THE BEARS IN CUBA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000301900059-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 8, 2012
• Sequence Number: 59
• Publication Date: February 3, 1982
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/11/08: CIA-RDP90-00965R000301900059-8
1'?'""
ON F.ACIE.. 423
THE WASHINGTON POST
3 February 1982
Rowland Evans and Robert Novak
The Bears in Cuba
An early warning signal has been flashed to.
President Reagan that defense-oriented sena-
tors, many of them solid Reaganites, will break
their self-imposed silence and demand decisive
U.S. action against the Soviet arms buildup in
Cuba, using a political, backdrop that could em-
barrass the president.
That backdrop is the drama of President Jahn
F. Kennedy's spectacular success in backing: down
the Soviet Union in the 1962 Cuban missile crisis.
What gives piquancy to the deinand for action is
the new disclosure that Cuban airfields now oper-
ate as a base for the Soviet -T1J95 heavy bomber details and documents of the 1962 agreements
called the Bear?far .superior to the 11.28 that (that resolved the missile crisis) between John
Kennedy insisted be withdrawn.- . J. NIcCloy, representing the United States; and
Despite the.rising demand for action by an ad- Vasily Ktiznets4w, then 'a high-ranking official
minietration that has been talking tough on Cuba in the Soviet Foreign Office, - -
and the Caribbean for a full year, but carrying. The subcommittee, headed. by Sen. Jesse _
small stick, the consensus within Reagan's national " 'Helms, means business, hut the State Depart-. 'T
security bureaucracy was described to us this ment is exhibiting signs of wariness Senate in .
"We all agree the Soviets are developing-a fantastic' i ' siders say the administration"does not want to.
strategicoppertunity." But as for the U.S: unter4-t reveal the fine print of the written and oral un-: -;
action, well, let's see what happens. dertakings by the, Soviets in the so-called -
Twenty years ago, when the United States still "McCloy-Kuznetsov agreements." A . closed-
hold an unequivocar military margin (wer the dor Session scheduled for this. week was-post-..
Soviets, Kennedy extended the missile crisis he.- poned for at least another week:
bond mere Soviet agreement to pull out the medi- Rising. Senate -agitation is based on the sitspi-
tim-range missiies surreptitiously unloaded on cion, now nearing conviction, that the NIcClov-
Cuban wharfs. He insisted. also, on the with- Kuenetsov agreements have been torn to shreds by
draival of the Cuban-based 1L288. 'Moscowi The essence of those:agreements waif an
STAT
Congressional agitation has been rising for
months over U.S. intelligence reports that
Soviet weapons have been piling up in Fidel
Castro's Cuba. But the latest intelligence added
a new dimension: Cuban-based TU95s, the air-
craft classified in the SALT II treaty as the pri-
mary Soviet heavy bomber, have been engaged
in reconnaissance flights against U.S. naval ves-
sels along the Atlantic Coast for the first time.
The Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee
that oversees Latin America and the Caribbean
has asked State Department officials to give it
embargo. on "offensive" weapons in Cuba that
could be.used either against the United States or
in Cuban' political manipulations against Central
America or elsewhere in the Caribbean.
-
Assuming the accuracy of American intelligence,
the presence of Soviet Bear bombers on any one of
nine different airfields -equipped to.bandle them
amounts to a quantum jump in- proliferation of
more ambiguous Soviet weapons. Crates recently
unloaded from Soviet vessels are acknowledged to
contain MiG23s, i late-model Soviet fighter that
has been present in Cuba for many months. Some
specialists, however, believe they may contain the
bomber Version of the ?MiG23, known as the
MiG27; .which-. would also appear to be a clear
violation of the -1962agreement
Administration officials correctly fear that
the coming Senate probe points to far more dif-
ficulties for the president than Merely identify" -
ing CastrO's: most recent Soviet' acquisitions.
The true target iii he president's curious lassi-
tude in adopting a consistent policy to deal with'
Cuba's central role in spreading Marxist revolu=
tion orcivirwar.. throughout Central America...
. ;What the senators are- after-is, candid,' public.
recitation of the extent and significance of the.
Soviet arms shipments, their use by Cuba Mid"
what the Reagan administration is going to do
about it. It may bee lot more than they get.
; 'oisori:Fi4cient;ereet-;irec.:
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/11/08: CIA-RDP90-00965R000301900059-8