Foreign Relations: The Dilemma

TV's Jack Paar said that it was the honorable thing for the U.S. to do. Republican Senator Barry Goldwater said that it was blackmail. Democratic Elder Stateswoman Eleanor Roosevelt saw it as an opportunity for U.S. humanitarianism to assert itself. Columnist Robert Ruark denounced it as an obscene, criminal proposition. Wherever the average American turned last week—to his television set, his newspaper, his favorite bartender or to his wife—he could get an argument. The subject of controversy: Fidel Castro's idea of accepting U.S. tractors in exchange for prisoners taken in the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion. The U.S. dilemma: a...