-DATE-
19620719
-YEAR-
1962
-DOCUMENT_TYPE-
INTERVIEW
-AUTHOR-
F. CASTRO
-HEADLINE-
CASTRO GREETS SOVIET TRAWLERS
-PLACE-
CUBAN
-SOURCE-
MOSCOW TASS
-REPORT_NBR-
FBIS
-REPORT_DATE-
19620720
-TEXT-
PREMIER CASTRO GREETS SOVIET TRAWLERS

Moscow TASS in English to Europe 1250 GMT 19 July 1962--L

(Text) Havana--Five Soviet trawlers have arrived in Havana for fishing and
training Cuban specialists. Thousands of residents of the Cuban capital
gave a warm welcome to the Soviet fishermen, who made a difficult 22-day
trip from Kaliningrad to Havana. They were met in the port by Premier Fidel
Castro, ORI member Carlos Rafael Rodriguez, and the heads of diplomatic
missions of the socialist countries accredited in Cuba. Accompanied by
officials and newsmen, Fidel Castro boarded a Soviet trawler and inspected
it. After that Castro made a radio-TV speech.

The arrival of Soviet fishing vessels in Havana, Castro said, is eloquent
evidence of the fraternal assistance being rendered to our people. Our
people, Castro noted further, will be forever grateful to the Soviet people
for their great expression of friendship and solidarity. When we were
driving toward the bay, the Soviet ships were entering our port, and I
thought--what could be the significance of that? I thought of the
revolutionaries who made possible the miracle we saw today. I thought of
the workers and peasants who made the revolution of 1917 and other
revolutions.

I though about the Baltic sailors, I thought about the sailors of the
Aurora, and I told myself: They probably could not imagine in those years
that one day Soviet fishing vessels with crews of a new generation in the
Soviet Union would come here to assist a country so far from the Soviet
Union, a country which is now also starting to build a better life.

Therefore, our first thoughts, our first thanks, Castro stressed, went to
them, to the revolutionary workers who made that revolution, to peasants,
seamen, and soldiers, and to the great leader of those people, Lenin. We
are deeply grateful to all of them. We are grateful to the entire heroic
Soviet nation which had to fight so many battles and build a new world
against a background of continuous hostility from reactionaries,
imperialists, post-World War II imperialist interventionists, which had to
fight the Nazi invaders, and which today has to again fight the enemies of
the progress of the people, the enemies of peace, the enemies of justice.

We are grateful to all of them, Castro said in conclusion, the founders of
the Soviet Union, the continuers of their cause, to all those who are now
carrying out the wonderful program of building a communist society.
-END-