FINALLY, AN OBJECTIVE FILM ON CUBA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01365R000300220004-9
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 22, 2004
• Sequence Number: 4
• Publication Date: July 3, 1971
• Content Type: MAGAZINE

1IT.VZF'?A) 2i'~t~TJ
Approved For Release 2005/018M: Jgfpj-RDP88-01365RR0003-002~00 ,-9 P 6 T
ec..I~ d
r , r,'....?,~ F i, ~?- w r l? r I # ,, rI f ,~.ti ~-.n -..)46 I e 1 C9'-
Finally, television has produced all vu- Life as it is in Castro's Cuba is a by-,
iective film on Cuba and Cuban exiles
living in this country. ? More surprising product of a. very human story emerging
;till, the film is the product ofWPBT, from myriad interviews taken on camera
Channel 2, Miami, in cooperation with -a butcher, a woman architect, an
the Corporation for Public Broadcast- executive editor ? of a newspaper taken
'in,,. The reader will recall assaults made' over by force-of arms, Cuban youngsters,
on -the public conscience by such NET a housewife, a fisherman who escaped
productions as "Report from Cuba," with his wife by small boat, even chap-
"Three Faces of Cuba," and that latest crones at a teen-age party in Miami.
film abortion, "Fidel!" which is now Scenes taken of Cubans arriving at
making its rounds of college campuses Miami International Airport, fear and
under the auspices of radical groups. apprehension sketched into their almost
The latest venture into the Cuban
political controversy is "This Exile and
.,,,/This Stranger." In a filmed introduc-
tion, George Dooley, president of
Miami's Wl'BT, Channel 2, has the
temerity to say: "To tell the personal
story of the Cubans in America, we have
called upon the only qualified authority
-the only expert on the subject-the
Cuban exiles themselves."
Dooley heightens his risk of political
decapitation -at the hands of enraged
liberals by also giving a few facts about
pre-Castro Cuba, saying: "Before Fidel
Castro, Cuba, when compared with
other Latin American countries,, had a
-remarkably high standard of living. The
small country of Cuba was fifth in per
,capita literacy, fourth in gross national
product, third in medicine, and, in the
.field of communication, first in the own-
ership of television and radio sets."
Mr. Dooley notes that any number
of statistical studies attesting to
the industry and progress of the
Cuban exile have been made. But
hei also notes that the human story
of Cuban exiles-why they left Cuba,
?. their fears, hopes and frustrations,
has remained untold on the screen.
Producer Bill Chastain (winner of -a
Peabody Award last year) takes it from
there. There is no script. The viewer is
spared the preaching of a narrator who
hauls witnesses before the camera to sup-
port his views. Thus, the one-hour film
adroitly avoids the pitfalls. into which
"on-the-spot," made-in-Cuba (viz: Mike
Wallace of CBS, for example) preach-
ments inevitably fall.
By PAUL.D: BETHEL
for his face is not like my face and his
speech is strange, you have denied Amer-
ica with that word."
-These words set the stage for what
follows-a lively hour of both education
I and entertainment as the Cuban exiles
tell of their life in 'a strange land, and
why they came here.
They tell how, each in. his own way,
they counted on U.S. help to save them
from communism, trace their bitterness
to our faltering resolve at the gay of
Pigs with it repeat performance during
the missile crisis and feel that the lodge-
ment of Soviet power in Cuba is taken
much too lightly in this country.
But they are also reaching a new
maturity, perhaps an understanding that
Cuba is not the only point of friction
and confrontation between two irrecon-
cilable ideologies and come up with a
resolve of their own that somehow,'some
,way, the Cubans must liberate their
country.
Not all those interviewed will go back
to a liberated homeland. A young girl
articulates this point. of view, saying:
"I feel Cuban but I also feel American.
I was brought up in this country." Time
after time, Cuban exiles say they want to
"visit" Cuba but have no plans to live,
there-'principally the youth.
But it is' also youths who tell how the
Castro regime steals everything from
those who intend to leave the country.
And there is remarkable unanimity
among even those who do not intend to
return that Cuba must be liberated...
Most Cubans found out that exchanC-
in~;. Fuirjencio f3s?Itista for Fidel Castro
was no bar,gain.
sleep-walking transit from airplane to
"Freedom House," heart-wrenching
shots of these pitiful refugees sobbing as
they clench small welcome gifts given by
Cuban-organized committees in Miami
and the wordless, frantic embraces be-
tween exile and newly arrived refugee,
tell more about the decade of terror
living under Fidel Castro's Communist
regime than reams of copy.
Ironically, the short introduction at
the beginning of the film has unidentified
American voices 'complaining: "You
have to speak Spanish here today to get
a tank of gas.... I said they oughta go
Approved For Release 2005/01/13 : CIA-RDP88-01365R000300220004-9
back to Cuba, and I meant that....!
just don't like it, Cubans taking jobs of
? the Negroes 'cause they work for lower
wages...."
As the viewer straightens in his chair,
the camera follows a white-haired Cuban
lady shopping in Miami's "little Ha-
vana," then freezes on her lined face as'
the famous words of poet Steven Vincent
Benet 'flash on the screen, read by a
powerful voice:
"Remember, that when you say I will
,.,.~"have none of this exile and this stranger, ..
Co]Jti 1t,lo~i