After a two-hour drive, we arrived at the Second Front. This was the part of the Sierra Maestra which Raul Castro commanded during the period of armed struggle. Now the front was a museum. A member of the Communist Party greeted us and began the tour. He explained that all the land stretching out from the area where we stood once belonged to a member of the Cuban national bourgeoisie. Along with other revolutionaries, Raul had seized this area, set up schools and gardens for the peasantry and maintained his headquarters. We walked into a small and rustic room which had served as Raul's military office. The museum still housed the original furniture which Raul had used. Several unfinished letters covered his desk. His battle jacket hung on his chair. Because the museum had been kept up, I felt as if we were back in the 1958 war period.
Our guide took us to the large section of the museum. Here we saw ammunition and artillery used by Fidel, Raul and Che during the war. Some arms had been made in the United States. Our guide explained that he had fought with Raul in the Second Front. Someone asked whether the United States had played any part against the revolutionaries in the struggle for liberation. The old guide began, "Sure, the Yankee imperialists played a major part in aiding the counter-revolutionary Cubans against us. The U.S. supplied arms and the C.I.A. also did its share of subversion." The guide showed us a photo display of a hollow shell stamped with a U.S. insignia.
"This is the remains of a bombshell used by U.S. planes in January of 1959 when U.S. planes flew from Miami and bombed Havana. We revolutionaries would show these remains to our people and concretely show them what U.S. imperialism meant," he said.
The old guide walked briskly in front of us. He carried an air of pride in the triumph of the revolution and a warm patriotism toward communist Cuba. We saw letters which Che and Fidel had written to one another. Black and white pictures showed the revolutionaries in battle. Other photos depicted Fidel and Che leading a political education class by fire-light deep in the Sierra. The guide entertained an hour's worth of questions and we departed for our hotel.
Monday
Today we met with officials from the Communist Party, Federation of University Students, Union of Young Communists and Federation of Cuban Women. The conference room contained a 29-seat table and a small table where our interpreters operated microphone equipment for simultaneous translation. By the door, a portable table carried ginger ales and fruit juice drinks. Three of our delegates snapped pictures of the meeting. Several of the Cubans smoked cigars. I could see that some of us had picked up the habit of smoking Cuban cigars. They had a very mild taste--sometimes almost sweet. One of the officials began. "Comrades and friends, we welcome your delegation. Today we will exchange discussion on the history of Cuba from the beginning of U.S. imperialism in the 1890s to the triumph of the revolution..."
The Party-member described the defeat of the Spanish in the Spanish-Cuban-American War and how the United States "won" Cuba as a prize to the victor. The conference continued for three hours. We broke for lunch and milled about the room asking questions of the officials and of our hosts about concrete manifestations of "Yankee Imperialism." Their accounts explained how the United States maintained the economic blockade against Cuba, but how the revolutionaries had captured "gusanos"--Cuban counter-revolutionaries were called worms--who were backed by the C.I.A.
The meeting continued after lunch and lasted for another hour of questions and answers. The Cubans were interested in inflation in the United States, the manifestations of racism, North Americans' dissatisfaction with unemployment, and the U.S. working class's opinion of Cuba. After the last 15 minutes of the session, a waiter brought in more refreshments. Cigarette packages were passed around and two new boxes of cigars were opened. To complete the protocol, representatives from the Cuban officials and from our delegation stood up to exchange thanks and compliment one another...
Dwight N. Hopkins '76 spent two weeks this summer in Cuba with a special delegation of 19 black students invited by the Cuban government and orgainized by several American black student groups.
'We said good bye to out waiters. They were very friendly and never tired of discussing politics with us.'