Speech #880008846

When it is completed it will stand not only as h memorial to the Bay of Pigs fiasco but as one to the miserable failure of the United States to deal effectively with what now has become an entrenched Communist bridgehead In the Western Hemisphere. Despite White House denials that there has been a recent Soviet "military influx" into Cuba evidence accumulates that the Russians are continuing to strengthen their Cuban arsenal and that the United States is doing nothing about it. While the Pentagon and State Department shrug off such reports. they are largely supported by stories of refugees coming out of Cuba who say that both Russian troops and arms continue to pour into the island. One might feel more confidence in the Governments intelligence reports had not their shortcomings been evident during the missile buildup last fall. Defense Secretary McNamara told a congressional committee late last week that the Russian missiles were secretly loaded and transported to Cuba in the holds of large Soviet ships. "Since all the strategic missileassociated equipment. such as erectors and transporters. and the missiles themselves were concealed in the holds of the ships and unloaded under the cover of darkness. and under most stringent Sovietcontrolled security restrictions. photographic surveillance at the time was unable to discover the initial introduction of offensive missiles into Cuba." How can the Pentagon be so certain that the same technique is not now being employed to smuggle arms and perhaps missiles into Cuba?