U.S.-Cuban Immigration Talks Fail; Radio Access Still the Issue

Negotiations between the United States and Cuba on the resumption of Cuban emigration to America have collapsed, and no further meetings have been scheduled, the State Department said Thursday.

A U.S. delegation led by Michael G. Kozak, State Department deputy legal adviser, met with a Cuban contingent led by Ricardo Alarcon, a deputy foreign minister for North American affairs, in Mexico City on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Under discussion was the immigration agreement permitting the entry of up to 20,000 Cubans a year, an accord that was suspended by Cuban President Fidel Castro in May, 1985, when the U.S. government inaugurated its controversial Radio Marti. Operated by the U.S. Information Agency, the station uses a standard broadcast transmitter in South Florida to beam special news and entertainment programs to Cuba.

Castro’s Demand

Generating optimism about possible resumption of emigration were reports that Castro no longer would insist that Radio Marti be shut down as a condition for any agreement. He had held to that demand ever since suspending the 1980 immigration accord, which was reached as thousands of Cubans began coming here in a boatlift from the port of Mariel near Havana. In all, about 125,000 Cubans came in the boatlift.

Since then, the U.S. government had tried unsuccessfully to negotiate the return of about 2,000 “Marielitos” found to have been hard-core criminals or mental patients, who are now being held in federal prisons.

State Department spokesman Bernard Kalb, announcing the failure of the Mexico City negotiations, said Thursday that they took place after Castro “indicated that he would be prepared to see implementation of the agreement restored under certain circumstances, under the pretext of free competition of ideas through radio broadcasting.

‘Disruptive Changes’

“The Cuban side insisted on proposals that would have required major and disruptive changes in the organization of radio broadcasting in the United States,” Kalb added. “The U.S. Information Agency presented proposals for implementing free competition of ideas without interference to U.S. broadcasting.

“In view of Cuban insistence on their own proposals, no agreement was reached.”

Spokesman Mike McGuire of the U.S. Information Agency did not report what the U.S. side had offered, but State Department officials, who spoke on condition that they not be identified, said the Americans offered Cuba limited access to U.S. standard broadcast waves in the possible future expansion of the AM broadcast band. Such an expansion has been discussed in international conferences but could not be implemented much before 1990.

But the officials said that the Cubans insisted on a full channel of their own immediately to ensure access to U.S. radio audiences, a demand strongly opposed by the National Assn. of Broadcasters. That organization of U.S. station owners also had opposed Radio Marti, fearing that Cuban retaliation would increase interference with American radio waves, which has long been a problem in Gulf Coast and Southeastern states.