Former Castro Supporter Suggests U.S. Back Second Cuban Revolution

The "best alternative" for United States Cuban policy would be "to help Cuban themselves" launch a revolution, Carlos Quijano, a disenchanted former high official in the Castro government, told the Harvard Latin American Association last night.

Quijano rejected both coexistence and an invasion by U.S. troops as possible solutions to the Cuban problem. He conceded, however, that Castro would be "very difficult to overthrow" at the present time.

Castro on Top

"It's hard to convince people to plot, against Fidel Castro, because right now he's on top of the world," he said. Quijano counted the recent treaty with the Soviet Union, the operation of Cuban-trained guerrillas in Africa (presumably in the recent revolution in Zanzibar), and the general turmoil prevailing throughout Latin America as key factors to Castro's strength.

Calling Castro as expert on upheavals, Quijano explained how the Cuban dictator had, for example, taken steps to prevent revolution in the military. Castro's division of the army into three totally separate units has made it "really difficult to conspire," he said.

Quijano traced the history of the Cuban revolution for the more than 40 people at the meeting. He said that with the exceptions of Fidel's brother, Raul Castro, and Che Guevara, minister of finance, the movement until 1959 was "genuine and nationalistic, supported by a large part of the Cuban people." At this time Castro was definitely not a communist, he vestured, although the leader did have Marxist ideas.

In a sharp question and answer session. Quijano gave his analysis of Cuba's difficulties. "Fidel may have diagnosed the disease correctly," he said, "but whereas the disease may have only needed an aspirin, he performed a major surgery.'

System a Failure

He called the "based factor" is the failure of the economy "the system itself" and criticized the continued collectivization of agriculture in view of constant shortages. He said that this persistence to collectivize even contradicted precedents in other communist states, which have curtailed their programs in the light of similar failure.