The International Rescue Committee's direct involvement with Cuban refugees, which was initiated in New York 6 years ago and has since remained the committee's most substantial program activity, has reflected the existence of the two classes of refugees, those registered in Miami and those who bypassed the center on Biscayne Boulevard. Our New York intake statistics have consistently outran our Miami resettlement. In the official count we have been responsible for 42,000 refugees in Miami and have resettled 22,000 of them, or 52 percent. But while our Miami office carries the biggest caseload in IRC's history, New York is a close second. The New York office servicing the metropolitan area on both sides of the Hudson has handled the resettlement of over 10,000 "registered" refugees, it has received the steady flow of refugees arriving from Spain and other third countries, it has kept its doors open to "unregistered" refugees and it has operated a Cuban Clothing Center for all needy refugees. The clothing center alone has had 40,000 visitors during the 5 years of its existence. We cannot tell how many of them are repeaters.

There is a simple answer to the question why Cubans, once they accept the desirability of leaving Dade County, have exhibited such a marked preference for New York. In coming to New York they join its Hispanic community of hundreds of thousands, a city where Spanish is the second language, where they can read newspapers, where they can go to movies and join clubs and, most essential for a group so imbued with the solidarity of the extended family unit, where they find relatives and friends. All this implies that they are coming to a city which has learned to work with Spanish-speaking employees and, in some industries, depends on Spanish-speaking man

power.

There have always been Cubans in New York. The relatively small pre-Castro colony has done its share in welcoming and helping those who fled Batista's police as well as those who fled Castro's tyranny. However, in 1961 the Cubans were but a small fraction of the Spanish-speaking population of New York. When Cuban refugees moved into Spanish neighborhoods, their new neighbors were mainly Puerto Ricans, and it should be stressed with gratitude that Puerto Rican New Yorkers have received the exiles with kindness and have been helpful to many of them in a neighborly, unostentatious and thereby more effective way.

Not used to our developed social welfare system, the Cuban newcomers have been self-reliant and versatile in their efforts to gain an economic foothold, and they have shown diligent work habits. Ready to tackle jobs at any level, and usually unconcerned about their former status in Cuba, they have benefited from the relatively advantageous conditions of the labor market, and frequently have risen quickly to better-paying positions in the middle stratum of our industries. Right now our problem is more often where to find refugees to fill job offers than where to find jobs for refugees newly arriving in our city.

A letter received just the other day is characteristic of what we have tried to make clear. It was written by the manager of the Valley Seed & Supply Co. of Spring Valley. The company is interested in "obtaining the services of two men, preferably (but not a must) with

experience in warehouse receiving and shipping, and two or three men/or women to work in our Hampstead, Md. plant, about 20 miles from Baltimore, for work in packaging of our products." The letter stresses the "potential and opportunity for advancement with the company", and closes with the following paragraph:

We do have in our employ Gilbert Leyva who is of Cuban heritage, and started with us a few years ago. He has worked himself up to be our Production and Inventory Control Forecaster, and is one of our most valued associates. Needless to say, he is earning several times his original starting salary, and any interested person or persons can write to Mr. Leyva's personal attention to ask or inquire of anything concerning our company.

There have been many Leyvas in our "caseload," as we have been able to follow the process of economic upgrading in case after case. Not only New York's service industries have benefited from the flow of Cuban refugees, but New York's banks, department stores, insurance companies, export businesses, and, on the professional level, hospitals, engineering firms, and schools. Having often started in Spanish neighborhoods on Manhattan's West and East Side, and the Spanish sections of the Bronx and Brooklyn, they have discovered Queens as their economic condition improved. Today there are growing Cuban pockets in Astoria, Elmhurst, Flushing, Jackson Heights, Forest Hills, and even in the silk-stocking district of Manhattan.

At the same time new Cuban neighborhoods have developed in New Jersey. Especially for large families, it has been easier to provide housing in places like Hoboken, Newark, Elizabeth, Union City, and West New York, to name only those which have acquired more than 1.000 Cuban newcomers each. Increasingly, Cubans destined for New York and put up by the voluntary agencies in temporary housing move across the Hudson. And since the present stage of the airlift from Cuba emphasizes the concept of the "fireside unit," New York and New Jersey must cope with the problems of families who hereto fore consisted just of a nucleus, but are suddenly augmented by the other members of the immediate family as well as other relatives if they shared the same household. For them the school and welfare offices have done an outstanding job.

There has been close cooperation between the private and public agencies, and we wish to take this opportunity to express our thanks to our colleagues in the Welfare Department, to the State officials concerned with Cuban refugees and the Cuban Office of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare so imaginatively directed by John T. Thomas.

I have asked Dr. Urrutia to come here because he has, I think, a great understanding of why people left Cuba.

Chairman KENNEDY. I would like to ask the doctor, from his own sources of information, if he could perhaps give us the benefit of his knowledge as to what the conditions are in Cuba today, and also if he could tell us about the pressures which are being exerted to leave Cuba.

Dr. URRUTIA. I attacked communism three times from the presidential palace in Havana. Then Castro ousted me, and he accused me before our people, and he said that I was a traitor. But now everybody knows who was the one that betrayed our democratic revolution.

I cannot forget the words of President Kennedy when he spoke about the revolution's betrayal, and he said that this was a revolution betrayed from within and exploited from without.

We agree, of course, with these words of President Kennedy, and we cannot forget these words. The reality is this one. Therefore, when we see now the behavior of the Government of the United States and of the people of the United States regarding our countrymen in this country we must thank the Government and the people of the United States because of the support that you have given to our countrymen, to us, to the Cuban refugees in this country. But we cannot forget the situation that prevails in our country.

In our country prevails a situation that I wanted to avoid when I was in the presidency of Cuba. I knew what means communism already. And we have now in Cuba one of the worst slavery systems that have existed in the world, because there are a group that presides, Fidel Castro, that has four absolute powers in their hands.

They have the political absolute power, because they have only one party, that is, an exclusive power.

They have the absolute economic power, because they have all the enterprises of Cuba in their hands.

They have the social absolute power because they have all the unions, all the peasants organizations, all the professions organizations, all the organizations of Cuba are in the hands of this group.

And they have the intellectual and ideological absolute power, because they have in their hands all the newspapers, all the television station, all the radio station, all the universities, all the schools, and they have also-and this is the most important-the coordination of these four absolute power, and you can realize now how strong is the power hat this group hold in their hands.

But this explains also the slavery of our country and of our countrynen in Cuba. Therefore, we are very much preoccupied about the sitution of the Cuban refugees in this country, but we are very much more preoccupied about the situation of all the political prisoners in Cuba and all the Cubans that are in our country today, because our country oday is a big jail.

We know and this is very important to explain here because I ave been told and I have been asked about the opportunity in which we will be able to come back to Cuba, to go back to Cuba, and I think mat it is very important to explain to this subcommittee of the U.S. enate, that we have in Cuba only a part of the great battle that exists oday all over the world that has been called the cold war. A part of is Vietnam fight, another part is the fight in Cuba.

I think that many people are mistaken when they focus this great attle as an international battle. This is not an international battle. his is an interrevolutionary battle.

Therefore, I agree with many people of Asia, where I have been, January last year, 1965, and in September 1965, I was in Taiwan, nd then in Philippine Islands, and the people there think the same as do, that we are not using the most strong power that we can use in is battle, that the anxiety of liberation of the people that are enaved under communism, every people in Asia think as we do, we the emocratic Cuban people, that we must create the conditions that may pport the fight of the revolutionary forces inside Cuba, the revotionary democratic forces inside North Vietnam, inside mainland hina, inside North Korea, and inside Eastern Europe. This is the aly way to fight against communism.

They fight against us by means of subversion and we fight agains them by means of legal actions. We cannot win this battle if we de not change our tactics.

I am very glad to have had the opportunity to explain our points of view here about this struggle, and therefore to ask for the suppor of the United States for the Cuban democratic forces in order that we will be able to carry out the democratic revolution inside Cuba and then to win not only the military war against Castro but also the democratic war against communism.

If you have any questions, Senator.

Chairman KENNEDY. Earlier today we had testimony from Mr. Rau Esparza, who was the top level Cuban sugar expert, and he made a considerable commentary about the decline in the sugar production industry.

I was wondering, from your own contacts in Cuba today, would they substantiate what Dr. Esparza said earlier, that from what you know about the Cuban sugar industry today it is headed for difficult times!

Dr. URRUTIA. I have a knowledge, because I have been a judge i Cuba for 31 years, and I have applied in Cuba the law that was called the law of sugar coordination, of the coordination of sugar preduction. This law fixed quotas to the sugar mills in order that they could not be able to produce all the sugar that they were capable to produce under free enterprise, because then the prices would go low, very low, in the world market, because the strength of free enter prise, the power of free enterprise in Cuba to produce sugar was very large, and now, under communism, under the so-called socialism, with a so-called voluntary labor that they say they have, and all these, with the propaganda that they made when arrive time of the sugar harvest. they cannot produce sugar as we did when Cuba was under free enterprise.

This explains why this Cuban that spoke here about the production of sugar mills in Cuba today and before is-why it is so different. And it is so different because everybody knows that under communism the peasants have no steam for their production.

I remember, for instance, that Lenin himself in 1905 wrote tha the peasants only wanted land, but that when they gave them, the peasants, land, for this only reason they would not become Socialists and this is what happened in Cuba.

They gave land to the peasants but not in the way that this must be done, but the peasants do not work as they worked under free enter prise. This is the reason why this Cuban was right, and this is the very reason of the low production of sugar in Cuba today.

Chairman KENNEDY. Your information currently substantiates what we heard earlier, and that is that the sugar economy and the economy of Cuba is in a difficult period of time, is that correct? Dr. URRUTIA. Yes.

Chairman KENNEDY. And that as a result this is having an influence on the people generally in Cuba, and that along with other factors. the people want to leave Cuba because of difficult times? Is that one of the reasons why people want to be refugees?

Dr. URRUTIA. Now. No. The reason is that the people in Cubs that are connected with the sugar production, any other people can live the same as they live under free enterprise.

We have seen this: We have seen that in the first month of the revolutionary government-and it is usual to distinguish these three periods of the Cuban last years or history, because many people used to say from January 1 on and from January 1 back, but this is not true. From January 1 on began the democratic revolution in Cuba that Castro betrayed, and in this period of the first times of the revolution the people had really democracy in Cuba, they had freedom, they had free enterprise, and they had a good production of all products of Cuba.

But when Castro established communism, then-and the statistics can tell it very much clearer than I-then began to decrease the production, not only in the sugar mills or in the sugar industry, but in all industries in Cuba.

Chairman KENNEDY. Is it your information that the terror, the regime by terror, has been increasing in Cuba in the last 2 or 3 years? Dr. URRUTIA. Yes. Have been in prison, because there exist a great disaffection of the Cuban people, and in prison is disaffection to Castro and his group. Therefore, we have heard about programs in the Armed Forces, about programs of Castro in the University of Havana, and about executions of many people that were with Castro in Sierra Maestra.

I knew many of these people in Sierra Maestra, and I know that they were not Communists. Therefore, when they see that the regime is not the same as the free enterprise regime, and when they see that we have now slavery in Cuba, and that we have already 4 years of rationing food in Cuba, because this rationing began in March 1962, and they see that this is an economic situation that has no solution, then they begin to preoccupy.

Chairman KENNEDY. Do you feel that the isolation of Cuba by the Organization of American States has been somewhat responsible for the failure of the economy to expand or develop?

Dr. URRUTIA. Yes, I think so, but we must realize also that at the same time that Cuba has been isolated by the United States and by the Organization of American States they have had connections with Socialist world. Therefore, it is very clear that the Socialist world at least cannot solve the economic problems of Cuba, neither Castro nor his supporters today.

Chairman KENNEDY. I want to thank you very much, Dr. Urrutia. Miss Lee, would you like to make a brief comment?

Miss LEE. I come here in 1959 and the following year my sister come here, I secure the visa, but at the end of the year my father and brother and sister want to come over. My father has a supermarket in Havana. My mother help my father.

That time we try to bring over to United States. So in 1962 my father come over with my younger sister and brother. My mother staying there. She don't have the exit visa from Cuba. So after that we try to get her over. She can't come here. Chairman KENNEDY. She cannot come over?

Miss LEE. No.

Chairman KENNEDY. Do you have any correspondence with her now?

Miss LEE. No.