Where Did Everybody Go?

Down she plunged into a block of newly laid, quick-drying concrete. Yetta Samovar's last words as the concrete hardened about her were, "Solidarity forever!" --Max Shulman in

Barefoot Boy with Cheek

And so it went for the international Continental Congress of Solidarity with Cuba that planned to convene in Brazil last week. All of Fidel's overseas friends were expected: Bertrand Russell, Jean-Paul Sartre, Russian Author Vanda Vasilevskaya, Mexico's ex-President Lazaro Cardenas, British Guiana's Janet Jagan, and a couple hundred more. Castro planned to send a large delegation; placards were printed and street demonstrations planned to take place in Sao Paulo and Rio. The organizers felt so sure of themselves that they sent a delegation trooping into the office of Foreign Minister Hermes Lima with a request for courtesies for the visitors: diplomatic privileges, local transportation, an official reception. And wouldn't it be nice if President Joao Goulart would serve as honorary president of the whole shebang?

After all, they figured, Goulart was an old friend of the left, and Brazil's ambitions to be neutralist had made it one of the most conspicuous foot-draggers on any move to censure Cuba. But lately, Goulart has been exchanging letters with President Kennedy, has had a visit from Brother Bobby, and has been successfully negotiating with the U.S. for more financial aid. Without warning, the Solidarity Congress organizers found themselves trapped, tricked, merry-go-rounded, bureaucratized, buck-passed, blind-alleyed and discriminated against by Brazilian officialdom from Goulart on down.

No Visas. The Reds got their first inkling of trouble from Foreign Minister Lima. Fixing the delegation with an icy stare, Lima informed it that "the congress is inopportune" and that there would be no official courtesies forthcoming. Then Moscow reported that Russia's entire delegation--Authoress Vasilevskaya included --had been refused visas without explanation by the Brazilian embassy.

In Mexico, Brazilian diplomats called on influential Mexican authorities to convince them that it would be a good idea to keep Lazaro Cardenas at home. Brazil's embassy in Mexico City then announced that a new rubber stamp was needed to validate tourist cards--and apologized to waiting Mexican and Cuban delegations that the stamp had not yet arrived from Brazil. It never did.

In Sao Paulo, search as they might for a suitable meeting hall, the congress organizers found nothing available. When the organizers finally rented a hall in Rio, Guanabara State Governor Carlos Lacerda, a onetime leftist who has become the most outspoken enemy of the Communists in all Brazil, took his own steps. First he sent his military aides to see President Goulart's military aides and ask what would be the presidential reaction if he banned the congress altogether. Answer: What are you waiting for?

No Nothing. Invoking a 1953 antisubversion law written by the man who is now Goulart's Justice Minister, Lacerda forbade the meeting. When a group of 42 anti-Lacerda Congressmen protested to Goulart, the President passed the protest on to his press secretary, who passed it to the Foreign Minister, who passed it to the Justice Minister, who had written the law. Said the Justice Minister: "Lacerda's action was juridically perfect."

Lacerda stationed one detail of police around the Rio meeting hall, sent another to guard an alternate meeting hall, and a third to raid congress headquarters and impound Communist propaganda and posters of Fidel. The leftist press was fit to be tied (HERR LACERDA! cried one headline). The telephone at the Communist Party's official mouthpiece Novos Rumos went dead, and no one at telephone headquarters (run by the army) seemed able to fix it.

At last the congress organizers found a substitute meeting hall in Niteroi, across the bay from Rio and outside Lacerda's jurisdiction. But as the delegates prepared to take the ferry, Lacerda's police arrested 45 of them on unspecified charges. That, it seemed, was going too far. Goulart's Justice Minister grumped that Lacerda had violated the constitution, and, over Lacerda's loud objections, state police guards were replaced with Brazilian troops at the city's federal installations.

Nevertheless, the ban stood. When the congress met across the bay, only half of the expected 2,000 delegates were on hand. "Cuba is not alone!'' was their theme. But last week in Rio, she almost was.

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