Documents / Official release
This is a Secretary of Defense public affairs message transcribing the Department of Defense news briefing that Assistant Secretary Kenneth H. Bacon gave at the Pentagon on November 22, 1994. Most of the briefing covers Secretary Perry's Thanksgiving trip to Haiti, NATO air strikes in Bosnia, Cuban migrants at Guantanamo Bay and the Black Hawk shootdown cases. Asked about lawsuits over the Nellis Air Force Base complex, also known as Area 51, Bacon said some projects there are classified and will remain so.
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DELAYED UNTIL THE BUDGET IS SUBMITTED? OR DO YOU STILL EXPECT IT TO BE RELEASED IN DECEMBER? A: THE SECRETARY SPOKE ABOUT A WEEK AGO AND SAID THEY WOULD NOT BE THIS MONTH. I LEAVE IT TO YOU. THIS IS STILL BEING WORKED OUT. IT'S A COMPLEX SITUATION. WE'RE DOWN NOW TO THE FINAL DECISIONS IN THE BUDGET. JIGSAW PUZZLES GET EASIER AS YOU GET TO THE END BECAUSE IT'S MUCH EASIER TO SEE WHERE THE FEW REMAINING PIECES GO. WITH BUDGETS, IT SOMETIMES GETS MORE DIFFICULT TO FIT IN EVERYTHING YOU WANT TO FIT IN AS YOU GET DOWN TO THE END. THERE ARE STILL A LOT OF DECISIONS TO BE MADE AND THESE ARE AMONG THOSE DECISIONS. SO I CAN'T GIVE YOU ANY DEADLINE ON THAT. Q: GUANTANAMO BAY. THERE HAVE BEEN ADDITIONAL ATTEMPTS BY CUBANS IN THE LAST DAY OR TWO TO SWIM BACK TO CUBA. A: YES. Q: CAN YOU GIVE US ANY IDEA ON NUMBERS? A: THERE HAVE BEEN SEVERAL ATTEMPTS. ON NOVEMBER 21ST, THREE CUBANS ATTEMPTED TO SWIM TO CUBA. ONE WAS SUCCESSFUL. TWO WERE RECOVERED AND RETURNED TO THE CAMP. THAT'S THE LAST REPORT I HAVE OF PEOPLE TRYING TO SWIM. ON NOVEMBER 20TH, A GROUP OF 46 CUBANS LEFT IN THE MORNING AND ATTEMPTED TO SWIM. THIRTY WERE SUCCESSFUL, 16 WERE RECOVERED. THERE WAS ALSO A SECOND GROUP ON NOVEMBER 20TH THAT SET OUT TO SWIM OF 44 CUBANS. SO THERE HAVE BEEN A NUMBER OF CUBANS TRYING TO SWIM BACK. I THINK THAT SOME OF THIS REFLECTS THE FRUSTRATION THAT THE CUBANS MAY FEEL IN THE SLOWNESS OF GETTING PROCESSED TO GO BACK INTO CUBA BY CUBA. THE ARRANGEMENT IS THAT WE SET ASIDE A NUMBER OF VISAS, 20,000 A YEAR, FOR CUBANS TO COME TO THE UNITED STATES. IN ORDER TO GET THOSE VISAS, THEY HAVE TO GO BACK TO CUBA AND APPLY. THE CUBANS HAVE BEEN RELUCTANT TO ALLOW LARGE NUMBERS OF PEOPLE BACK IN FROM GUANTANAMO BAY TO CUBA. THERE'S A VERY LENGTHY PROCESSING PROCEDURE. IF WE SUBMIT A LIST OF NAMES, THEN THEY SELECT ONLY A VERY, VERY, FEW OF THOSE NAMES TO GO BACK FOR PROCESSING. SO THERE'S A FAIR AMOUNT OF FRUSTRATION ON THE PART OF THE CUBANS WHO MAY WANT TO GO BACK AND TRY TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THIS NEW SYSTEM OF GETTING VISAS. Q: IS THERE ANY PROBLEM WITH CUBANS TRYING TO BREAK OUT OF THE CAMPS IN PANAMA AND JUST BLEND INTO THE PANAMANIAN POPULATION? A: NOT THAT I'M AWARE OF. THERE HAVE BEEN VERY ISOLATED INCIDENTS OF THAT. NOTHING THAT I RECALL IN THE LAST WEEK OR TWO, BUT I'VE BEEN GONE FOR THE LAST WEEK AND I HAVEN'T BEEN FOLLOWING THIS. BUT I DO NOT THINK THAT THAT IS A PARTICULARLY GRAVE PROBLEM. Q: CAN YOU GIVE US AN UPDATE ON THE COST OF RUNNING THE REFUGEE CAMPS AT GTMO? A: THESE ARE THE LATEST FIGURES I HAVE. THE INITIAL ESTIMATES ARE $100 MILLION TO START UP GUANTANAMO BAY FOR THE CUBAN OPERATION. THAT'S ASSUMING MORE CUBANS THAN ARE THERE NOW. IN ADDITION, $20 MILLION A MONTH FOR FOOD, WATER, AND OTHER CONSUMABLE SUPPLIES. Q: BACK TO BOSNIA. SECRETARY GENERAL WILLY CLAES
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Official release, from the nara collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. The text was read from the page images by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word. 6 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.