CUBA Communiqu No. 4: The invading mercenary army which occupied Cuban territory for less than 72 hours has been completely crushed. The revolution has emerged victorious though paying a high toll in courageous lives of fighters who faced the invaders. A part of the mercenaries sought to leave the country by-sea in a number of boats which were sunk by the revolutionary air forces. The remainder of the mercenary forces suffered heavy casualties, dispersing in a swamp area from which no escape is possible. A large quantity of arms of American manufacture were captured, including various Sherman heavy tanks. [signed] Fidel Castro Ruz, Commander in Chief In Cuba, the Roman Circus was on. Radios blared the March of the Sierra Maestra, and orators described the heroic fight in glowing detail. On Havana street corners, groups of prancing militiamen fired their Czech burp guns into the air, and Jeeps draped with hot-eyed youths careened along the avenues. Communist-country correspondents were hustled off to the shell-pocked beachhead to view the wreckage of invasion—U.S.-made mortars, recoilless rifles, trucks, machine guns, rifles, and medium tanks. A few of the 400 captured survivors were shown on TV, while commentators jabbed jubilant questions at them. The government announced that on May Day, that day sacred to Marxists everywhere, Cuba would celebrate the defeat of the “North American mercenaries” with the greatest parade in history, and the youth would march side by side with Fidel Castro. White House Huddle. In Washington, Secretary of State Dean Rusk tried to put a bland face on tragedy by calling it a minor operation by “a group of courageous men who returned to Cuba determined to do what they could to assist the people in establishing freedom in that island. The affair did not appear to be a full-scale invasion.” The man nominally in charge of the battle against Castro, onetime Havana Attorney Jos Mir Cardona, 58, head of the Revolutionary Council of anti-Castro exiles in whose name the landing was made, flew with the council to Washington for three anguished conferences with President Kennedy. Then the council issued a statement: “The recent landing in Cuba was in fact a landing mainly of supplies and support for our patriots who have been fighting in Cuba for months. Regretfully, we admit tragic losses among a small holding force. The force fought Soviet tanks and artillery, while being attacked by Russian MIG aircraft—a gallantry which allowed a major portion of our party to reach the Escambray Mountains.” The Castro regime's triumphant cock's crow of victory, for all its exaggerations, was closer to the bitter truth. At the Bay of Pigs, on Cuba's south coast, a force of 1,300 wellarmed, well-trained anti-Castro freedom fighters last week launched a major campaign to rid their homeland of Communist dictatorship. They were defeated within two days by a better-armed, better-led enemy, who withstood their attack and delivered a crushing counterblow. The defeat, as all the world sensed, was a tragedy not only for Cuba's exiles. It was a debacle for the U.S. as well. Through the offices of the Central Intelligence Agency and the Pentagon, the U.S. had done everything to assure success short of providing an air cover or sending
