Oct. 16, 1962 - Premier Ahmed Ben Bella of Algeria (center) arrived in Cuba today for a 24-hour state visit. Premier Fidel Castro used the occasion to make a vitriolic attack against the U.S. Castro called Mr. Ben Bella’s visit in the face of “Yankee imperialist hostility” toward Cuba an “act of courage and a gesture which we will never forget.” Castro spoke at a brief airport ceremony welcoming the Algerian Nationalist, who was President Kennedy’s guest at the White House yesterday. “To make this visit at a time when the powerful Yankee empire has redoubled its hostility against our country and is using the threat of blackmail, bribery, and criminal economic blockade in an effort to make us surrender through hunger; to visit Cuba when the Yankee imperialists threaten our country with attack and the bathing in blood of the creative work of our people is, on your part, Mr. Premier, an act of courage and a gesture we shall never forget,” Castro said. Mr. Ben Bella replied that every Algerian “knows, has lived and admired” the Castro revolution “in all its phases,” including its “extraordinary advances and progress despite the maneuvers of enemy forces.” Soviet-built tanks ringing the airport fired a 21-gun salute.
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