Stone Scores Anti-Cuba Plot

U.S. policies toward Cuba are designed to "make it impossible for Castro to escape dependency on Moscow," I.F. Stone charged last night before the HRLU.

The eventual goal of this policy, Stone continued, is to provide the U.S. with an excuse for military intervention in Cuba.

From such an intervention the U.S. would lose, despite the possible conquest of Cuba. A successful military operation would require brutality enough to make the U.S. appear an "international bully," Stone declared. On the other hand, he added, military failure would make the U.S. appear "a paper tiger."

Stone decried the bellicose attitudes of Senator Kennedy and vice-President Nixon which have "whipped up a lynch mob spirit" against Cuba. The "brutal, inhuman stereotypes" of Castro are wholly untrue and serve to poison not only international affairs but the existence of free government in the U.S., he asserted.

After a ten day visit to Cuba in August, Stone said he had found that Castro is not a "Communist."