Word: harker
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Shortly after his arrival in Cuba, the Associated Press's Daniel Harker encountered Fidel Castro at a reception in the French embassy. "Why did they ever send you to Havana?" asked Castro. Marker's answer was blunt and honest. "I guess the A.P. thought I was expendable," he said. Four years after Castro's revolution sealed the island from nosy newsmen, only three Western correspondents - all wire service men - remain on duty in Havana...
...Harker himself is a replacement, sent up from Colombia after Harold K. Milks, then the A.P.'s Havana bureau chief, was expelled with such velocity that he had to leave most of his belongings behind. After eight months in Havana, Yves Doude, who represents the French wire service Agence France-Presse, is convinced that things were easier in his previous assignment in Communist Rumania. The other resident Western newsman in Havana, Alan Oxley of Britain's Reuters, Ltd., has been arrested 19 times since Castro took power...
...Although Castro keeps up the fiction that there is no press censorship, the Western newsmen know otherwise. Cables are often held up for days or forever; the Western Union office, staffed by Cubans, will not even acknowledge that a message has been sent, much less received. "Some times," says Harker, "not even the request for confirmation gets through...
Telephone calls to the outer world are technically possible but unrewarding. So many of Castro's minions tap into the line that the connection at the far end often becomes inaudible. Pre-arranged codes do not help. "You know that hardware I was telling you about?" said Daniel Harker on such a call. "Well, it's shifting." He was cut off in midsentence, and his report on troop movements did not get through. Once, after trying vainly to get half a dozen numbers in the U.S., Harker's predecessor bellowed in exasperation: "You mean to say that...
Peace, Not Minks. In answer, other ministers point out that the day of the "gimme, gimme" prayer is over. "Prayer is not so materialistic any more, like asking for a mink coat to show off," insists Psychiatrist Harker. Ministers and priests point to a recent surge of lay interest in theology and Bible study; as a result, many Christians understand better than ever before that prayer is basically a dialogue with their Creator rather than a summary demand for divine action. Even in prayers of petition, ministers note, the requests are more impersonal: there are fewer demands for better jobs...