Corporation Vote Ends Cuban Research Project

The University has terminated use of its botanical gardens and research laboratory in Cuba "because of intervention by the Castro government."

On the recommendation of the Director of the Adkins Garden and Research laboratory at Soledad, Cuba, the Corporation voted to cease financial support the lab and to end all scientific work in Cuba. Duncan Clement, Adkins Director, advised the University to take this action because of "increased certainty" in Cuba and at the lab.

Clement made the recommendation in his 1961 annual report to President Pusey, who has not yet seen it. Clement, who returned to Cambridge from Cuba in January, is now continuing his botanical studies in Jamaica, B.W.I.

Edward S. Mason, Acting Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, interpreted intervention by the Castro government" to mean governmental interference in management and control of the lab Castro did not seize the Adkins property," Mason said.

Seizure of the land would represent serious scientific loss, Pusey said last year. He added that many of the experiments are of a long-range type which did not be easily replaced.

Clement still hopes to resume his work Cuba in a few years, according to colleague. The only American at the Adkins Gardens and Research Laboratory, Clement was studying the botany of genetics of cultivated cotton.

The Corporation rented from the Soledad Estate in Cuba the property of the lab which was founded in 1901. The University operated experiments in tropical agriculture, horticulture, and economic botany there.