Focus on Washington

Eidetic Foggy Bottom historians will recall that some time around Jan. 1, 1959, Fidel Castro established a Marxist-Leninist government in Havana and announced there were more to come elsewhere in Latin America. Categorical recorders of the ins-and-outs of State Department hemispheric policy – may even remember that shortly after the Cuban missile crisis of October 1962, the official line had it that Moscow was fed up with Castro and would not long spend $1 million a day to prop up his regime. Almost five years and $2 billion later, the Department, having been caught with its détente down in the Middle East, is now being warned that Fidel Castro is not only still alive, but getting along very well in Venezuela, Colombia, Guatemala, Bolivia and other points south. In a special report, to be released momentarily, the House Subcommittee on Inter-American Affairs, headed by Rep. Armistead I. Selden (D., Ala.), says that Moscow-supplied and Castro-directed guerrilla activities are moving from amber to red danger stage in those four countries. Elsewhere in the report, the House Subcommittee deals brusquely with the apparent inability of the Organization of American States to move quickly or firmly enough to handle Castro-inspired eruptions in Central and South America; and questions whether State is taking sufficiently “forceful” diplomatic and economic steps to discourage trading with the Castro government. Responding, a Department witness told the House panel that as far as State knows, “the overall situation is better than it was several years ago, although probably slightly worse than last year,” i.e., either improving at a deteriorating rate or deteriorating at an improving rate. . . . Moscow is even getting an extra-continental bonus for its largesse. Subcommittee testimony confirms the intelligence that Castro guerrilla cadres are operating in several African countries, training native irregulars in the conduct of “wars of national liberation.” Mañana el mundo.

With unerring inaccuracy, the President’s National Crime Commission in recent weeks has been lobbing shells over, around and about its ostensible target, issuing supplemental reports dealing with the derelictions and shortcomings of police efficials, municipal authorities, parole and rehabilitation agencies—that is, just about everybody except the perpetrators of crime, who, after all, are victims of society, etc. Now, however, two House committees have reported out bills dealing with the purported problem. The House Judiciary Committee approved “The Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice Act”’—name-changed from the “Safe Streets Act” because Republican members objected to the Democrats’ running off with the GOP 1964 (and 1968?) campaign slogan. Reflecting the President’s view that crime is “embedded in the conditions of our society,” this bill authorizes state and local grants ($50 million the first year) to develop “new approaches” to law enforcement. Meanwhile, with crime statistics taking a quantum jump in the Capitol itself, the House District of Columbia Committee has put through (by a margin of 355-14) its Omnibus D.C. Crime Bill, which would plug some of the holes drilled in local law enforcement by recent federal court decisions. The President vetoed the Omnibus D.C. Crime Bill passed by the 89th Congress, but sponsors are hopeful that incorporated changes will meet his former objections. If not, ventures one member of the District Committee, LBJ could find a second veto overridden by senators and congressmen increasingly apprehensive over the safety of their families and staff members.

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Harry S. Truman

Eidetic Foggy Bottom historians will recall that some time around Jan. 1, 1959, Fidel Castro established a Marxist-Leninist government in Havana and announced there were more to come elsewhere in Latin America. Categorical recorders of the ins-and-outs of State Department hemispheric policy – may even remember that shortly after the Cuban missile crisis of October 1962, the official line had it that Moscow was fed up with Castro and would not long spend $1 million a day to prop up his regime. Almost five years and $2 billion later, the Department, having been caught with its détente down in the Middle East, is now being warned that Fidel Castro is not only still alive, but getting along very well in Venezuela, Colombia, Guatemala, Bolivia and other points south. In a special report, to be released momentarily, the House Subcommittee on Inter-American Affairs, headed by Rep. Armistead I. Selden (D., Ala.), says that Moscow-supplied and Castro-directed guerrilla activities are moving from amber to red danger stage in those four countries. Elsewhere in the report, the House Subcommittee deals brusquely with the apparent inability of the Organization of American States to move quickly or firmly enough to handle Castro-inspired eruptions in Central and South America; and questions whether State is taking sufficiently “forceful” diplomatic and economic steps to discourage trading with the Castro government. Responding, a Department witness told the House panel that as far as State knows, “the overall situation is better than it was several years ago, although probably slightly worse than last year,” i.e., either improving at a deteriorating rate or deteriorating at an improving rate. . . . Moscow is even getting an extra-continental bonus for its largesse. Subcommittee testimony confirms the intelligence that Castro guerrilla cadres are operating in several African countries, training native irregulars in the conduct of “wars of national liberation.” Mañana el mundo.

With unerring inaccuracy, the President’s National Crime Commission in recent weeks has been lobbing shells over, around and about its ostensible target, issuing supplemental reports dealing with the derelictions and shortcomings of police efficials, municipal authorities, parole and rehabilitation agencies—that is, just about everybody except the perpetrators of crime, who, after all, are victims of society, etc. Now, however, two House committees have reported out bills dealing with the purported problem. The House Judiciary Committee approved “The Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice Act”’—name-changed from the “Safe Streets Act” because Republican members objected to the Democrats’ running off with the GOP 1964 (and 1968?) campaign slogan. Reflecting the President’s view that crime is “embedded in the conditions of our society,” this bill authorizes state and local grants ($50 million the first year) to develop “new approaches” to law enforcement. Meanwhile, with crime statistics taking a quantum jump in the Capitol itself, the House District of Columbia Committee has put through (by a margin of 355-14) its Omnibus D.C. Crime Bill, which would plug some of the holes drilled in local law enforcement by recent federal court decisions. The President vetoed the Omnibus D.C. Crime Bill passed by the 89th Congress, but sponsors are hopeful that incorporated changes will meet his former objections. If not, ventures one member of the District Committee, LBJ could find a second veto overridden by senators and congressmen increasingly apprehensive over the safety of their families and staff members.