Kennedy's Press Ban

In his book "The Cuban Invasion," Tab Szule of The New York Times concludes that the Bay of Pigs dister could have been avoided if Administration policymakers had relied on veteran reporters' estimates of the situation in Cuba rather than on C.I.A. reports.

Two years later, as the Cuba crisis deepens again, President Kennedy has evidently decided to end the conflict between newspaper estimates and intelligence reports. His simple expedient is to deny American reporters visas for Cuba.

The tactical value of such a policy is difficult to understand. Moreover, it violates one of the tenets of democratic society--the free flow of information. The only positive result of the press-ban has been to make the conservative senators who are crying for invasion the only American source of "facts" on what is happening to Cuba.

It is therefore not surprising that the press, forced to print Senator Thurmond's accounts of Cuba or none of all, has reported with increasing favor and prominence we ultra-conservative demands for invasion. Even in the narrowest political sense, the press ban policy seems half-defeating.

This is not to say that accurate accounts of life in Cuba are totally unavailable. The foreign press carries almost daily reports from correspondents in Havana, some of the best of which are reprinted in small-circulation American publications like The New Republic. But only a tiny minority of Americans ever read these reports; most of America is being fed a steady diet of Thurmond, Goldwater, and Keating.

Perhaps the only really valid objection to sending sporters to Cuba is the danger that Dr. Castro may pick them up. Such an incident, it is argued, would hurt American prestige and create strong pressure at some for invasion. But the danger to reporters is obviously not the primary motivation for the press-ban policy, for the Administration has made no effort to obtain a promise from the Cuban regime to guarantee reporters' safety. If Castro is sincere in the welcome he has extended to newsmen, he should agree to such assurances. At least we should call his bluff.

If satisfactory promises of safe-conduct are not forthcoming, the government should still let reporters willing to take the risk upon themselves go to Cuba. They would be little risk of imprisonment: Castro--like Kennedy--does not desire to create an incident which might trigger an invasion. Furthermore, he can use American reporters as Khrushchev does, to send trial balloons toward Washington. Castro seems confident that Americans will be impressed, as British and European correspondents have been, by what they see.

The overriding reason for having American reporters in Havana is that during the last Cuba crisis they provided the only sane assessment of Castro's popularity and strength to reach the United States. Today, when senate "experts" on Cuba are asking Americans to believe that all Cubans would welcome a U.S. army of liberation, a third voice in the Cuba debate is more important than ever. It is necessary to know what political and emotional climate actually exists in Cuba before we decide what we propose to do about it.