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Increased tension in relations between Cuba and the United States has prompted three United States senators to discourage a proposed Harvard Classics basketball club tour of Cuba.
The Classics, a basketball team for Harvard undergraduates who feel they lack either the time or talent for the varsity program, started last November to gather support for the trip by writing to congressmen.
Approval Unlikely
Sen. Claiborne Pell (D-R.I.) responded in a December 10, 1975 letter that while he supported the project, State Department approval was unlikely because of "recent Cuban encouragement of Puerto Rican independence and Cuban intervention in Angola."
"You should expect no official support or assistance from the State Department," Pell wrote to Classics player Martin F. Healy '77. "Under present circumstances the department probably would not validate your passports for travel."
On January 7, Charles S. Bergen '77, a Classics player and a Crimson editor, received a letter from Sen. Edward M. Kennedy '54 (D-Mass.) containing a similar warning. Kennedy noted that the State Department "has turned aside proposals for Cuban-U.S. baseball competition."
Kennedy Letter
"There appears to be little likelihood that permission for such a schedule could be obtained from the State Department," the Kennedy letter said.
Darryl DePriest '76, another Classics player, said yesterday that he had received similar correspondence from Sen. Adlai E. Stevenson III '52 (D-IIl.)
All three players had earlier written the senators requesting support for the trip.
Gerald B. Christianson, a Pell aide for foreign affairs, said yesterday that Pell's own position on the matter had not changed as a result of the Angolan situation. Christianson said that Pell had merely pointed out possible obstacles to the tour.
Trip Impossible
Harvey said that it would be impossible to arrange the tour without the State Department and Senate assistance that each of the senators called unlikely.
Harvey said that although each of the senators had promised to notify the team if tensions relaxed enough to permit the tour, "it is up to us to keep the pressure on them."
Both Healy and DePriest were pessimistic about the team's chances of going to Cuba in the near future. They explained yesterday that the team had originally felt that Cuban relations were opening up and that there was an opportunity to participate in "ping-pong diplomacy."
"It would have been nice for us," Healy said, but "there are more important things in relations with Cuba than the Classics and basketball."
DePriest said, "as long as the situation stays as it is, it doesn't look too good." He added that the team had been thinking that "maybe it would be a good idea to go to Angola instead."
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