Soviet troops in Cuba

Bob Hope used to have a joke – in fact he still has it – which stands him in good stead every time a new man announces for the presidency or drops a strong hint that he's after it. In its present version, with the names changed for topicality, it goes: 'Teddy Kennedy has his eye on the presidential seat but look what Carter's got!'

When the sitting president was Franklin Roosevelt, this sally packed a neat bit of folk wisdom because it reminded people how hard it is to unseat a powerful president who is skilled at using his vast resources of presidential patronage, not to mention Roosevelt's incomparable gift of creating whole bureaus of quangos. But today the old joke is almost a joke on Mr Carter because only one American in four thinks he has any gift for power and people are much more suspicious than they used to be about presidential appointments, especially when they look like investments in political insurance. 

Well, at the beginning of the week, something happened that must have made President Carter all the more eager to flourish his presidential power while at the same time trying hard not to look as if he were doing it for political purposes. Senator Edward Kennedy said, years ago, that his great responsibility to the fatherless children of his two murdered brothers ruled him out as a candidate for the presidency. A lot of Americans would have added, too, that the nasty memory of the girl drowned in his car on that island off the coast of Massachusetts would rule him out even more. 

But a few months ago, a reliable poll of the whole country showed that, at the very least, 75 per cent of Americans no longer hold the Chappaquiddick tragedy against him and last week Senator Kennedy let it be known that his mother, his wife, the rest of his family, had dropped their long-standing objections to his running for the president. He's been saying, for a year or more, that he is not a candidate and that he intends to support the re-nomination of President Carter. But there was no need for Senator Kennedy to make a public announcement of his family's new attitude unless he wished to signal a new intention to run. 

For months on end the polls have been showing that in a presidential election held today, while Mr Carter would run neck and neck with the most prominent Republican hopefuls – neck and neck at best, such as Reagan and former President Ford – Senator Kennedy would swamp any Republican in sight. The senator said the other night that he wasn't announcing yet, but he would make up his mind in the next two or three months. It would depend most of all, he said, on whether or not President Carter was able to revive the sagging American economy. 

Now all this is plainly treading water before taking the big plunge. That, at any rate, was the effect of it on the country. 'Kennedy for President' groups and 'Draft Teddy' groups have been champing at the bit for many months. The senator's statement affected them like a battle order. They're organising from Alaska to Florida and even prominent Democrats in Congress who might have been expected to 'button their mouths' if only so as not to embarrass Mr Carter, are making public statements devoid of tact. 

The Speaker of the House, who is only, incidentally, its presiding chairman but is mainly the Democrats leader in the House, quite blithely said, talking of the Democratic convention next summer, 'I don't think Senator Kennedy can be denied the Democratic nomination if he runs.' This is an astounding thing to be said by President Carter's chief spokesman in the House of Representatives and represents, I think, an act of pulling the rug out from under an incumbent, which the incumbent's congressional leaders do not usually perform. 

This turn of events was greeted, understandably, by a sniff from the president's chief aides in the White House and they retorted, as they were bound to do, that the president is more concerned with great issues that affect the country and not with presidential politics. He wants above all, he said, to try and get through this session of Congress an energy bill and the passage of the second Strategic Arms Limitation Bill. Well, he's had the worst trouble getting any sort of energy bill to come up for a vote for over 18 months, but now a new snag has appeared in the way of the Strategic Arms Limitation, the SALT bill. 

It's this plaguey matter of the appearance in Cuba of 3,000 Russian troops, plainly, according to American intelligence and photographic records, organised as a combat brigade. The Russians say they are not combat troops, just part of the Soviet team of technicians and military advisers who've been training Cubans in the use of Soviet weapons. This is not, of course, anything like the thundering shock that hit us in 1962 when American reconnaissance planes discovered the Russians had nuclear missiles and launching pads already installed in Cuba. 

That discovery, and the subsequent Soviet denials of any such installations, and their final agreement to remove the non-existent weapons and facilities in the face of a massive mobilisation of American naval and air power in the Caribbean, that whole episode gave us the most nervous weekend since the Second World War. But the brazenness of this new Russian move and the conviction, even of senators friendly to Cuba, that the troops are, indeed, fully-equipped Russian combat troops, this has been snapped up by senatorial hawks and doves alike as a gauntlet. 

Maybe the Russians meant it to be a gauntlet or at least a provocation – see how Washington reacts and then, after an almighty row in the Senate say, 'Very well, we still assure you that these troops are no different from any others who've been there for years, but we will be magnanimous, we will bow to your hysteria and we'll take the troops out if you'll pass the SALT Treaty.' 

If this was the motive it seems, at the moment, to be working for although President Kennedy* [see note below] says the troop issue has nothing to do with SALT and we shouldn't be trapped into making them a quid pro quo deal, a rising opposition in the Senate thinks differently. And even Senator Church, the leading proponent of the SALT II bill and the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that's been taking reams of testimony for and against the bill, he said, 'I see no likelihood that the Senate will ratify the SALT II treaty as long as any Soviet combat troops remained stationed in Cuba.' 

What complicates a straightforward pro and con debate is the well-reported attitude of those senators who've been urging ratification of SALT. They've been saying that the treaty essentially protects the American nuclear power whatever the Russians do with conventional arms. So why should 3,000 Russians in Cuba throw everybody into panic? The Russians, of course, say, 'How about your hundreds of thousands of American and NATO troops in Europe?' The debate is at the moment bogged down in the emotions of a vendetta, mainly, I suspect, because of a slogan that developed great emotional force during the missile crisis of 1962. The cry was then that the Russians were installing nuclear weapons 'only 90 miles from Florida' – and that phrase has been waved again like a red rag in the Senate. Very few people take out a map and measure the mileage between American troops in Europe and the borders of the Soviet Union. Maybe the Germans do. 

Anyway, by the time you hear these words, the Soviet ambassador in Washington and Mr Vance, the Secretary of State, may have achieved what Mr Vance has been hoping for and talking about ever since the troops were spotted – a diplomatic solution. Whatever it is, it will have to be one that satisfies the Senate and however it comes out, the Russians move has undoubtedly sharpened the suspicions and perhaps the resolve of the opponents of the SALT treaty in the Senate. 

Much, er... much play was made here of the announcement last Monday that a British concern had paid out $630 million in cash to buy out the Howard Johnson chain which has over a thousand restaurants and 500 motels in 40 of the states and Canada. At first glance it may seem odd that this item should have hit not only the front pages but the nightly television news. After all, British companies in the past year or two have bought out at least two of New York's most famous department stores, a national grocery chain and at least two department store supermarket chains. But I think if you asked any New Yorker, certainly, who owns Saks, Fifth Avenue or the famous Gimbels, they would fish around in their minds for names, American names, and would be startled to hear that they are British owned. 

But Howard Johnson’s – why should that alarm the country? The answer came on the NBC nightly news, posed, I hasten to say with a wry chuckle, as a question. 'Will the British be able to guarantee us walnut twirl and strawberry sprinkle?' Not to mention the other 26 flavours of ice cream which have been the boast of Howard Johnson's service for two, maybe three, generations. The nicest comment appeared under headlines in the New York Times, headlines that at first looked as if they might have been written by S. J. Perelman, the best, the most lunatic of America's humorists. But surprise, surprise, the piece was written by a United States senator and a Republican, a combination not usually famous for humour. 

The headline read, 'Fiendish plot. Texan denounces Britain's deal for Howard Johnson's as threat to cherry vanilla! Hands off the Lone Star state's pecans! Seizure of Bermuda hinted as reprisal.' 

The piece was written by Senator John Tower of Texas. It began: 'Notice of the fall of yet another venerable American institution to blatant foreign economic adventurism is always demoralising, but the latest news really gets me. The thought of hundreds of Howard Johnson's restaurants along our interstate highways flying the Union Jack is more than any ice-cream loving red-blooded American can take. How would the House of Commons feel if the flag of Texas were hoisted over Fortnum & Masons? Is this the way for an old and honoured ally to act? 

'It was with great exaltation that conservatives everywhere greeted the new government in Britain but all along, its free enterprise policy flourished under the pervasive cover of socialist economic doctrine to the extent of having $630 million in cash with which to spread neo-imperialist tentacles. This latest affront is a major step towards the re-colonisation of America. Wake up America! Colonel Sanders, Pizza Hut and Texas Taco Bell may be next!'

[*NOTE: Cooke did say 'President Kennedy' but this is obviously a slip of the tongue. However, whether he meant to say Senator Kennedy or President Carter is unclear.]

This transcript was typed from a recording of the original BBC broadcast (© BBC) and not copied from an original script. Because of the risk of mishearing, the BBC cannot vouch for its complete accuracy.

Letter from America audio recordings of broadcasts ©BBC

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