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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, JUNE 29, 1984
PAGE 5
Castro's move provided a stunning turnabout to Jackson's Central American
"peace mission," which until that time had met with only limited success.
The move by the wily Fidel, of course, left the Reagan Administration em
barrassed, as it was months earlier when Jackson secured the release of a
downed U.S. airman in Syria. Both acts, of course, narrowly skirted the
legality of the Logan act, which forbids private citizens from negotiating
with foreign governments.
Perhaps the most significant event on Jackson's Cuban sojourn was an
appearance before students at Havana University.
There he received a
lengthy ovation when he finished a speech by proclaiming: "Long live Cuba.
Long live the United States. Long live President Castro. Long live Martin
Luther King. Long live Che Guevara. Long live Patrice Lumumba. Our time
has come." Lumumba was the first Prime Minister of Zaire, and was murdered
in 1981. Guevara, Castro's top lieutenant in fomenting revolution through
out Latin America, was slain in Bolivia in 1967.
Before leaving Cuba with some of the freed Cubans and Americans, Jackson
made a quick trip over to Managua, capital of Marxist-run Nicaragua (whose
national anthem proclaims America as the "enemy of mankind"). While there
the Democratic Party contender criticized rightest groups working to
overthrow the Sandinista government of Nicaragua, but he did not criticize
Nicaraguan-supported leftist guerrillas fighting against the elected
government of El Salvador. Jackson, in fact, in a statement particularly
galling to both the White House and State Department, urged the Sandinista
regime to continue fighting for "final victory" over its enemies.
After he returned to Havana for the return flight home, Jackson met again
with Castro in an airport VIP room. Although Jackson does not smoke, the
two of them both lit up cigars which Jackson referred to as "peace pipes."
The Democratic candidate, in a way, had his comeuppance in Washington.
After disembarking from Jackson's chartered plane, Andres Vargas Gomez, who
had served 22 years as a political prisoner in Cuba, reminded Jackson and
others gathered that "to go to Cuba to join in a moral offensive with
President Fidel Castro is a moral offense..•• I cannot be here and allow
that you might believe that Fidel Castro is a human being•..and that we are
here on account of his kindness."
Jackson stood by impassionately while Vargas Gomez spoke, then added:
"That's free speech. I have a different point of view." Later, as if to
defend Castro's humanity, Jackson recalled how the two of them with their
parties "went to church" in Havana.
Even his "Long live Che Guevara" outcry must take second place to another
remark Jackson made in Panama, where he stopped en route to Havana. In
Panama he denounced America's construction of the fabled Panama Canal as "a
badge of disgrace to Americans for its role in the process of de
humanizing" Panama's people.
Jackson, it would seem, is on a one-man
campaign to repudiate American history and heritage.
Gruesome Movie Is Latest Box Office Smash Hit
The Memorial Day weekend (May 26-28) witnessed the preview of a new block
buster movie, INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM. Excited audiences,
many of them teens and pre-teens, had anxiously awaited this sequel to