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- WORLD, Page 23World NotesCUBAAdios to Castro?
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- The ties that bind Moscow and Havana have lately been tenuous
- at best, thanks mainly to Fidel Castro's refusal to heed the
- Kremlin line. The antagonism has intensified since Mikhail
- Gorbachev came to power, particularly since the Cuban President and
- his brother Raul, who is Defense Minister, rejected perestroika as
- nothing more than warmed-over capitalism. Now Cuban officials who
- have recently defected to the U.S. are suggesting that Soviet
- disenchantment with the Castro brothers has become so great that
- the Kremlin has discreetly begun seeking ways to replace them.
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- Some State Department officials claim that the Castro brothers
- are aware and have fought back. Fidel suspected that Major General
- Arnaldo Ochoa Sanchez, who was executed last month for drug
- dealing, was really acting under Soviet direction to topple the
- government. Most U.S. analysts, however, are skeptical that
- Soviet-Cuban relations have degenerated to the point of covert
- hostility. A Moscow-based diplomat who closely monitors
- Soviet-Cuban relations dismisses the possibility as "very
- farfetched."