The Kennedy administration has launched an undeclared war on Cuba. This is the brutal fact now facing the American people.

No less an authority than the New York Times felt forced to admit in an editorial April 18, the day after the invasion: "It is also no secret that the United States Government has been helping the Cuban exiles over a period of many months with arms, training and facilities on American soil and in Guatemala. This has been too well publicized to be ignored today."

Khrushchev has appealed personally to Kennedy "to put an end to the aggression." The Soviet premier warned that "any so-called 'small war' can provoke a chain reaction in all parts of the world." He reaffirmed a pledge to help Cuba "in beating back the armed attack." Once again he stressed the interest of his government "in a relaxation of international tension." "But," he added, "if others aggravate it we shall reply in full measure."

This restrained indication of the possible consequences must be taken with utmost seriousness. If the Kennedy administration persists in its armed aggression, it can set in motion forces that will inevitably plunge humanity into nuclear war.

Let there be no mistake about the guilt. The Central Intelligence Agency, first under Eisenhower and then under Kennedy, financed and trained thousands of counterrevolutionary mercenaries. They were armed with U.S. naval, air, and army weapons, including B-26 bombers and troop transports. Their invasion of Cuba was masterminded by American military experts in flagrant violation of the U.S. laws, including the Neutrality Act, and nonaggression treaties.

The crime against Cuba is also a crime against the American people. All Kennedy's talk about a "Peace Corps" and an "Alliance for Progress" in Latin America proved to be lying propaganda. It aimed at covering up the real plan of action--a new ordeal of terror and butchery for the Cuban people.

Kennedy's campaign promises about a "New Frontier" and world peace were directed primarily to the youth of America. But Kennedy is not teaching the ways of peace. The planting of phosphorous in the air-conditioning system of Havana's biggest department store is hailed as a heroic act. Corps of bombers are praised as champions of freedom and democracy. By this glorification of sabotage and indiscriminate terror, Kennedy is fostering in America's youth the type of mentality now on display in the Eichmann trial. Is this the "New Frontier"?

Like Eisenhower, Kennedy is acting for the economic and financial interests that stand behind the Democratic and Republican parties. These dealers in stocks and bonds bled Cuba for six decades, condemning the population to poverty, unemployment, illiteracy, and endemic disease. They want back their lucrative holdings--no ifs, ands, or buts. Besides that, they fear the Cuban example will inspire similar revolutions throughout Latin America. Their recipe is "Crush it in the bud."

The counterrevolutionary generals of the invasion army lie when they say they are fighting for "democracy" and the "liberation" of Cuba. Their sole aim is to make the island safe once again for the dollars of American investors.

This is proved by the key plank in their call for war against the Castro regime issued April 8 in Manhattan by Miró Cardona, head of the "Cuban Revolutionary Council" set up for recognition by the U.S. as the "government" of Cuba: "We emphatically assure those who have been unjustly dispossessed that all of their assets will be returned.... We shall encourage investment in private property, both national and foreign, and we shall give complete guarantees to private enterprise and to private property."

The Cuban revolutionists have followed an opposite course. In place of capitalist production for profit at the expense of human rights, they are building a planned economy.

In Cuba the long-standing army of unemployed has been greatly reduced and its liquidation is feasible in a year or two. Jim Crow was wiped out along with capitalism, its main supporting institution. Attractive, low-cost homes are being built by the thousands throughout the island in a great national effort to provide housing for everyone. Rents were slashed in half and now every tenant can become a home-owner, since rent is accepted by the government as installment payments on a house or apartment.

Landless peasants have received their own farms or else participate in cooperatives that have already made possible an impressive rise in national productivity. Illiteracy, which affected a third of the population in 1959, is now close to elimination, a two-year achievement no other country can match.  
 
Wall Street views gains as mortal threat
These are some of the gains in Cuba which Wall Street regards as a mortal threat. The money-changers are right. Why should any people endure the domination of big monopolies when by kicking them out they can win such enormous improvements?

Wall Street's scheme is to correct things by overthrowing the government of Cuba the way the Central Intelligence Agency overthrew the lawfully elected government of Guatemala in 1954.

What is this mysterious CIA? What does it do with its enormous funds? To whom is it accountable?

All that the American people have been permitted to know is that the head of this spy agency is Allen Dulles and that it carries on "cloak and dagger" operations. Spying, it turns out, reaches the level of undeclared wars.

One courageous journalist, I.F. Stone, has asked why Allen Dulles is not indicted. A congressman alive to his responsibilities to the American people would go further and demand impeachment of Kennedy.

Many voices have demanded investigation of the CIA--investigation of its U-2 spy operations, its sinister efforts to get us into war in Laos, its recruitment of Cuban mercenaries, its training of saboteurs and terrorists, its construction of military training camps and secret air bases in other countries, its access to the arsenals of the navy, the army, and the air force to outfit an entire expeditionary force and keep it supplied in a war.

The American people are entitled to know exactly how this agency assembles foreign troops on American soil, how it transfers these mercenaries to other countries, how it lands them on the beaches of Cuba and supplies them with the matériel of war; and who pays for all this.

The crimes committed by American big business against Cuba since 1898 make a somber list. Instead of capping these crimes with the horrors of invasion and war, we should in simple justice offer the Cuban people all the help in our power.

Let's resume normal diplomatic and trade relations. Let's send delegations to study the successes of the Cubans and see what we can learn from them. Instead of a policy of hatred toward Cuba, let's initiate a policy of friendship.

We firmly believe in the right of every people to choose whatever kind of government they want, free from any foreign pressure. We believe that the Cubans are entitled to exercise this basic democratic right. We call for solidarity with them in defending it.

We hope that every American who believes in the equality of nations will join in picketing and demonstrating for this right or will indicate to Congress and the White House by other means how he feels. End the aggression against Cuba at once! End the economic blockade! End the policy of trying to isolate and crush the Cuban revolution! Hands off Cuba!  
 
 
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