Lawmaker Lays Illegal Scoop to Radio Marti

The chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee is questioning whether Radio Marti, the controversial U.S. government radio station beamed at Cuba, illegally scooped private U.S. news media by broadcasting exclusive interviews with Cuban defectors under official protection.

Rep. Dante B. Fascell (D-Fla.) says the government allowed Radio Marti--but not U.S. news outlets--to interview Gen. Rafael del Pino and Maj. Florentino Azpillaga, thereby “controlling access to news and information by the American public.”

Del Pino, a senior Cuban air force officer, escaped to Florida with his family in an air force plane last May. Held incommunicado by the CIA for several weeks, he gave three one-hour interviews to Radio Marti Director Ernesto Betancur while other news media were denied access until weeks later.

Left Embassy Post

Azpillaga, an army intelligence officer who defected from his embassy post in Czechoslovakia on June 6, was kept under wraps until Aug. 7, when Radio Marti broadcast an interview. The intelligence specialist was reported ready to name 350 Cuban agents stationed throughout the world, making him a more valuable catch than Del Pino, who was no longer in the inner military circle.

“The Voice of America, of which Radio Marti is a part, was designed not to compete with our private media but to reach solely a foreign audience,” Fascell said in letters to Secretary of State George P. Shultz, outgoing National Security Adviser Frank C. Carlucci and CIA Director William H. Webster.

But Radio Marti, which broadcasts from the Florida Keys, is readily picked up by South Florida’s Spanish-speaking population.

Access to Sources

“It is impossible given current technology to prevent Marti from having an audience in South Florida,” Fascell said. “Marti has been in the position of breaking important news in South Florida because of its access to certain sources.”

Acknowledging that defectors have the right to avoid public contact or to speak only through official channels if they wish, Fascell said the government should ensure that the choice is the individual’s and not the government’s.

He called on government agencies involved to commit themselves on the record to “provide media access to any individual under U.S. government protection who may be interviewed by any U.S. government broadcast or print media which may find dissemination within the United States.”

Radio Marti encountered strong congressional opposition when the Reagan Administration tried to make it a separate government agency such as Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty, which broadcast to the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Opposition also came from the U.S. broadcasting industry, which feared retaliatory broadcasts threatened by Cuba would interfere with U.S. radio stations.

Named for Jose Marti

Authorizing legislation was passed in 1983 only after it was amended to put Radio Marti--named for Jose Marti, the father of Cuban independence--within the Voice of America and to pay damages to domestic broadcasters affected by Cuban countermeasures.

No objection was raised at the time to the possible infringement of the Smith-Mundt Act, which bars the government from disseminating news inside the United States. Peggy Chew, a spokesman for Radio Marti, disputed Fascell’s implication that a violation of the law might be involved.

“If Spanish-speaking audiences hear Radio Marti in Florida it’s no different from people with shortwave sets who have always been able to listen to Voice of America,” Chew said.

She also rejected any charges of favoritism, saying that in both cases the Cuban defectors asked to speak on Radio Marti in order to address home audiences.

State Department spokesman Charles Redman denied that his department had any role in handling the defectors, although a news conference with Del Pino was held in Washington under the department’s auspices.

The CIA, which spirited Azpillaga into the United States, kept both defectors in seclusion for debriefing before permitting access by the press. Del Pino, because he arrived at a small Key West airfield in public view, was processed by Immigration and Naturalization Service officials before being handed over to the CIA.

A CIA spokesman refused to comment on the agency’s handling of the defectors and would not acknowledge receiving Fascell’s letter.