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CIA 'GOOFS’ AGAIN

Facts disprove Soviet ‘slump’

By WILLIAM DEVINE
(Canadian Tribune)

nce again the Central Intelli-
©. Agency has lifted its
cloak and poised its dagger for
another desperate attack on
socialism.

This time it is loudly heralding
‘<facts’? to prove the economy of
the Soviet Union has slumped
badly during the last two years
and that Soviet gold reserves are
way down,

Just how ‘‘intelligent’’ is the
agency on this score?

Readers will recall the accur-
acy of its reports prior to the
U.S.-sponsored 1961 Bay of Pigs
invasion of Cuba. It predicted
that country would rise as one
man to overthrow the govern-
ment of Premier Fidel Castro
just as soon as a spark was
provided to activate the popula-
tion.

When the Eisenhower adminis-
tration wanted propaganda to
boost armaments, the CIA ob-
liged with ‘‘missile gap’”’ stories
—and figures—to show American
inferiority to Russian rocket
strength,

The Kennedy adiginistration
changed the line, anu the CIA
promptly obliged with ‘‘proof’’
the Russians were inferior both
in missiles and troops.

* * *

Now the New York Times has
disclosed the real reason behind
the latest stories about the
Soviet economy.

It was the intention of the
U.S. government, that paper said,
to use the CIA ’’intelligence’’
as an argument ‘‘to persuade
West European countries not to
extend large export credits to
the Soviet Union.’’

When it comes to the Soviet
economy, however, what, in fact,
are the facts?

The New Year’s message of the
Soviet government and Commun-
ist Party gave some of them. It
stressed that last year Soviet in-
dustry topped the gross output

This 50,000-kilowatt steam turbine, produced at Leningrad, was
shipped to India for its thermal power station at Korba. It followed
a similar turbine, shipped earlier. Despite enormous aid to dozens of
countries, the economy of the USSR continues to expand rapidly.

TARGET by more than two per
cent.

The Russian Federation has
already produced 24 billion
roubles’ worth of goods over
and above the target figures. The
industry of Moscow, Leningrad,
Latvia, Udmurtia, and of the
Moscow, Tula, Voronezh and Kal-
inin regions, has attained the
level planned for 1965—the last
year of the current seven-year
plan period.

Industry in the Ukraine has
reached the 1965 plan level in
production of major industrial
goods,

* * *

As to claims about Soviet gold
shortages, Britain’s biggest
bullion brokers, reports’ the
British Daily Worker, have ridi-
culed the CIA thesis:

Said one spokesman; ‘‘If pro-
duction is so low, where did all
the gold come from for postwar
sales to the West?”’

The paper also reported one
of Britain’s biggest banks poured
cold water on claims the Soviet
economy was on the downgrade.

The Times of London spoke of
*“‘surprise’’ and ‘‘scepticism’”’
about the CIA claims,

Gratuitously, the CIA did pre-
dict some improvement in the

Soviet economy in the future—
but not much.

On this point, Anatoli Efimov,
director of the economic re-
search institute of the state plan-
ning committee of the USSR,
wrote that Soviet gross indus-
trial output will increase by 17.5
percent during 1964-65, while
the chemical industry will in-
crease by 36 percent.

* * *

The accelerated development
of the chemical industry, Efimov
stated, will greatly enlarge the
raw material base of industry,
provide the most effective means
for ratsing agricultural output
and insure an increase in the
production and improvement of
consumer goods,

He said the stepped-up tempo
of the chemical industry will be
a boost to every major branch of
industry, including such key in-
dustries as atomic energy, radio
electronics, rocketry and semi-
conductors,

Writing in the U.S. Worker,
American economist Victor
Perlo used _ internationally-
accepted United Nations’ figures
to show that from 1953-62 indus-

- trial production increased, on an

annual average, 4.3 percent in
the industrialized capitalist
countries, 8.2 percent in the de-

LLU UII

{TAI A

veloping countries, and 10.7 per-
cent in the European socialist
countries, These world trends,
says Perlo, will continue.

In a fascinating manner, he
extends them over the next 20
years. “

He notes that for 120 years
American production per capita
increased faster than British by
a mere one-half of one percent
yearly, yet this was sufficient to
produce the present substantial
difference in the level of aver-
age output per head in the two
countries,

Perlo uses this method of
*<«compound interest rates’’ oper- °
ating over long periods of time
and concludes;

From nearly three-fourths of
world output in 1953, the ad-
vanced capitalist countries will
fall to less than half by 1972 and
about one-third in 1982.

The European socialist coun-
triea had one-fifth of total output
in 1953, will rise to over two-
fifths in 1972 and well over one-
half by 1982.

Data for China and other Asian
socialist countries were not in-
cluded in the statistics used, and.
neither Cuba’s nor Yugoslavia’s
output is included with the soci-
alist group.

In addition the figures do not
take account of the probability
that a number of ‘‘developing’’
countries will be building planned
socialist industrial economies
20 years from now, nor the
possibility that some capitalist

-countries will shift gears from

capitalism to socialism.

Another important factor in
assessing Soviet economy is the
amount of aid the USSR gives
to countries in Asia, Africa and
Latin America,

Since. 1955, 480 industrial and
other projects have been built
or are being built with Soviet
help in 24 of these countries.
The total sum of Soviet credits to
these countries exceeds three
billion roubles.

Central Intelligence Agency? It
should change its name.

‘Preposterous...’

The head of the Soviet Union's Central Statistical
Bureau, Dr. Starovsky, has refuted as ‘‘preposter-
ous’’ figures given by the U.S. Central Intelligence
Agency claiming Soviet economic growth in the past
two years amounted to only 2'2 percent a year,
compared to 3.7 in the U.S.

Dr. Starovsky said the real facts were Soviet
industrial output increased by 92 percent in 1962
compared to 1961, while all branches of material
output increased by six percent.

According to preliminary estimates, gross in-
dustrial output in 1963 increased by 8/2 percent,
while total production, despite unfavorable climatic
conditions, increased by five percent.

‘‘The conclusions of the CIA, ' said Dr. Star-
ovsky, ‘‘are so preposterous and unconvincing that
they are refuted not only by realistic Western
scientists, but even by bourgeois newspapers.’

LETTER FROM A CUB

A young Cuban student, Eduardo
Aguilla, wrote a letter toa Vancou-
ver member of the Canada-Cuba
Friendship Committee telling him
of the difficult days following the
hurricane and how the Cuban people
responded. The letter, which was
dated Dec. 1 from Rio Canto, Ori-
ente, is here abridged.

e
i n the days of the hurricane,

a law was made to conceal(or
retain) all parcels coming from
the U.S. and other countries be-
cause the relatives ofthe gusanos
that left Cuba were sending them
all kinds of things ... These
people used those articles to sell
them on -the black market and
therefore not work. These gus-
anos never cared to work be-
cause all they had to do was to
wait for a parcel and sell it at
very high prices,

‘Then there were also dis-
coveries made in these parcels,
like powerful small mines, ex-
plosive gelatin and a few other
articles for the purpose of sabo-
tage. The explosives came in food
cans, detergent boxes, coffee
jars, etc. Two main characters
found to have brought these things
were two Canadian pilots...

*So you see, your parcel was
checked in Havana and... sent

to a children’s garden or to a -

becado’s residential area, Thank
you very much... I never knew
the real meaning of solidarity
and I didn’t ‘stop to think about it
at the time of the hurricane...

Now that we have received, as you~
probably heard, so many contri-
butions from all people and many
governments, the situation looks
different. Quite different! Be sure
we thank you, all Canadians for

the contributions you have made.
* * *

‘‘Ryer since the hurricane
swept Oriente and Camaguey all
Cuba is practically mobilized in
the sense that everyone works
harder in order to improve all
necessities. The students of the
Central University have been

DEVASTATION BROUGHT BY HURRICANE FLORA. Picture shows coconut

working ‘voluntarily all week
ends, excepting those that we
had exams coming.

‘tWe have been working in dif-
ferent agricultural fields, but
that was not enough. We wanted
to go-to Oriente and work there,
So, we are in Oriente, in a place
called Rio Canto, in the side of
the same river that killed so many
of their relatives.

*‘The town is not big, it has a
population of nearly 2,000 andthe
region near it has 1,000. It has a
sugar mill which, of course, was

trees uprooted by the hurricane. Thirty-five lost their lives here.

oo bY 2 ¢ MEAL TTF

AN STUDENT

owned by Americans, It has good— rotting animals yet even though

construction and lovely colonial
houses. Wooden, all around pro-
tected with mosquito nets and
wooden floors also. Very com-
fortable. I am now living in one
of them along with sixteen’boys
from the university in the lower
floor. 5,

‘‘In a next door house to us
another sixteen boys are living.
We are one of the four brigades
that are here in Oriente and each
of them has around forty-eight
members. The other three brig-
ades are far from each other and
from us too.

‘‘The Canto, as I told you:

before, is our biggest and long-_

est river. It is navigable near to
its mouth by the sea. We are not
far from there, In this region:
all precautions were taken and
in spite of that 458 persons lost
their lives around here,

*¢T could tell you a million
stories that I’ve heard since
our arrival two days ago. These
people are brave, and there’s no
question about it!

* * *

‘‘The house where I’m staying
is one hundred feet away from
the actual riverside and about
one hundred, if not more, on a
small hill and the house was
mounted on pillars, It was full of
water up the chest.

*6you can see the houses all
filthy and muddy because they
haven’t clean water yet to get the
mud stains out. You can smell

January 24, 1964—PACIFIC TRIBU

they have been burned by large —

numbers. It’s aparadise for flies. |

‘¢There was acase ofthe sister
of a man I met today who got
drifted by the water and could hold
herself in a branch in a tree, and
she twisted her leg around that
tree branch. . . two days later
they were rescued, and her leg
could not go along because it was
so swelled up and twisted in the
branch, They hadto cut the branch
and with the branch came the
woman’s skin. But she saved
five persons. :

‘There were also around 200
people in the roof of a nearby
train station (which is not now)
and they had been there for four
days without anything to eat and
one of them got mad and took his
machette and started ‘‘giving the
works’’ (and) wounded 41 before
he was tied.

“There were many cases of
people who got in the top branch-
es of trees and during the fourth
and fifth days they started falling
down like ripe mangoes. Thosé
drowned helplessly.

“Some people fell asleep in the
towers of the sugar mills and
when the water came down they
couldn’t go down the towers, They
were rescued in helicopters.

‘¢And so I end this letter ex-
pressing again our gratitude to all
of you, friends of Cuba, who havé
helped us when we did need that
help.”’

E—Page 8 ©

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