Word: cuban
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...that he would "not be satisfied with maintenance of the status quo." After several days of silence, the Soviets produced an unyielding answer. Pravda, the Soviet Communist Party's official newspaper, declared that the Russian forces in Cuba were there solely for training purposes, had been training the Cuban army for 17 years, and had changed in neither size nor function during that entire period. Furthermore, said Pravda, the Soviet troops had "an inalienable right" to be where they were. Added Pravda: "All contentions about the arrival in Cuba of 'organized Soviet combat units' are totally groundless...
What was most perplexing about the whole affair was the number of questions that remained unanswered. Was there really a buildup of Soviet forces in Cuba? If so, since when, and by how much? What exactly was the Soviet brigade doing in Cuba? Was it merely training Cubans, or did it have a combat role? Did its presence represent a Soviet gesture to support Castro's maintenance of 40,000 Cuban soldiers in Africa? Was it guarding Soviet information-gathering installations that eavesdropped on the U.S.? And if U.S. intelligence did not know the answers...
...certain was that the Russian force, 2,600 to 2,800 strong, was on duty in Cuba. Years ago U.S. intelligence began to pick up references to the Soviet force as a brigade, but officials who received that information attached little importance to it. Last spring, worried about Cuban influence in Nicaragua and the Caribbean, Zbigniew Brzezinski's National Security Council asked U.S. intelligence agencies to re-evaluate the Soviet role in Cuba. As late as mid-July, Defense Secretary Harold Brown assured Senator Frank Church of the Foreign Relations Committee that this Soviet role had not changed...
...Popular Liberation Movement of Angola (M.P.L.A.), backed by Russia and Cuba, became involved in a three-way power struggle with the rival guerrilla forces of Jonas Savimbi and Holden Roberto, both of whom had Western support. After gaining the upper hand with the aid of some 2,000 Cuban troops, Neto embarked on a troubled presidency marred by continued civil war, serious economic difficulties and bitter dissension within his party...
...what price has Cuba been reclaimed for Cubans? Every day Cuba receives nearly two million dollars in aid from the Soviet Union, which supplies the country with oil at half the world market price. Although Cuban society has been transformed internally, Cuba is still dependent on a foreign power. In fact, what has not often been mentioned in the recent furor over the presence of Soviet troops is that Cuba actually has forces of both superpowers on its territory: the U.S. continues to operate a naval base at Guantanamo. The native strength of the Cuban people and their achievements...