Cold War continues in Cuba

By Lucia Newman
CNN Havana Bureau Chief

HAVANA -- Seventy-nine-year-old Manuel Lopez spends his days peacefully, tending his goats and chickens on his small farmhouse property in Pinar Del Rio Province.

Lopez's memory is not as good as it used to be, but he can never forget that once he owned the large expanse of land right in front of where he lives now -- a farm that was taken from him by the Cuban government in 1962 so it could be used as a Soviet missile base.

It was the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis -- what in Cuba is called "The Crisis of October." Whatever the name, it changed Manuel Lopez's life.

"I remember that period because every day I have to pass in front of the land where I once lived, where I was born," he says. "The Soviets treated us well and allowed us to go in to feed the animals, but we were not allowed to venture in too far. Still we knew that the huge trucks covered with canvases were carrying missiles."

The missiles were eventually removed, but Lopez's 50-year-old son, Omar, who was 14 at the time, insists that the fear of an armed confrontation between the United States and Cuba did not disappear.

"I grew up with the thought that there could be a war," says Omar Lopez.

Today there is very little to show that anything remarkable or unusual ever transpired in rural Pinar Del Rio, except for one thing: a cement and metal plaque in the middle of an abandoned field. It reads: "This is the site where a Soviet missile regiment was based during the October Crisis, 1962."

In a country like communist Cuba, which puts so much importance on historical events, political anniversaries and monuments, it is surprising to see just how unceremoniously the plaque is being treated. Perhaps it is a display of ambivalence by Cuba's leadership -- the same leadership that ruled in 1962.

A lot, of course, has changed since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. Not only are the Soviet bases gone, but so too is the old Soviet Union. Nevertheless, the crisis that was considered the most dangerous event in the Cold War, at least in this hemisphere, had a profound and lasting impact on Cuba.

In many ways, the Cold War is alive as ever in this country. All one has to do is drive along Cuba's National Highway and read the slogans painted along the main bridges.

"Only Iron And Bullets For The Enemy," proclaims one banner. Another reads: "All Of Us Together Must Deal The Blow To The Enemy."

The enemy today, as in the 1960s, remains U.S. imperialism.

Just outside of Havana, in the seaside suburb of Alamar, there are at least three underground shelters where residents such as Maria Del Carmen Leiva planned to go in case of a U.S. military invasion.

Citizens of all ages are taught and trained by the Civil Defense Forces to be prepared.

"If you are sleeping and there is an invasion, you have to run to where you already know you have to run. Here everyone in the country knows where they have to go," explains Leiva.

At the University of Havana, students are trained in self-defense and have been assigned shelters. The students know that their country came close to being at the center of a nuclear confrontation. But few of them fear a U.S. invasion anymore, despite the Cold War rhetoric.

"The threat is always there, of course," says Jaime, a law student. "But we, the younger generation, don't really worry about it. We feel safe, defended and sure about what we have achieved as a nation."

Many young people, however, do still live with what they see as the wrath of Washington.

"I feel attacked by the United States, because although the aggression is no longer physical, in the sense that the U.S. is going to come and throw bombs at me, it exists in the form of an embargo that the Americans have imposed on us," says 20-year-old Susana.

The United States declared an economic embargo against this island nation shortly after the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the embargo has been tightened over the years to make it more difficult not only for Americans but also for nationals of other countries to trade with Cuba. The rationale is that strong and consistent economic and political pressure will force the Cuban communist leadership to step down and open the way for a Western-style democratic system of government.

It's been nearly 40 years, and so far the plan has not worked. But those who defend communism in Cuba have no illusions either. The tension between Cuba and the United States remains -- only today it is more economic and ideological and less militaristic in nature.

While the form may have changed, the essence of the Cold War mentality has varied very little since the Cuban Missile Crisis.