1
Interview
us,
BAN Chernobyl T IN Our Backyard .Florida
Crusade:
What
does
Castro's
nuclear project amount to?
ment between Russia and Cuba for the
completion of a major nuclear power facili
and complete the project as virtually the
Mr. Robinson: As you know, this agree Havana
ty on the island was originally con Cienfuegos
who would have their business activities in
Cuba 100% covered by taxpayer credit and insurance coverage, that is, the government export support programs of these countries. Russia would thus be able to avoid any risk prime contractor.
cluded back in the 1970s. The
plant was under construc-
Crusade:
Where
does
Castro
intend to get the money for such a costly project?
Cuban dictator Fidel Castro is at it again. With at least $800 million in help from friends in Moscow, Europe, and Latin America, he hopes at last to bring on-line a troubled nuclear reactor 180 miles from Key West, Florida, near the city of Cienfuegos on the central stretch of Cuba's southern coast.
For Roger W. Robinson, Jr., president of RWR Inc., a Washington-based consulting firm, and
formerly Senior Director for Inter national Economic Affairs at the
National Security Council under President Reagan, it has been clear for several years that should Fidel Castro succeed in this, it is just a
Mr. Robinson: As I mentioned, there is a division of labor envisioned in the com
pletion of the deal. I suspect that both reac tors will cost a little over a billion dollars to finish. The estimates on the Moscow side
are around 750 million dollars, but that
tion until 1991, when, with the collapse of
what it would take to finish. So we have
left insufficiently sheltered in the corrosive tropical air. The project was resurrected in
three central components: the Russian con
the spring of 1995 with a dedicated effort to complete it as quickly as possible to bring it on-line. Castro already has about 1.2 billion
which no one really knows how they are going to acquire; and then roughly 200 mil
year's annual hard-currency income for the
lion and probably considerably more from
island, so he is very unlikely to want to
Western and Latin American suppliers.
abandon the project. Moscow has recently pledged around 330 million dollars to com plete the reactor, and Cuba is supposed to
Western suppliers, several of them from
see these reactors come on-line if our
other Latin American countries.
attempts to stop the project are unsuccess
much of the United States.
Mr. Robinson: The revival came about
JANUARY-FEBRUARY, 1996
regarding the Cuban reactor '
Europe but aLso possibly even Brazil and
lion dollars is envisioned to come from
Crusade: Why is the project now
this problem.
Crusade: What is Clinton's policy Afr. Robinson: Frankly, it ha.s ucon a vacillating policy, unclear in its intentions. On the one hand Department of Stale press releases have indicated that it is prepared to
find 208 million dollars from somewhere to
contribute to its completion. Some 200 mil
melts down with catastrophic Chernobyl-style consequences for
Crusade, Mr. Robinson discussed
tribution, something estimated in the area of 350 million dollars; the Cuban component, supposedly 200 million dollars or more,
dollars in this deal, the equivalent of a full
matter of time before this reactor
In an exclusive interview with
seems to me to be deliberately lowballing
the Soviet Union, sensitive equipment was
being revived?
ful. The Administration seems content with
the notion that if this deal is going to be completed over American objections, that it be made safe, that is, meet all of the inter
when Russia's Ministry of Atomic Energy
national safety standards. There is even an
decided that not only was it an appropriate
implication that we would assist that safety
time to complete the deal but that in the end they could secure a consortium of West
process.
European and Latin American suppliers
shown sensitivity to the concerns of Cuban
On the other hand, President Clinton has
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