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News uigest&^— Troops, warheads were ready in Cuba MOSCOW - A Cuban official says 270,000 Soviet and Cuban troops were ready to go to war with the United States during the Cuban missile crisis and that 100,000 casualties were expected, a former U.S. official said Sunday. A Soviet general also has con firmed for the first time that some of his country’s nuclear warheads, capable of striking the United States, were on Cuba at the time of the crisis in October 1962. The revelations came during a review of the Cuban missile crisis at a conference over the weekend at a trade union center in southwest Moscow. Soviets and Americans have met before to discuss the Soviet deployment of nuclear missiles in Cuba and the U.S. response: a blockade of the island and a de mand for the rockets’ removal. But this was the first joint meet ing with Cuban officials who guided their country through the crisis. Premier Nikita S. Khrushchev eventually withdrew the missiles in exchange for Presi dent Kennedy’s pledge not to in vade Cuba. At a news conference wrapping up the conference Sunday, former U.S. Defense Secretary Robert McNamara said the figures on Cuba’s war readiness and casualty estimate were provided by Jorge Risquet, a member of Cuba’s rul ing Politburo. “They say they had armed 270,000 men. They were deter mined to fight to the death of every man, and they believed there would be 100,000 Cuban and So viet casualties,” McNamara told reporters. Other American officials said privately the Cubans had said the casualty count could have reached 800,000. Cuba’s population at the time was 8 million. McNamara said that of the troops, 40,000 were Soviet, four times higher than U.S. intelligence estimates at the time. Risquet cited the figures to show his country seriously be lieved that a U.S. invasion of his island was imminent. McNamara said no such invasion was ever contemplated, but speaking of the Cubans, he added: ‘‘If I had been in their shoes, I would have be lieved the same thing.” American officials have said they were never sure whether any Soviet nuclear warheads had actu ally reached Cuba but that they assumed they had. Col. Gen. Dmitri A. Volkog onov, director of the Defense Ministry’s Institute of Military History, said that at the time of the crisis 20 Soviet nuclear warheads were on Cuba. Another 20 war heads were headed to the island aboard a Soviet ship that was caught in the U.S. naval blockade, he said. Volkogonov said he got the figures from military archives. He made the remarks in a closed session of the conference Satur day, and they were reported to The Associated Press on Sunday by Raymond Garthoff, a State De partment official at the time of the crisis. Viktor G. Komplektov, a dep uty Soviet foreign minister, said the presence of the warheads on Cuba did not mean they would be put imminently on launchers in preparation for a nuclear strike. r‘At no time, not before, not during the beginning of the crisis, or in the most acute moments of the crisis, neither from the Soviet command there in Cuba nor in Moscow was there, or could there have been an order to mount nu clear warheads on the missiles,” Komplektov told reporters. He said "notone” of the missiles was ready and targeted at the United States. Capitalists courted to help sinking Nicaraguan economy MANAGUA, Nicaragua — The leftist Sandinista government is desperately seeking the support of capitalists and workers to brake Nicaragua's rapid slide into economic chaos. With the war against U.S. backed rebels virtually stalled, President Daniel Ortega faces a potentially deadlier enemy: an economy so feeble even Sandinista supporters are becom ing restless. ‘ ‘There’s a general awareness that the prob lem belongs to the whole country,” and the government cannot rescue the economy single-handedly, said Bayardo Arce, a mem ber of the ruling Sandinista National Director ate. ‘ *'We must establish a harmony of interests, outlining the responsibilities of the govern ment, private enterprise and workers, so we can face the country’s problems, ” he said in an interview. Ortega on Monday is to announce his gov ernment’s economic plan for 1989, which is expected to include a series of austerity meas ures. The measures reportedly include a three month wage and price freeze to curb inflation, which independent economists predict will reach as high as 300 percent a month from now through May. Ortega has acknowledged that inflation reached 20,000 percent last year. In a Dec. 31 speech, Ortega announced budget cuts of 29 percent for the Defense Ministry and 40 percent for security forces. The government has not said how many jobs will be eliminated as a result. Opposition leader Enrique Bolanos, a cot ton grower and former president of the Supe rior Council of Private Enterprise, was skepti cal of the Sandinistas’ show of good will to ward the business community. SPRING BREAK TMI guarantees the money for, and the time off lor Spring Break! We are looking for students with a sense of style, with an energetic approach to op porrunity in contacting our Fortune 500 clients nationwide customer base by phone. j w re Wp of fpf* | • If? A ^ ' > •*. r* x| jgp •flexible, self-determined hours Located two blocks from campus $5.50 per hour guaranteed •Paid professional training I Experience in the communications field r? ' ■ > •>/». '<■•?* •' fKSJT r-. ' For a personal interview .|ontaei Mr. Adams Monday 9:00a.m.-9:00p.m. Tuesday- Friday 12:00p.m.-9:00p.m. ' ' ESI 476-762#. k :m£ -- “When they have problems, they seek us. But when the storm is over, they return to their insults,” said Bolanos, whose property was confiscated by the government in 1985. Meanwhile, the economy continues to worsen. This month, the official exchange rate has gone from 920 cordobas to the dollar to 2,300 cordobas a dollar. The minimum wage is 3,748 cordobas a day, about $1.63. The Sandinistas blame Nicaragua’s eco nomic crisis on the war with the rightist rebels known as Contras, which began in 1981. The two sides signed a tentative cease-fire in March 1988, after the U.S. Congress stopped military aid to the Conuras, but talks on a permanent truce broke down in September. Opposition leaders cite poor government management and planning for the state of the economy. Israels Sharon says while Arafat lives there will be no peace in the Middle East JERUSALEM -- Industry Minister Ariel Sharon said Saturday there will be no peace in the Middle East as long as Yasser Arafat “runs around alive” and that Israel must do more to counteract the PLO leader’s peace initiative. Sharon’s comments in-an interview with Israel radio reflected “a personal opinion that Arafat should be killed,” his spokesman, Moshe Behagon, told The Associated Press. “He says many times that if it were possible, he would want to kill him.” Also Saturday, Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin said U.S. officials support his peace plan that includes elections in the occupied territories in exchange for a cease-fire in the Palestinian uprising, Israel television reported. One Palestinian protester was reported fa tally shot in the territories Saturday. Arab news reports said at least 10 people, including a boy, either were shot and wounded or beaten in clashes between soldiers and stone-throwers in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. The army confirmed four woundings by plastic bullets. The death raised to 370 the number of Palestinians killed in the nearly 14-month-old uprising. Fifteen Israelis also have died. Sharon’s remarks come amid growing de bate over the nation’s policy toward the Pales tine Liberation Organization and Israel’s re sponse to the 13-month Palestinian uprising in the occupied territories. “As long as Arafat runs around alive around us, there will never be peace,’’ Sharon said. “No Arab leader will be ready to meet with us for fear for his life. And no Palestinian will be ready to talk because if he does so while Arafat is alive, his fate is sealed.’’ Sharon seemed to be alluding to repeated threats from leaders of the PLO supported uprising against Palestinians who cooperate with the Israelis. More than a dozen alleged collaborators have been killed during the up rising. Ohrtce the nation's defense minister, Sharon was forced from the post in 1983 after Israel’s militia allies in Lebanon massacred Palestini ans in Beirut. Israel denounces the PLO as terrorists and refuses to talk with it. The nation protested bitterly when the United States opened talks with the PLO last month. But there are grow ing calls for Israel to change its policy. Haitian survivors ot accident say treated like ‘ animals ’ SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic - A hundred Haitian cane cutters were crammed “like animals” into a truck driven by a drunken man who drove the vehicle off a cliff, survivors said Saturday. The crash killed 48 people. The Ccntial Workers Union and the Major ity Workers Center denounced the brutal treat ment of Haitian cane cutlers and accused the government of “practicing slavery.” Officials said it was the worst traffic acci dent ever in the Dominican Republic, which shares the Caribbean island of Hispaniola with Haiti. The truck plunged from a cliff early Friday about 22 miles north of Santo Domingo. Those killed included six children and three women. In an interview published Saturday by the Santo Domingo newspaper Ultima Hora, one of the Haitian survivors, Manuel Yang, said the Haitians were recruited near the border by a Dominican “trafficker” and smuggled to a military barracks in the Dominican border town of Dajabon. “After being kept prisoners for two days, two tall men and two soldiers took us out,” he told the newspaper. “We were fed and loaded on a truck ... like animals.” Ultimo Hora quoted Yang as saying the truck driver told the Haitians if they gave him money to buy rum they “would not be taken to cut cane but rather would be taken someplace else where there was better work.*'__ Nebraskan Editor Curt Waoner 472-1788 Managing Editor Jane Hlrt Assoc News Editors Lee Rood Bob Nelson Editorial Page Editor Amy Edwarde Wire Editor Otana Johnson Copy Desk Editor Chuck Orson Sports Editor Jeff A pel Arts A Entertainment Editor Mlckl Haller The Daily Nebraskan(USPS 144 080) is published by the UNL Publications Boa'd, Nebraska Union 34,1400 h St., Lincoln, NE, Monday th'ough Friday during the aca demic year, weekly during summer sessions Readers are encouraged to submit story ideas and comments to the Daily Nebraskan by phoning 47?-1 763 between 9 a m. and 5 p m Monday through Friday The public also has access to the Publications Board For information, contact Tom Macy. 475-9868 Subscription price is $45 for one year Postmaster Send address changes to the Daily Ne braskan, Nebraska Union 34, 1400 R St..Lincoln, NE 68588 0448 Second-cJass postage paid at Lincoln, NE. 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