISREGARD OF UNITED STATES PROPERTY RIGHTS MUST END

The American people look with a great deal of anxiety at the Cuban abuse of a long standing good neighbor policy. The Cuban government which has defied the principles of American democracy to become a socialist state, now holds the United States up to a mockery that has become so widespread that it is hard to say that any American or group of Americans are safe from its influence or possible domination. The citizens of the United States believe that the time is past due when the Castro-controlled Cuban regime should be given a positive stopping point.

There is no doubt as to the state of relations existing between Cuba and the United States. In a speech before the United Nations last fall a United States ambassador made it clear that the Castro regime had deliberately attempted to sabotage U. S. - Cuban relations. The document of ten thousand words was the United States' answer to the many untrue and distorted allegations made before the United Nations General Assembly two weeks earlier. It was brought out that the Castro regime had confiscated U. S. owned property in Cuba without compensation, had interfered with religious freedom, forced anti-Castro newspaper editors into exile and was seeking to interfere with the United States relations with Latin-American countries. It was also pointed out that Cuba had welcomed, if not abetted, the coming intervention of Soviet Russia and Communist China in Cuba.

Immediately following the above charges the United States State Department recalled its ambassador for an extended period of consultation, and did not fix a date for his return to Cuba. Following the change in administrations, diplomatic relations were formally severed. This was preceded by embargoes on most imports to Cuba, except some food and medical supplies. This and other changes in United States-Cuban policy was made in order to give as much protection as possible to the people of this country against discriminatory economic policies of the Cuban government.

While the Castro regime has ridiculed and ignored our State Department's relations. there have also been some considerable inroads made on the morals of the private American citizen. The number of demonstrations made in the vicinity of the United Nations in Washington, Miami, and other cities in the United States, have given many citizens the idea that we are reluctant to tell Castro where to get off. The single-handed hi-jacking of unarmed American aircraft has become a mockery that no citizen of this country expects to be ignored. While no one can place the responsibility in any direct manner on the Cuban government, it still shows in a most insulting manner the Cuban method of confiscating the wealth of individuals and corporations of the United States without the least regard for the life or safety of American citizens.

The people of the United States are no longer interested in a "tractor swap." The idea has already become so popular that people in this country who think they have an axe to grind with the government are looking to Cuba as a refuge. A recent case of plane hi-jacking headed for Cuba was not by Cuban operatives in this country, but an American citizen and his teen-aged son who had set Castro up in their minds as a coming "Mr. Big." This phobia must not spread. United States citizens must have this stigma of fear removed by positive action, or in the very near future Fidel will really get the wrong idea.