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A subcommittee of the Committee on Internal Security met, pursuant to call, at 10:10 a.m., in room 311, Cannon House Office Building, Washington, D.C., Hon. Claude Pepper, chairman of the subcommittee, presiding.

(Subcommittee members: Representatives Claude Pepper of Florida, chairman; Richard H. Ichord of Missouri, chairman of the full committee; Richardson Preyer of North Carolina; John M. Ashbrook of Ohio; and Roger H. Zion of Indiana.)

Subcommittee members present: Representatives Pepper, Ashbrook, and Zion.

Staff members present: Donald G. Sanders, chief counsel, Richard L. Schultz, associate chief counsel, and Robert M. Horner, chief investigator.

Mr. PEPPER. The subcommittee will come to order. The subcommittee meets this morning in continuation of the House Committee on Internal Security's inquiry into the theory and practice of communism as it affects the United States.

Pursuant to a letter dated September 20, 1971, from Chairman Richard H. Ichord, this subcommittee has been appointed to conduct further hearings with the focus of our attention being communism in Latin America and especially as it affects the United States.

I direct the reporter to enter into the record, following my remarks, the subcommittee appointment letter of Chairman Ichord dated September 20, 1971.

During the 91st Congress and early this year during the 92d Congress, the committee received testimony from persons who, in search of freedom, escaped from behind the Iron Curtain and defected to the United States. In addition to this very vibrant testimony about the lives of people and the quality of life under communism, the committee received expert testimony concerning Marxist-Leninist theory from academicians who pursue a continuous study of the world situation relevant to the effects and sphere of influence manifested by the international communist movement.

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This morning we will hear Dr. Manolo Reves, a Cuban national who presently resides in Miami and is employed as a Latin American news editor of Miami television station WTVJ. I will say that Dr. Reyes is one of our most esteemed and distinguished citizens who knows what is going on in Latin America and Cuba particularly as it affects the United States. We are very proud of the fact that he is one of our citizens here in Miami and Dade County.

In keeping with our past practice, we are pleased to receive the testimony this week of Dr. William C. Davis, professor of international affairs on the permanent faculty of The National War College. Other witnesses to be heard this week will include testimony of a former Cuban Government official who will describe life in Cuba under the communist-Castro regime and will describe through firsthand experience the erosion of personal liberty which ultimately prompted his defection.

Though not focusing on the Venceremos Brigade in these hearings, the committee will examine some specific examples of Cuban propaganda coming to the United States which pertains to the brigade. (The order of appointment of the subcommittee dated September 20, 1971, follows:)

To: Hon. Claude Pepper

Hon. Edwin W. Edwards Hon. Richardson Preyer Hon. Robert F. Drinan From: Richard H. Ichord

Chairman

Re: Appointment of Subcommittee

SEPTEMBER 20, 1971.

Hon. John M. Ashbrook
Hon. Roger H. Zion
Hon. Fletcher Thompson
Hon. John G. Schmitz

Theory and Practice of Communism Hearings

This is to advise that I have this day appointed a subcommittee, consisting of five Members, to conduct investigation and hold hearings pursuant to Committee Resolution of March 4, 1971, with respect to the continuing inquiry into the theory and practice of communism:

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Hearings to receive testimony relative to the Theory and Practice of Communism in Latin America are planned for October 5, 6, and 7 (Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, respectively.)

Mr. PEPPER. We want to emphasize what we are primarily concerned about is the effect of Russian communistic infiltration into Cuba and Latin America as it affects the United States and our way of life. So we are very fortunate this morning to have Dr. Reyes with us. Doctor, you may proceed with your paper.

Counsel, would you like to inquire?

Mr. SCHULTZ. Yes, Mr. Chairman. Would you like to swear the witness? Would you prefer to have the witness sworn?

Mr. PEPPER. Doctor, would you care to be sworn?

Doctor, do you solemnly swear that the testimony you are about to give before this subcommittee will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?

Mr. REYES. I do.

Mr. PEPPER. Doctor, speak, if you will, into the microphone and speak loud enough, if you will, so that you may be heard.

TESTIMONY OF MANOLO REYES

Mr. SCHULTZ. Dr. Reyes, before you proceed with your statement, for identification purposes will you state your full name, please? Mr. REYES. My full name is Manuel de Jesus Reyes Xiques.

Mr. SCHULTZ. And what is your current address?

Mr. REYES. 243 Southwest 26th Road, Miami, Florida.
Mr. SCHULTZ. Thank you, Dr. Reyes.

Would you like to proceed at your own pace with your opening statement?

Mr. REYES. Just before going into the statement, I would like, Mr. Chairman, to thank you very much for your kind words, and this of course is another testimony of the traditional friendship between the United States and the Cuban people.

Fidel Castro has proved to be an agent of international communism, and, based on a named "revolution" has been exporting international communism to the American continent and the United States of America.

A few months after he took over, Fidel Castro sent an invasion against Panama, an invasion that was defeated and later regarded as something without importance. This has been the policy of a wicked regime, the constant exportation of revolution or what is actually international communism.

Mr. PEPPER. Excuse me. Doctor, for the record, would you give us something of your background. Where were you born and reared and in a few words your educational background to indicate the preparation that you have for the testimony that you give.

Mr. REYES. Yes, Mr. Chairman. I was born in Havana, Cuba, on July 29, 1924. I come from a very poor family in my country. In fact, in the years 1930, 31, 32 my family was so poor-and this is my pride that my father, my mother, and myself were selling candies for 1 penny in a public market in Havana.

In 1938 I went to radio station CMQ. That radio station was the number one in Cuba. I went to a radio contest program, and I started there in that contest program.

In the meantime I was studying in LaSalle School. My father was a former pupil there, my brother, myself, but I have the benefit of that school at least for 4 or 5 years with a scholarship since my father was one of the almost founders of that school.

Then in 1940, '41, still working on CMQ, I began to be a producer, director, writer, newsman, all the angles of radio in my country. I finished high school and I went into the University of Havana. In 1948 I got the diplomatic degree. In 1949 I got the law degree.

In 1951 television came to my country, and I was transferred somewhat to television. In the meantime I was almost full time working in radio.

In 1955 I was appointed radio sales manager of CMQ, and that was one of the four top positions on CMQ. In the meantime I had also my law office and I was practicing as a lawyer.

On August 23, 1960, my wife and my children and myself decided to become permanent residents here in Miami. We came to the United States. We left Cuba because communism was taking over. We came

here and then I started to work on WTVJ, Channel 4, as Latin news editor up to now.

So I am 47 years of age, and I have been working 33 years, 22 in CMQ in Havana and 11 in the United States in WTVJ.

Mr. PEPPER. Have you kept in contact with sources of information from time to time as to what was going on in Cuba?

Mr. REYES. Yes, sir. I have two good sources of information. First, the Cuban underground that they send information to the people they trust and they believe in, and this information has been in the past put out by some Cubans and among those I am one of them. And also the sources of Cubans coming from the island.

Mr. PEPPER. And of course a great many Cubans coming into the United States through Miami, many of them remaining to reside there.

Mr. REYES. Yes, sir.

Mr. PEPPER. From Cuba.

Mr. REYES. Right. We have right now in Miami-this is a revelation-about 320,000 Cubans residing there, so there is a tremendous source of information of what is going on.

Mr. PEPPER. I just wanted to establish something of your background and knowledge. You may go ahead.

Mr. REYES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

In past years because of the lassitude of the American nations, and not because of his own actions, the Castro regime has increased the exportation of communism in different ways. This increased aggression against the peace and security of the American continent was planned in the so-called Tricontinental Conference that took place in Havana, Cuba, in January 1966 with communists from three continents, Asia, Africa, and South America.

In this so-called conference it was provided that Havana would be the operational center of international communism in the Western Hemisphere. After this conference, as recalled, hijacking of commercial aircraft over the skies of the American continent increased tremendously. Agitation, aggression, and support of the subversive movement increased on the continent through Havana.

I would like to add at this point, as a lawyer that I was in my country, that aggression in the old system was a military force invading another foreign territory. I believe that aggression in the modern times is the speech, is subversive harangue that has been done by Castro in many instances. This is aggression in the modern times because 100 years ago we didn't have radio, we didn't have television, and Castro had this from Havana penetrating Central and South America and the United States.

Let's point out that after this so-called Tricontinental Conference in Havana that Ernesto Guevara, alias Che, went to Bolivia trying to impose a communist regime, being killed in November 1967.

After the conference took place, there appeared in Uruguay the socalled Tupamaros, the urban communist guerrillas, and the subversive movement in Mexico greatly accelerated. Kidnaping of diplomats and citizens in different regions of Latin America commenced, and Chile fell under a Marxist President. Peru has a leftist military government and the so-called Brigades Vence-Remos were born in the United States supposedly to go to Cuba to help in the cane fields.

I should also point out that I have received recent reports showing that members of the Venceremos Brigade met in Havana this year with the Secretary of State of Chile, Clodomiro Alemeida, during the last days of July.

Later on the so-called Chancellor of the Castro regime, Raul Roa, flew to Chile, taking with him a member of the Venceremos Brigade. On this summer vacation during 1971, I have received information that some members of the Venceremos Brigade had traveled from the United States to different countries in Latin America. It appears that the members of the Venceremos Brigade, when returning to the United States, were very active in bringing back propaganda in favor of Fidel Castro. This propaganda, always in favor of Castro, embraces the distribution of pamphlets to the exhibition of films about Cuba.

I have received knowledge of these facts from all over the United States in letters written to me by Cuban university students. They have written to me asking for facts, photographs, films, et cetera, concerning the Cuban exodus and about the tyranny of Fidel Castro so that they could counter the propaganda of the members of the Venceremos Brigade.

After the communists took over Chile in November 1970, they have been insistent on creating a Havana-Santiago de Chile axis. They advised against a neutral inter-American system represented by the Organization of American States, including Peru, Bolivia, and Uruguay.

To accomplish this leftist axis, not to say communist, Paraguay and Argentina, bordering nations, would be forced by the axis to join. The biggest anticommunist nation in Latin America is Brazil, and it seems that the communists were seeking to first revolt in Brazil until conquered and then to afterwards continue going north to create the same condition in the United States using Brazil as a base. But the recent "coup" in Bolivia temporarily frustrated their plans.

Referring to Chile, it can be said that the Marxist President, Salvador Allende, has done more for the communization of Chile in 10 months than Fidel Castro has done in 121⁄2 years. The first slip had been the Cubanization of Chile.

Mr. ASHBROOK. May I ask what do you mean at that point "the first slip"?

Mr. REYES. The first step. I am sorry. I would like to apologize about my English. Sometimes it is no good, but really I am trying my best. I learned it the hard way, so actually it is step.

I would like to point out in this Cubanization of Chile that many of the Castro regime officials had been going back and forth to Santiago and to different parts of Chile. The personal bodyguards or the personal guards of the so-called socialist youngsters of Marxist President Allende are dressed with the Castro fatigue uniform; they use the beret and the star in the beret and the beard, Castro's type.

In fact, to support these theories later on I have film of this matter taken in Santiago de Chile.

Also, many films and delegations are going to Chile from Havana, Cuba, and more and more you see the Castro people inside Chile.

The Granma newspaper is sold openly in almost all the places of Chile. The wife of Raul Castro is right now in Chile, touring Chile, accompanied with the first lady of Chile, Mrs. Salvador Allende.

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