their takeover or before in terrorist activities. Could you give us your own eyewitness experience of the spread of communist terror after or just before, during, and after the takeover?

Mrs. PHILLIPS. Well, let's see. Castro started the executions within a week or so.

Mr. SCHMITZ. Within a week after his takeover?

Mrs. PHILLIPS. Yes, and they had this big public trial at Sosa Blanco. It was like a circus. Everyone hollered, "Paredon, Paredon!" It was utterly ridiculous. So they started killing the army officersthe first thing they did-and dissolving the army of Cuba. In fact, they got rid of most of the old army and took in the young fanatics, et cetera, et cetera.

Mr. SCHMITZ. Does "paredon" mean, "to the wall"?

Mrs. PHILLIPS. It means "to the wall"-"kill them." It means "to the wall" really.

I would have to say Castro is a phenomenon because there has never been anyone in Latin America that could arouse a crowd like he can. I have seen him actually hypnotize people over television. It is utterly incredible, but he has that facility.

First, he started with the executions. Then he started taking the big ranches, then the sugar mills, then the oil companies.

Castro tried to get the oil companies to refine Russian oil. Russian oil has a high percentage of sulphur, as you probably know. The three refineries, Standard and Shell in Havana and Texaco in Santiago said they couldn't do it, so Castro took over the refineries.

Then Castro moved ahead with urban reform. Now urban reform meant that he simply took every house there was in the whole of Cuba. That is all there was to that. As a matter of fact, they took my house. (At this point Mr. Schmitz left the hearing room.)

Mr. ZION. Mrs. Phillips, I wonder if you recall a pharmacist, Juaquin Ramirez? He was a pharmacist and also owner of a real estate company. Do you happen to recall him?

Mrs. PHILLIPS. No, I don't.

Mr. ZION. He was one of Castro's big supporters. I think he was responsible for providing medical supplies to Castro in the hills, apparently a good friend. One of the first things-when you mentioned the taking of the land, and so forth-Do you recall Castro setting rent ceilings and ceilings on prices of products?

Mrs. PHILLIPS. No, I don't because we always had ceilings. For example, since World War II, third-class meat was about 25 cents, second class, 30 or 35 cents, and first class 40 cents.

Mr. ZION. First-class what?

Mrs. PHILLIPS. Beef. Food was cheap and very, very plentiful. The funny part was, a lot of the people thought that as soon as the government took over the houses in whole cities, the people wouldn't have to pay any rent, but I'm telling you, they collected it. If they didn't collect it, they took anything you had. So that was a great disappointment. Then the Castro regime established, in every block, a Committee for the Defense of the Revolution. That was usually composed of two or three women and a couple of men, and they spied on everybody in the block. They still operate.

Mr. ZION. Were they known as representatives of Castro within the community or were they sent around?

Mrs. PHILLIPS. No, it was the same block. They were supporters of Castro. Of course nobody could keep a secret in Cuba anyway, so everybody knew who they were. That is the reason my two assistants were put in prison right after the Bay of Pigs.

Mr. ZION. How did you avoid incarceration, having been obviously not enthralled with Castro's political philosophy?

Mrs. PHILLIPS. Frankly, I had been there all those years and I knew a lot of people. Then, I was with the New York Times which probably was the most powerful paper in Cuba, despite the fact that it was printed in New York.

Most of the correspondents who were there from outside went to embassies. I was walking around trying to find my two assistants. One of them was in Cabana Fortress so I never did find him, but I called the palace every day and demanded they be released.

They looted my office. They took everything down to the office scissors, television, radio, camera equipment-everything I owned in the office. They cleaned it. I called the palace and told them the army looted my office. They said it wasn't possible.

(At this point Mr. Schmitz returned to the hearing room.)

Mrs. PHILLIPS. Finally, when I got my two assistants out of prison 15 days later, we made a list of all the things they had stolen and we sent copies to everybody. There were eight pages, single spaced. We sent copies to the Cuban State Department, to the army, to Valdez, who was head of the G-2, which is the secret service and to the palaceeveryplace.

Mr. ZION. Would you evaluate the state of the economy in Cuba prior to and following Castro and bring us up to date?

Mrs. PHILLIPS. Before Castro it was excellent. Cuba was the most prosperous country in Latin America. You know, of course, that Cuba sold most of its sugar to the United States, at least five million tons, and the price was 2 cents above the world market per pound. That was a preferential rate.

Cuba always had money. The country exported far more than it imported. When Batista went in in 1952, things weren't so very good, but they began to get better. Then Martinez Saenz, who was made president of the National Bank of Cuba, had an idea that the government would put up so much with a private company to build a factory or to build some sort of a manufacturing plant.

Now Martinez Saenz told me we had been friends for years-he told me that the government was taking 49 percent and giving companies 51 percent. I think Goodyear increased its plant. A lot of American companies did. He said I am giving them 51 percent so they will run the plants and make money. But if you will notice, in the other Latin American countries, for example, in Brazil they want 51 percent Brazilian capital.

I think some of the other countries also have the same law. But Saenz was smart enough to know that if the company had 51 percent they were going to make money. The bank wouldn't lose anything.

So the country was prosperous. It began to decline about '58. Of course it kept on going down. You know that today, for example, Cuba has no food, really. They ship out everything they can to Czechoslovakia, Poland, wherever they can sell it. They have to sell their sugar to Russia, which doesn't need the sugar. It is a political thing, of course.

Mr. ZION. Does Russia give them a premium price for their sugar as we did?

Mrs. PHILLIPS. I think they are giving Cuba 4 cents, which is above the world market-about 4 or 5 cents. I am not sure. I haven't looked at the sugar market for a while.

Then, of course, that is charged against the petroleum which Russia sends to be refined. That is the reason they don't get any supplies. When I left Cuba the shelves of the grocery stores were practically empty.

The shelves are still empty, according to everybody that comes out of Cuba. A mechanic came out several months ago. I asked, "How is the food situation?" He said, "Well, I will tell you. I have been going around the country fixing up old motors and trucks and things for the small farmer and for the people that have them in little towns. I didn't ask for money. I asked for a half dozen eggs or one chicken. If you had a good suit of clothes you could get a great big pig for it." I said, "That is against the law." He said, "Sure, they would put us all in jail for doing it, if they knew."

But, of course, the black market goes on, naturally. Somebody said they paid 20 pesos for a pound of coffee. Cuba always had a great deal of coffee down in Santiago and around Oriente Province. They supplied themselves.

Cuba was beginning to supply itself with rice before Castro. The Castro government ruined all the rice plantations completely.

Mr. ZION. Is that in order to increase sugar production for export? Mrs. PHILLIPS. No, they just didn't know how to grow it-simple inefficiency and lack of technicians. Castro imported about 50 tremendous hogs into Pinar del Rio. I was making a trip through the country after Castro took over. This was in 1960. I found that there was one man that came down with the pigs. He said nobody knows anything about pigs because there wasn't anybody there over 30 years old. Castro only trusts the young. He said these pigs are not going to live, and they didn't. They died.

Mr. ZION. Just one final question. Could you outline for us the individual freedoms prior to '52, during the Batista regime, and then under Fidel Castro?

Mrs. PHILLIPS. I don't think I quite understand the individual freedoms.

Mr. ZION. How an individual was treated under the various regimes in Cuba.

Mrs. PHILLIPS. First, with Batista there wasn't any real curtailment of freedom of the press. The newspapers came out and criticized Batista. They criticized everybody.

Mr. ZION. They were permitted to do that?

Mrs. PHILLIPS. Yes; Batista had no censorship on the papers or the magazines. Any publications came in from the outside. Any magazines, anything you wanted. They used to go to the bars and talk against Batista. You could talk on a street corner. The Batista government didn't pay any attention. Today you had better not say one single word in front of the committee, that is, in the block, because you will be in jail.

58-594 O 72 pt. 3 9

Under Batista Cuba had the most modern labor code in the whole of Latin America. In fact, it was better than the United States' in some respects. Every worker got a month's vacation with pay. If you had a temporary worker you gave him 9.5 percent above whatever you paid him. That was for his vacation.

The Batista government had big hospitals for workers. They had retirement pay. All workers were organized, of course. Everybody was organized into the labor unions. I have never seen any better code. There is no code in all of Latin America like that one because the workers have an 8-hour day; some of them work 6 hours; some of them work 5. It depended on the profession or work you were doing. If it were very dangerous or trying, you worked 6 hours. Now, of course, the worker works 10 hours and in addition he stands guard. Castro has inducted the workers into the militia so they have to stand guard, and so forth.

Then, of course, Cubans have to go to many meetings. There is no individual freedom of any kind whatsoever. The whole of Cuba is like a concentration camp because you don't know which one of your neighbors is going to turn you in to the "Committee for Defense of the Revolution."

I would say Castro's popularity has gone down about 90 percent. Of course the Soviet Union would have gotten rid of Castro a long time ago if it were not for the fact that his name is powerful in the rest of Latin America, even today.

I read an article the other day that said Castro's influence is waning in Latin America. Don't fool yourself. All of these groups of communists in the various countries look to Castro. If you will notice, they are following his pattern. Allende is following the pattern. He used to go to see Castro very often.

Mr. ZION. We saw a movie he made the other day in which Mao Tsetung and others were photographed with him.

Mrs. PHILLIPS. You have the small organizations of the Chinese and you have the big organization of the Moscow crowd. I was in Bolivia. I was waiting to see the Minister of Mines because at that time the tin mines-not only the American technicians but even the government officials couldn't go in the mines because all of the miners in Bolivia are under communist control.

They were under Lechin who was once vice president. The secretary in the office said something to me. When I answered her in Spanish, two young men who were waiting there said, "Where did you learn Spanish?" I said, "Cuba." They said, "We went to Cuba several months ago," and they said, "it was wonderful."

I laughed and they were furious. They said, "Why are you laughing?" I said, "Because the whole thing is ridiculous. It is not true." They were very angry and finally I said, "Which group do you belong to, Peking or Moscow?" They said "Peking." So there are two views.

Students, of course, are a major factor. Not over 20 percent of the students are activists. The rest of them just won't do anything to protest actions of the United States.

Mr. SCHMITZ. I would like to get an amplification on a question that I asked a witness last time the subcommittee met, and that was regarding Castro's activities in Bogota.

Mrs. PHILLIPS. That is a great mystery. I know Castro participated in this, and I have no doubt that Dr. Guillermo Belt, who is Ambassador to Washington, finally rescued him and his two friends and sent them back to Cuba. But just what Castro did there-I have heard various and sundry stories that he helped the killing, and so forth and so on. But at least Castro and his friends went there for the purpose of wrecking the conference. That is what they went there for. A group of them went from various Latin American countries and that was their purpose.

(At this point Mr. Zion left the hearing room.)

Mrs. PHILLIPS. Of course, Castro himself has never said what he did at Bogota.

Mr. SCHMITZ. Thank you.

Mr. PEPPER. Do you think Castro is training revolutionaries to work with the Russians on espionage in the United States!

Mrs. PHILLIPS. I am sure he wants to destroy the United States. It is one of his great ideas. I think he is also sending people to Puerto Rico, and to Guatemala.

Mr. PEPPER. Do you think Castro is using the United Nations as a base for his espionage activities in the United States?

Mrs. PHILLIPS. I don't think he has to. His agents move very freely all over the United States, especially in Florida. They come and go all

the time.

Mr. PEPPER. What influence, if any, do the Chinese communists have in Cuba under Castro?

Mrs. PHILLIPS. As I mentioned before, in each country there is a small group of Chinese Reds. They were coming in Cuba before I left. The young ones were coming in to Cuba. Castro tried to play off Red China against Moscow all the time. He tries to get as much as he can out of both of them.

Mr. PEPPER. Do you think the United States should move towards some normalization of its relationship with Castro's Cuba?

Mrs. PHILLIPS. I think we should not. In the first place, why should we recognize Castro who, with all of his propaganda, is trying to overthrow every government of Latin America?

He has killed 20,000 of his own people. He shot six Americans. The United States did not protest even that. They let him get away with it. He has Americans in jail there, I am sure. You have got at least one or two examples. Rafael del Pino is an American citizen. I know there is bound to be more. The Americans do not even know who is there.

Certainly Castro is one of the worst enemies that we have in the world. We have got several. He is one of the worst ones so why should we recognize him? Why should we trade with him?

Mr. SCHMITZ. Will the gentleman yield at this point? Why was Rafael del Pino, an American citizen, jailed in Cuba? Wasn't he with Castro in Bogota?

Mrs. PHILLIPS. He was one of them.

Mr. SCHMITZ. He has since turned anticommunist and was jailed?
Mrs. PHILLIPS. Castro jailed him. He went against him.

Mr. SCHMITZ. Thank you.

Mr. PEPPER. The last question, Mrs. Phillips, is what are the chances of getting rid of Castro and getting Cuba restored to a free society?