April 20, 1976

By MERWIN K. SIGALE

WASHINGTON - The State Department, in a note to Havana, has "categorically rejected" Cuba's charge that U.S. threats against Cuba inspired the machine gun attacks on two Cuban fishing boats two weeks ago.

The note was sent before Cuban Prime Minister Fidel Castro's speech last night in which he threatened to terminate the U.S.-Cuban highjacking agreement, "if such acts do not cease and if their authors are not seriously punished."

A Cuban fisherman was killed and three others wounded in the night attacks by a mystery boat midway between Cuba and Florida. Miami radio stations received anonymous calls claiming that the Cuban National Liberation Front was responsible.

No announcement of the U.S. note was made. But a State Deportment spokesman confirmed, when asked, that the note was sent Friday to the Swiss Embassy in Havana. Another official said it was safe to assume that the message was delivered to the Cuban government before Castro spoke last: night.

"What we said was that our warnings about Cuban actions anywhere in the world had no bearing or influence on this particular case," the spokesman said.

He said the note also told Cuba that law enforcement agencies were still investigating the incident, and that "we abhor and will not tolerate violence against innocent people:"

The note was in response to a formal protest by Cuba linking the incident to "the atmosphere created recently by the attacks and threats against Cuba by the highest authorities of the U.S. government." That referred to warnings by President Ford and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger that the United States would not tolerate further Cuban military interventions.

Cuba said the attackers of the fishing boats were undoubtedly "stimulated by that atmosphere" and believed they could now count on U.S. "complicity:"

The State Department spokesman said, "We emphatically and most categorically deny that public statements made by U.S. officials referring to the actions of the government of Cuba on another continent caused, or in any way encouraged, such illegal actions."

Castro spoke at a Communist party rally in Havana's Karl Marx theater to commemorate the 15th anniversary of the unsuccessful Bay of rigs invasion by Cuban exiles.

Prensa I.atina said Castro told the rally, "If aggressions against Cuban fishing vessels do not cease, it will be the end of the Cuban-American agreement on maritime and aerial hijackings."

The United States and Cuba signed an agreement Feb. 15, 1973, promising to cooperate in opposing hijackings. The pact was seen at that time as reflecting a possible thaw in relations between the two countries that were frozen when diplomatic ties were severed in 1960.

A Prensa Latina news agency dispatch from Havana also quoted Castro as saying President Ford and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger had lied about Cuban intervention and U.S. aid in the Angolan civil war.

Commenting on Angola, Castro was quoted as saying, "Ford and Kissinger lie when they pretend to hold the Soviet Union responsible for Cuba's solidarity aid to Angola.

"Ford and Kissinger also lie when they blame the U.S. Congress for the defeat of North American intervention in Angola by failing to approve funds."

Prensa Latina said Castro charged that the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency utilized sizable funds in Angola and that no aid from Congress would have changed the course of events.

Cuba sent some 12,000 soldiers to Angola. They spearheaded the spring offensive of a pro-Soviet faction that defeated two western-backed liberation movements in the former Portuguese colony.