On the fortieth anniversary of the missile crisis (October 2002), former defense secretary Robert McNamara, Kennedy speechwriter Ted Sorensen, and an elderly contingent of more of the “Best and Brightest” went to Havana for a “workshop” that included Russian officials. Throughout the entire media gala, there was not a single word about Castro’s lust to press the nuclear button against the United States. Instead, we saw a smiling Robert McNamara hailing his charming host as a “great statesman” for his conduct during the crisis.
Kennedy’s secret deal with Khrushchev forbade any liberation of Cuba, not just by the United States but by any group or nation in the Western Hemisphere. Indeed, it became the responsibility of the United States to
prevent
any such liberation attempts. The Best and Brightest not only pulled the rug out from under Cuba’s freedom fighters, they also sanctioned the stationing of forty thousand Soviet troops and KGB goons in Cuba. The Soviets were already aiding Castro’s butchery of these freedom fighters.
The United States Coast Guard and even the British Royal Navy (when Cuban freedom fighters moved to the Bahamas) shielded Castro from freedom fighters in exile. In the Florida Keys and the Bahamas, the Coast Guard and Royal Navy were arresting and disarming the very exiles the CIA had been training and arming the month before.
In other words, Fidel Castro, that “brave and plucky underdog” who, according to his liberal groupies, practices “Machismo-Leninismo,” in fact has survived all these years by hiding behind the skirts of the three most powerful nations on earth: the United States, the Soviet Union, and the British Empire. So after October 28, 1962, Castro enjoyed a new status of Mutually Assured Protection. And Cuban exiles willing to fight for freedom were suddenly rounded up for “violating U.S. neutrality laws.” Some of these bewildered men were jailed, others “quarantined” and prevented from leaving Dade County, Florida. The Florida Coast Guard got twelve new boats and seven new planes to make sure Castro remained unmolested.
23
The Cuban freedom fighters were betrayed by the Kennedy administration. On Attorney General Robert Kennedy’s direct orders, scores of Cuban exiles had been infiltrated back into Cuba as part of Operation Mongoose to gather intelligence on the Castro regime.
“I’m really disappointed with the CIA,” Bobby Kennedy had yelled at Miami CIA station chief William Harvey just weeks before the Cuban missile crisis. “We don’t even know what’s going on in Cuba. Let’s get some men in there.”
24
Hundreds of Cubans in exile immediately volunteered for the near-suicidal missions—despite having earlier been betrayed at the Bay of Pigs by this very same administration.
CIA officer Richard Helms was in on the meetings with Bobby Kennedy. “These Cuban boys are wondering what our goals are,” Helms told the young attorney general. “They’re perfectly willing to risk their lives on infiltration missions they consider sensible. And to them sensible means actions that will contribute to their homeland’s liberation. But they’re starting to wonder if we’re serious about helping them free their homeland.” Kennedy immediately changed the subject.
25
“I told my men that, in my opinion, Kennedy’s people had no serious plans to overthrow Castro.” That’s what the head of a major anti-Castro group working with the CIA at the time in south Florida said. “I didn’t want to mislead those young men. I simply couldn’t do that. They were brave, highly motivated, and risking their lives on these missions. I told them Kennedy’s people were using us mainly for intelligence-gathering. If they felt comfortable with that, then fine.”
26
Many did. They were looking at certain torture and firing squads if they were captured. The casualty rates for their teams ran to 70 percent. But they continued infiltrating Cuba at Camelot’s behest. Among the hair-raising intelligence they radioed or carried back was information—the first information America had—on the Soviet nuclear missiles that were being planted in Cuba. The Best and Brightest, however, scoffed at the reports delivered by these brave young men.
National security adviser McGeorge Bundy was particularly incensed and dismissive. On the ABC Sunday chat show
Issues and Answers
on October 14, 1962, he said the reports of Soviet missiles in Cuba were nothing but “refugee rumors.” “Nothing in Cuba poses a threat to the U.S. . . . Nor is there any likelihood that the Soviets and Cubans would try to install a major offensive capability,” stressed the disdainful Bundy.
JFK himself had an idea who was planting these silly rumors: “There’s fifty-odd thousand Cuban refugees in this country, all living for the day when we will go to war with Cuba, and they’re all putting out this kind of stuff. ”
27
A week later, with the missiles plain as day in U-2 photos, JFK publicly announced that they were there—and the world held its breath.
What had happened? Why the shift? Well, CIA head John McCone (a Republican) had finally insisted on some U-2 flights over western Cuba—where the Cuban freedom fighters and infiltrators had reported seeing the missile sites.
A few weeks earlier, America’s U-2 program had been shifted from the CIA to the Defense Department, so Defense Secretary Robert McNamara controlled the authorization of U-2 flights—and he repeatedly forbade any over
western
Cuba. But McCone finally won the argument, which was threatening to become a political issue.
Many of the Cuban exile infiltrators who had given the Kennedy administration the intelligence in the first place—at great risk to their own lives—found themselves stranded in a Cuba swarming with Soviet soldiers after the “resolution” of the crisis. Dozens of these young heroes huddled in mangrove swamps along Cuba’s coast, dodging Castro patrols and waiting for their scheduled “exfiltration” by motorboats back to the United States.
Their wait was in vain. Their mission accomplished, their evidence about genuine weapons of mass destruction only ninety miles away from America’s coast (and hosted by the most pathologically anti-American regime in history) delivered, these heroes promptly fell through the cracks of the Kennedy-Khrushchev deal. They were expendable.
“Let’s take all the necessary precautions to stop these Cuban exiles with the commando attacks they launch in order to seek publicity from upsetting the agreement,” were President Kennedy’s words to his attorney general brother the night of October 28, 1962.
28
Remember, mere days earlier Robert Kennedy had been cracking the whip to the CIA to launch
more
commando raids!
So now the scheduled boat runs to the Cuban coast by the infiltrators’ comrades were canceled. These irksome “Cuban refugees” now died in suicidal firefights against Castro’s troops or were captured, tortured, and finally bound to the stake in front of the blood-, bone-, and brain-flecked
paredón
. “
Viva Cuba Libre!
” they yelled.
Many of these men had fought at the Bay of Pigs. They could not have imagined that the Kennedy administration would betray them
again.
In that earlier disaster, as Russian tanks and fifty-one thousand Communist troops were about to overwhelm commander Pepe San Roman’s starved, thirst-crazed, ammo-less Brigada 2506, he sent this last message to his CIA handlers just offshore: “How can you people do this to us
?
” He said this in English, as he had been educated in the United States.
Cubans captured at the Bay of Pigs were tortured and put under a death sentence. Castro said he would revoke that death sentence if they signed a document denouncing the United States. To a man they refused. “We will die with dignity!” barked their commander, Erneido Oliva, at his Castroite torturers. These heroes knew that it wasn’t the United States that had betrayed them, but the young Kennedy administration. A guilt-stricken JFK ransomed them back, only to return them to the fight and sell them down the river again. I must add something else. Almost half of the 1,200 Bay of Pigs survivors enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1963. They volunteered for the Vietnam War. These men had seen Communism point-blank and were willing to fight it anywhere.
Ask Gloria Estefan. Her dad was one of these heroes, wounded as a tank commander at the Bay of Pigs, then wounded again as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army in Vietnam. He volunteered for two tours of duty in Vietnam. Wounded, he died a lingering death (Agent Orange was suspected as a cause).
As a young girl, Gloria Estefan nursed her father through his final illness. But unlike the Hollywood Left, she’s never milked her father’s death for sympathy or to bash America. “My whole family paid a heavy price for freedom,” she said succinctly. “My father fought for those freedoms both at the Bay of Pigs and in Vietnam. I watched him die a slow death for fourteen years. I’m not about to let anyone stomp on his ideals. I always find that people have very little information about what happened in Cuba. Everyone always constantly talks about and buys into the idea that the U.S. is responsible for Cuba’s plight. But the only embargo in Cuba
is Fidel’s embargo against the Cuban people
. [Emphasis mine.] So when they ask me I tell them. How can I forget what Communists did to my country and my family?”
29
Had Richard Nixon demanded a recount in 1960 and exposed the Democrats’ voter fraud in Illinois and Texas, my kids would speak Spanish, Emmylou Harris (rather than Gloria Estefan) would be the toast of Miami, most of Cuba’s freedom fighters would be alive, and Fidel Castro would merit less textbook space than Pancho Villa, less even than Augusto Sandino.
The Bay of Pigs operation had been planned during the Eisenhower-Nixon administration. Nixon advised Kennedy regarding Cuba: “Go in!” The
Miami Herald
quoted Nixon as saying, “We should assist the Cuban freedom fighters openly. It makes no sense to leash them.” One of Eisenhower’s last recommendations before handing the reins over to Kennedy was: “We cannot let the Castro regime last! Castro begins to look like a madman. . . . Do whatever it takes!”
30
Well, we all know the rest of the story.
In a 1960 campaign speech, Kennedy said, “The Republicans have allowed a Communist dictatorship to flourish eight jet minutes from our borders. We must support anti-Castro fighters. So far these freedom fighters have received no help from our government. . . . We must make clear our intention not to let the Soviet Union turn Cuba into its base in the Caribbean—and our intention to enforce the Monroe Doctrine.”
31
“We shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, to assure the survival and the success of liberty,” Kennedy said in his inaugural speech in January 1961.
“I will never abandon Cuba to Communism. I promise to deliver this flag to you in a free Havana.”
32
That was what JFK told the survivors of Brigada 2506 at the Orange Bowl on Christmas Eve, 1962. But Castro knew it was a lie. Kennedy had abandoned Cuba to Castro’s tender mercies.
CHAPTER THREE
THE COWARDLY LEÓN
On January 12, 1960,
Castro worked himself into a fine froth on Cuban television. He raved at his
revolución
’s sinister enemies. He took a break from Yankee-bashing for a few seconds and ripped into Spain as fascists! . . . Monarchists! . . . The Spanish embassy is a nest for counter-revolutionaries! A foul hive for the CIA! etc.
The broadcast was at night, and it so happened that the Spanish ambassador, Juan Pablo Lojendio, was home in his pajamas watching television. He saw Castro, grew livid, and summoned his chauffeur while grabbing a coat. “To the TV studio—and fast!”
If only the United States had had an ambassador like that. Every day, for ten months, Castro insulted the United States. The staff at the United States embassy had had enough and wanted to strike back, but Ambassador Phil Bonsal, a northeastern liberal from central casting, had given stern instructions against any hint of criticism or protest at Castro’s crimes, thievery, and gutter-mouth. Our forbearance and enlightenment were supposed to impress all of Latin America.
Ambassador Lojendio didn’t give a flying flip about forbearance and enlightenment. Honor and respect were more important. (Remember, this was Spain
forty-five years
ago.) He jumped out of the car before it stopped. He stormed into the studio and demanded: “Where’s the comandante? Where’s the premier?” A startled producer pointed at a door.
Castro was still fulminating in front of the cameras when the enraged ambassador burst into the studio. The studio crew scampered in confusion, tripping over wires, dropping their clipboards. The cameras shifted from Castro to Lojendio, to a shrugging producer, then back to Castro—just as the ambassador confronted him.
“Lies!” yelled a red-faced Lojendio, his pajamas visibly poking out from under his sports coat. “I have been insulted! I have been insulted! I demand a chance to reply! You cannot insult my government, nor my government’s ambassador without the right to reply!”
1
Castro gaped. His eyes bulged. For once he was speechless. Wide-eyed, he backed off and threw his hands in front of him—not with clenched fists, but pleading not to have any trouble. As Castro cringed, his band of bodyguards burst in to restrain the Spanish ambassador. The cameras were promptly shifted. When they came back, Castro was seen reaching for his coffee cup (brandy, actually) with trembling hands, almost spilling it.