Word: cuba
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1950-1959
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Much can be said of Fidel Castro's wild schemes, but no one can accuse him of lacking imagination. In the high name of the revolution last week Castro nationalized 1) Cuba's bat guano caves, 2) every chicken egg in Havana province and 3) Santa Claus, who has gradually become the symbol of Christmas through much of Latin America...
...drastic drop in prices. Farmers must sell their eggs at dictated prices to INRA, which will hold back part of the crop from market. Bat guano is an even more ambitious INRA undertaking, first sparked by Entrepreneur Bud Arvey (son of Chicago Democratic Bigwig Jake Arvey), who hit Cuba last spring with a plan to join the Castro government in a $500,000 partnership to scrape the guano deposits from caves in Pinar del Rio and Matanzas and ship it abroad as fertilizer. Castro decided that the commodity was much too valuable to share. In turning over exclusive control...
...targets of his newest attack were the conservative Havana dailies, Avance (circ. 22,000) and Diario de la Marina (circ. 28,000), which up to now have supported Castro, but are growing restive under his highhanded rule. Last week the papers sounded a loud, clear voice of opposition in Cuba, and the Prime Minister was infuriated. "They play the game for vested interests," cried Castro, "for the enemies of Cuba, for the Trujillos, the war criminals, the monopolies. They have minds of three centuries...
Avance and Diario had committed the error of strong but well-reasoned arguments against a new Castro decree boosting import duties to 100% in some cases; the effect, noted the papers, may well be to reduce Cuba to the levels of undeveloped Asian and African nations...
...Cuba had been waiting for just such straight talk. Diario sold out all over Havana, and congratulatory calls from across the island jammed the paper's switchboard. Editor Jose I. Rivero went home to find the place flooded with flowers from well-wishers. One group of women offered to sit in front of the Diario building to guard it against any attack. Editor Rivero, ringing up 6,000 new subscriptions, followed through with four more columns of editorials and a little box noting the subscriptions with the headline: THANK YOU, FIDEL...