Stars and Stripes in Cuba

A Soviet freighter flying the hammer and sickle sails through the narrows, across the waters of the bay, and on to the Cuban port of Boqueròn. It has passed through the heart of Guantanamo Bay, the 45-square-mile base the United States Navy has had on the southeastern shore of Cuba since Teddy Roosevelt’s day. The informal agreement drawn up by the first Roosevelt in 1903 was formalized in 1934 under the second, as part of the Good Neighbor Policy. One provision of the treaty maintains that the waters of Guantanamo Bay are international; passage through them cannot be restricted. Another states that while the United States recognizes Cuban sovereignty over the area there is no time limit to U.S. use of the territory—unlike the British Crown’s lease of the New Territories in Hong Kong or, for that matter, the arrangements regarding U.S. bases in the Philippines and NATO bases in Europe, all of which have termination dates. Guantanamo (Gitmo, as it is called) remains American unless a) the U.S. abandons it or b) the lease is canceled by mutual consent.

Which is unlikely. Guantanamo, set up originally as a coaling station, is the only major U.S. naval base in the Caribbean. From it, vital shipping lanes —President Reagan’s “choke points”— are monitored. At the base, with its near perfect weather year round and wide, empty expanses of sea and sky, naval ships and planes are tested and their crews put through arduous training exercises. Guantanamo’s sophisticated repair facilities can handle most maintenance needs of ships in the area short of major overhaul. Caribbean drug operations are monitored from Guantanamo, and Coast Guard ships and planes provide rescue services for mariners in trouble—most recently, the desperate boat people of Haiti.

PL

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Priscilla L. Buckley

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A Soviet freighter flying the hammer and sickle sails through the narrows, across the waters of the bay, and on to the Cuban port of Boqueròn. It has passed through the heart of Guantanamo Bay, the 45-square-mile base the United States Navy has had on the southeastern shore of Cuba since Teddy Roosevelt’s day. The informal agreement drawn up by the first Roosevelt in 1903 was formalized in 1934 under the second, as part of the Good Neighbor Policy. One provision of the treaty maintains that the waters of Guantanamo Bay are international; passage through them cannot be restricted. Another states that while the United States recognizes Cuban sovereignty over the area there is no time limit to U.S. use of the territory—unlike the British Crown’s lease of the New Territories in Hong Kong or, for that matter, the arrangements regarding U.S. bases in the Philippines and NATO bases in Europe, all of which have termination dates. Guantanamo (Gitmo, as it is called) remains American unless a) the U.S. abandons it or b) the lease is canceled by mutual consent.

Which is unlikely. Guantanamo, set up originally as a coaling station, is the only major U.S. naval base in the Caribbean. From it, vital shipping lanes —President Reagan’s “choke points”— are monitored. At the base, with its near perfect weather year round and wide, empty expanses of sea and sky, naval ships and planes are tested and their crews put through arduous training exercises. Guantanamo’s sophisticated repair facilities can handle most maintenance needs of ships in the area short of major overhaul. Caribbean drug operations are monitored from Guantanamo, and Coast Guard ships and planes provide rescue services for mariners in trouble—most recently, the desperate boat people of Haiti.