Thousands of eager Guyanese turned out to greet Cuban president, Fidel Castro on his whirlwind trip to Guyana in September 1973, while Prime Minister Forbes Burnham mused that the United States could get rid of three troublesome Caribbean leaders in a master stroke by sabotaging the Soviet-made airliner carrying them to a Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) meeting.
The cosy leftist trio of Castro, Burnham and Jamaica’s Prime Minister Michael Manley symbolically departed Trinidad for the Fourth Summit of NAM leaders, in Algiers, Algeria from 5 – 9 September 1973, on a giant Ilyushin 18 turboprop jet organised by the Cubans. One of the best known planes manufactured in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), it was