A ferocious government crackdown in Cuba has angered the Europeans and Canadians but has yet to faze the Baltimore Orioles. Fidel Castro's new and harsher laws, a mass detention of dissidents, and show trials of four democratic leaders have led King Juan Carlos of Spain to announce that he may have to postpone his planned spring visit. The usually all-forgiving Canadians have called on the Cuban ambassador to denounce what's going on. Even Le Monde, the paper of record for Cuba-romanticizing Parisian intellectuals, blasted Castro last week in an editorial entitled "Havana, the end of an illusion."
Continuing talks about an Orioles exhibition game in Havana in the next few weeks should be canceled now. Listen to Madrid: "The visit will not proceed . . . in an atmosphere of repression," said Spain's Foreign Ministry. If the king won't go, why should Cal Ripken?