Cuba Retaliates as U.S. Launches Radio Marti : Havana Cancels Immigration Accord, Threatens to Jam Official, Commercial Broadcast Signals

Cuba canceled an immigration agreement with the United States on Monday and threatened to launch a radio war to retaliate against the U.S. government-operated Radio Marti, which had just begun broadcasting news, features and commentary in Spanish to the Caribbean nation.

State Department spokesman Bernard Kalb said that the long-delayed Radio Marti “will serve as a surrogate ‘home service’ which had been denied the Cuban people. It means telling the Cuban people what is happening in Cuba and elsewhere after years of propaganda and disinformation.”

Cuba’s reaction came so quickly that the radio station--named for 19th-Century Cuban patriot Jose Marti--was able to begin its first full news broadcast with a report on the retaliation.

Radio Havana announced cancellation of last December’s U.S.-Cuban agreement providing for the orderly return to Cuba of 2,746 criminals and mentally ill persons who came to the United States in the 1980 Mariel boatlift. The pact also called for normal processing of Cuban applications for immigration to the United States.

The Cubans also threatened to take much more far-reaching action. The Havana broadcast, which labeled Radio Marti a “shameful provocation,” said that the government of President Fidel Castro “reserves the right” to reconsider its cooperation in preventing airline hijacking and threatened to jam both Radio Marti and some U.S. commercial radio stations. It also suggested that Cuba might seek to broadcast its own version of the news to the United States on AM radio frequencies.

Radio Marti, at 50,000 watts, can reach Cubans with one-band transistor radios as well as those with sophisticated short-wave sets. Operating on the 1180 frequency of the standard AM dial, it also will broadcast on the short-wave frequencies used by the Voice of America for earlier broadcasts to Cuba.

The $10-million operation will face one severe obstacle to broadcasting Cuban news to Cuba--it will not have any reporters operating on the island.

Rogene Waite, a spokesman for the Voice of America, Radio Marti’s parent organization, said that Radio Marti will rely on part-time correspondents in the United States and abroad and on a research department at its Washington studios that “will monitor printed material and aired material and will be talking to people who travel to Cuba.”

Mild U.S. Reaction

“They will use all the ways you would expect to get news if you were unable to get a correspondent into the country,” she said.

The United States reacted mildly to Havana’s angry response. Kalb said that Washington “regrets” cancellation of the Mariel agreement, which he said was “a fair and equitable accord which has already resulted in important benefits to citizens of both countries.” Only 201 of the 2,746 persons scheduled to be returned to Cuba under the agreement had left the United States since deportations began in February.

A senior Administration official, who declined to be identified by name, said the United States hopes to avoid a major confrontation with Cuba over Radio Marti. He said that Washington would “not feel bad” if Cuba launched a similar station aimed at Americans, although it would object if the Cubans tried to interfere with normal U.S. radio broadcasting.

Reuters news service reported from Havana that Radio Marti could be heard “loud and clear” in Cuba despite a background hum.

Federal Communications Commission spokesman William Russell Jr. said the Cubans were broadcasting a “tone” on Marti’s frequency but “there is no indication that this is interfering with reception in Cuba.”

Last Jamming in 1982

He said there had been no “appreciable” interference with U.S. broadcasting by the end of the day--although jamming of U.S. stations, if it should occur, is most likely to come after nightfall when AM signals travel farthest. The last time Cuba deliberately interfered with U.S. broadcasting, he said, was Aug. 30, 1982, the day after the Radio Marti transmitter made a test transmission.