An Air War with Cuba: The United States Radio Campaign Against Castro 0786465069, 9780786465064

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An Air War with Cuba

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An Air War with Cuba The United States Radio Campaign Against Castro DANIEL C. WALSH

McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers Jefferson, North Carolina, and London

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGUING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Walsh, Daniel C. An air war with Cuba : the United States radio campaign against Castro / Daniel C. Walsh. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-7864-6506-4 softcover : 50# alkaline paper 1. Radio Martí Program (U.S.) 2. Radio in propaganda — United States— History. 3. Television in propaganda — United States— History. 4. Radio in propaganda — Cuba — History. 5. Television in propaganda — Cuba — History. 6. International broadcasting — United States— History. 7. International broadcasting — Cuba — History. 8. United States— Foreign relations— Cuba. 9. Cuba — Foreign relations— United States. I. Title. HE8697.45.U6W35 2012 384.540973 — dc23 2011036657 BRITISH LIBRARY CATALOGUING DATA ARE AVAILABLE

© 2012 Daniel C. Walsh. All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. On the cover: radio tower © 20¡2 Shutterstock; background © 20¡2 iStockphoto Front cover design by TG Design Manufactured in the United States of America

McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers Box 6¡¡, Je›erson, North Carolina 28640 www.mcfarlandpub.com

For Derek

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Table of Contents Acknowledgments

viii

Preface

1

Introduction: Rebel Radio

5

One. Disposal Problem

13

Two. La Causa

28

Three. “Détente Is Dead”

43

Four. Propaganda Realities

55

Five. Jamming Radio Martí

74

Six. Let’s Get It On

88

Seven. As the World Turns

103

Eight. I Want My TV Martí!

116

Nine. Clinton Puts the Hammer Down

130

Ten. Mixed Messages

148

Eleven. Meltdown

168

Twelve. Anticlimax

184

Thirteen. Change or More of the Same?

202

Chapter Notes

215

Bibliography

263

Index

293

vii

Acknowledgments I would like to thank the following people. Without their help, writing this book would not have been possible. First and foremost I would like to thank my parents, Dr. Emmett J. Walsh and Laurel Walsh. Second, I would like to thank Dr. Augie Grant, who encouraged me to write the book. I would also like to thank Dr. John Spicer Nichols, Dr. Wayne S. Smith, Nicole McLaren, Martha Diaz-Ortiz, Senator Lindsey Graham, former New York representative Thomas Downey, Jay Mallin, Sr., Kenneth Solomon, Dr. Erik Collins, Dr. Kenneth Campbell, Dr. Jerel Rosati, Dr. Lowndes Stephens, Dr. Janice Pope, Dr. David Spiceland, Dr. Frank Aycock, Dr. Carl Tyrie, Dr. Monica Pombo, Dr. Jodie Peeler, Allison Walsh, my siblings and my in-laws.

viii

Preface Radio Martí is a station like Radio Free Europe that has been broadcasting to Cuba since 1985. Radio Martí was a respected operation for its first three years, before it fell under the influence of the Cuban American National Foundation (CANF), a group of hard-line Cuban exiles. To increase the tension in Cuba, the CANF intensified the anti–Castro rhetoric Radio Martí was sending to the island. The organization used the station to promote its agenda and its leaders as the heirs of post–Castro Cuba. The number of Cubans who risked their lives by attempting to raft to the United States increased after Radio Martí signed on. Those who actually survived the journey said that Radio Martí inspired them. The station has been criticized for glorifying rafters who succeeded in their efforts to reach the United States while downplaying the dangers of the journey. In reality, it is estimated that rafters have less than a 50 percent chance of success. A sister station, TV Martí, began in 1990 as a way for the Reagan and Bush administrations to win favor with CANF leaders in Florida. Unlike Radio Martí, which covered some issues that had been ignored by the Cuban media, most of the programs on TV Martí were reruns of old U.S. television shows. The Cuban government viewed the unwanted broadcasts as a violation of its sovereignty and has jammed the signal from the first day of operation. The Cubans have been very effective. In the 20 years that TV Martí has been on, hardly anyone has seen the station. TV Martí is known for this and the fact that it violates international law. The unwanted signals of both Radio and TV Martí have baited the Cuban government to retaliate by interfering with the broadcasting signals of domestic stations in the United States. Before the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Cuban government had the means to disrupt more than 200 radio stations in the United States, some satellite transmissions, and possibly other forms of wireless communication. Although Cuba’s resources are not as abundant today, the infrastructure to carry out this threat remains in place. The distance that divides the two countries is greater now than before Radio Martí began broadcasting. Cubans tune out Radio and TV Martí and choose to obtain their information from other sources, many of which are from 1

2

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the United States. Fidel Castro is no longer the country’s leader, not because the propaganda drove the Cubans to overthrow him but rather because he is now an octogenarian. Why then does the United States continue to broadcast to Cuba? The United States has spent around half a billion dollars on Radio and TV Martí. Why? I wanted to know, so I made Radio Martí the topic of my dissertation when I attended the University of South Carolina. When I tried to obtain recordings of the programs to analyze Radio Martí, officials in Washington told me that the information was restricted. The 1948 Smith-Mundt Act prohibits the federal government from releasing to the general population recordings of Radio Martí, Voice of America, Radio Free Europe, or any government-sponsored broadcast. The broadcasts were created for overseas audiences. Releasing them within the United States would place the federal government in the position of disseminating domestic propaganda. As I waited and jumped through the necessary hoops, I continued to find more details for the background section of my dissertation. One of the people on my committee suggested that I write a book, and here it is. I eventually obtained the materials by having someone (whom I did not know) in Canada make the request and send the materials to me in South Carolina. I learned about the loophole from the people at the Broadcasting Board of Governors, the same people who had denied me the information to begin with. Although the purpose of the book is to introduce readers to broadcasting operations with which they may not be familiar, doing this is impossible without providing the broader and very complicated context of relations between the United States and Cuba. As a result, the author encourages you to read this book as an explanation of policies regarding relations between the United States and Cuba. One of these policies deals with broadcasting. While reading about the different aspects of the relationship between the United States and Cuba, the reader is encouraged to consider the role that communication played or could have played. Any agreement between parties requires a communication exchange, preferably a dialogue in which both sides are allowed to express themselves and be heard. Broadcasting between adversaries like the United States and Cuba tends to be conducted in the form of parallel monologues, in which each party expresses itself without listening to the other. As a result, broadcasting tends to increase the division between two sides rather than bring them together. The impact of this is magnified in a relationship between adversaries like the United States and Cuba where broadcasting is the primary means by which the two sides openly communicate. One purpose of reading is for enlightenment, for the reader to see something in a way they had not before. For this reason, I encourage the reader to have an open mind about the material covered in the following pages. Forget all opinions you may have about Cuba, the United States, broadcasting, propaganda, Spanish-speaking peoples, and other related elements. Most important,

Preface

3

do not approach the subject prepared to defend a political party, political figure, or political ideology. In telling the story of broadcasting to Cuba, I have tried to take the approach of a reporter. My goal has been to inform the audience by objectively answering the basic who, what, where, when, how and why questions related to the subject. In answering the why questions, the author took painstaking measures to understand what motivated the relevant parties to act as they did. Readers are left to draw their own conclusions. This work is not meant to be a criticism or negative representation of any specific person, group, government, or idea.

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Introduction: Rebel Radio Charm is a product of the unexpected.1 — Jose Martí

“This is Radio Rebelde, voice of the 26th of July Revolutionary Movement and the Rebel Army, transmitting from Free Territory of Cuba in the Sierra Maestra.”2 The words crackled through the Caribbean darkness on February 24, 1958, and accelerated the downfall of the Cuban government. Radio Rebelde was Rebel Radio, the child of outlaws who had grown tired of Cuban leaders who maintained the island’s subservient relationship with its northern neighbor the United States. After gaining independence from Spain in 1902, Cuba had essentially become a protectorate of the United States. Businesses viewed the island as a source of resources and cheap labor and the U.S. government extended its military presence by maintaining Guantanamo Naval Base on Cuba’s southeastern coast. In 1933, military stenographer Fulgencio Batista led a coup to seize control of the Cuban government. Batista protected U.S. interests on the island and provided stable leadership, something the country desperately lacked. The 1933 coup launched Cuba’s “Period of Puppet Presidents” during which Batista was not the official leader of the country but indirectly maintained power. After being elected as Cuba’s president in 1940 and completing his term, Batista left the island in 1944 only to launch another campaign for president eight years later. When he trailed two other candidates, Batista staged another coup on March 10, 1952, to seize control of the government. He spoke on the radio shortly afterward to inform the population that the transfer of power was necessary to save Cuba from an extended government by the standing president, Carlos Prío Socarrás.3 The 1952 coup canceled that year’s elections, hindering the political ambitions of a young lawyer named Fidel Castro. Although Castro was never officially nominated, he felt that Batista’s coup had sidetracked what would have been a promising political career for him.4 He retaliated on July 26, 1953, by leading 5

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Introduction

a group of fewer than 160 rebels in an assault on the Moncada army barracks in Santiago de Cuba. Castro planned to capture the facility’s radio station, issue a call for Cubans to take action against Batista, and then arm dissidents with weapons seized from the garrison. The mission failed. Castro’s forces were uncoordinated and lacked the weapons and personnel to overtake the soldiers. Of the 100 plus group of attackers, 61 were killed in the initial assault.5 Others were captured and tortured before being put to death. Castro was captured and put on trial, during which he gave an eloquent defense; he did not apologize and felt sympathy only for the rebels who lost their lives. As he closed, Castro seemed prepared for any fate: I know that imprisonment will be harder for me than it has ever been for anyone, filled with cowardly threats and hideous cruelty. But I do not fear prison, as I do not fear the fury of the miserable tyrant who took the lives of 70 of my comrades. Condemn me. It does not matter. History will absolve me.6

Years later, Cubans would recognize the date as the day on which Castro delivered his “History Will Absolve Me” speech rather than the day a court sentenced him to 15 years in prison at the Isle of Pines (now known as the Isle of Youth).7 After Castro served just 22 months, Batista issued a general amnesty that released Castro and the other Moncada attackers. Batista’s apparent compassion masked a reality in which he placed a “hit” order on Castro to eliminate him as a potential rival.8 If Castro died in prison, the public would have blamed government officials but if he was killed in public, it could be attributed to a random act of violence. Fearing for his safety, Fidel Castro left for Mexico, where he organized the 26th of July Revolutionary Movement (MR-26-7) and developed a guerrilla warfare strategy to overthrow Batista. On November 25, 1956, Fidel Castro, his brother Raul Castro, Che Guevara, whom he met in Mexico, and 79 others boarded a ship called Granma (named to honor the original owner’s grandmother) and headed for the southeast end of Cuba.9 They landed a week later, off course and under attack from Batista’s forces, who had been anticipating their arrival. Of the 82 men on the Granma, fewer than 20 survived. Batista’s men claimed to have killed Castro yet could not produce a body. Three months later, New York Times reporter Herbert Matthews published the first in a series of articles that proved Castro was very much alive and made him a legend: “Fidel Castro, the rebel leader of Cuba’s youth, is alive and fighting hard and successfully in the rugged, almost impenetrable fastness of the Sierra Maestra, at the southern tip of the island.”10 At the time of Matthews’ article, MR-26-7 was just another anti–Batista faction. Jose Antonio Echevarria led the Directorio Revolucionario, the student federation at Havana University. It was younger and had committed the “most visible” anti–Batista actions up to that point.11 As Castro fought from the Sierra Maestra, the students “regularly planted bombs” in Havana “to ignite chaos

Introduction

7

that weakened the dictator.”12 Echevarria resisted working with Castro and refused to consolidate the two organizations.13 The way Matthews’ articles romanticized Castro and his group, while briefly mentioning the efforts of Echevarria, allowed the MR-26-7 rebels to leapfrog the students to the forefront of the anti–Batista movement.14 In an effort to regain control, Echevarria and his followers attacked the presidential palace in Havana on March 13, 1957.15 Batista was reading The Day Lincoln Was Shot in his second-floor office when he heard gunfire.16 Using a secret elevator, Batista escaped to the floor above, where he spent the next three hours listening to the battle play out below. When it was over, five soldiers and 45 attackers were dead.17 In another section of Havana, Echevarria led a team of rebels into the Radio Reloj (Radio Clock) facility and took control of the studio. As Batista hid in the safety of his third-floor office, Echevarria announced that the Cuban leader was dead: “The dictator, Fulgencio Batista, has just met revolutionary justice. The gunfire that extinguished the bloody life of the tyrant may still be heard around the presidential palace. It is we, the Directorio Revolucionario, the armed hand of the Cuban Revolution who have accomplished the final blow against this shameful regime still twisting in its own agony.”18 Police shot and killed Echevarria shortly after he left the building, allowing Castro and MR26-7 to move even further into the forefront of the anti–Batista movement. For more than a year, Castro’s rebels attacked symbols of the Batista regime. Bombs exploded outside government buildings as reminders to the Cuban people that an anti–Batista movement fought for them. Rebel bombs had no metal, generating shock value but causing little damage to property or people.19 Members of Batista’s armed forces were occasionally killed. Batista responded by executing captured rebels and anyone suspected of collaborating with the resistance and then leaving dead bodies on roadsides or hanging from trees to discourage further insurrections. These tactics drove more people to Castro, whose people rarely harmed civilians. Castro developed a Robin Hood or Zorro-type persona. Peasants supported the rebels, providing them with food and intelligence. This paralleled El Dictador de Valle Azul [The Blue Valley Dictator], a popular Cuban radio soap opera, or radionovela, about a rebel leader who roamed the countryside helping poor people fight an oppressive government. Batista’s censors exercised strict control over the island’s media but failed to recognize the plot’s underlying themes and allowed the show to air on one of the government’s own stations.20 One radio announcer who usually ended his broadcasts with the signature close, “That’s all the news” added “as you well know” to the phrase as his way to mock the regime’s efforts to censor the media. After Batista officials forced the announcer to leave the country, he went to Mexico, offered to assist MR26-7, and got a new show on Radio Continente, an anti–Batista station in Venezuela, which was not censored and heard throughout Cuba.21

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Introduction

Che Guevara believed that broadcasting could generate support for the 26th of July Movement beyond the Sierra Maestra. He launched Radio Rebelde even though the rebels were desperate for basic necessities, food, weapons, and medicine.22 A covert supply line from Castro’s friends in Miami to the Sierra Maestra provided MR-26-7 with broadcasting hardware. Radio Rebelde aired “speeches, poems, music, personal messages, manifestos, and news, often read by personalities from Cuban radio and television.”23 The station carried “Don’t worry, I’m fine” messages from rebels to concerned family members.24 It also served an overt military function, issuing commands to rebel forces in the field, sometimes in code but on many occasions in normal language “so listeners would feel closer to the revolution.”25 By broadcasting from within Cuba, Radio Rebelde showed that Batista was weak, which became an integral part of Castro’s psychological operations.26 The station appealed to the public by being more objective than the Cuban media, often reporting rebel victories as well as defeats.27 Each rebel column had its own transmitter it used to feed stories back to the main Radio Rebelde station. Guevara’s operation quickly evolved into a network of 32 stations that covered all of Cuba and included operations in at least 10 other countries, including the United States.28 Three months after Radio Rebelde signed on, Batista began to feel threatened by “the voice and image of the rebel commander” heard on the station.29 Sales of shortwave receivers increased noticeably, prompting government officials to mandate that merchants document every radio purchase.30 Batista tried to jam the Radio Rebelde signal, which only made the rebels’ message more intriguing.31 He also created his own “clandestine” station, La Voz de la Sierra Maestra, but never connected with the Cuban people.32 The elimination of Radio Rebelde was an issue of “transcendent importance” in the spring and summer of 1958, prompting Batista to launch his only major offensive against the rebels.33 During the attack, Radio Rebelde appealed to the Cubans’ sense of compassion and reinforced the image of the rebels as the protagonists. “Come to the Sierra Maestra, Cuban doctors. We need surgeons urgently. The enemy offensive has begun violently along a 200-kilometer front.”34 The offensive collapsed after the rebels captured an army transmitter and codebook. This “bamboozled the Batista force into bombing its own positions and parachuting supplies to the guerrillas.”35 Despite having a clear advantage in numbers, Batista’s forces withdrew without taking any ground from the rebels.36 Radio Rebelde called for Cubans to avoid voting in the November 1958 elections: “The orders to the people for November third are: Do not go outside. The people must show their rejection of the elections by remaining at home.”37 Castro went on Radio Rebelde and vowed to execute “candidates wherever found.”38 Voter turnout was light but relatively uneventful. Cubans appeared to select Andres Rivero Aguero, a Batista crony, over three other candidates.

Introduction

9

Batista critics and even U.S. officials claimed that Aguero had won only because of “stuffed ballot boxes and tombstone votes.”39 A month later, Radio Rebelde launched its “03C campaign” with a mysterious advertisement in Cuban newspapers for hair tonic that promised “cero calvicie [zero baldness], cero caspa [zero dandruff ], and cero camas [zero gray hair].”40 Even though government censors gave the announcement little attention, rumors circulated about a coded message from the rebels embedded in the ad. Radio Rebelde provided the real meaning of 03C a few nights later: zero cine (cinema), zero compras (purchases), and zero cabaret, making it a call for Cubans to cripple the economy by avoiding all three activities. Batista’s censors took no action to stop the advertisements.41 Having gained enough support among the general public, the rebels went on the offensive, moving from the Sierra Maestra to small towns in the foothills. Low morale plagued Batista’s men, who had no will to fight and offered minimal resistance. With Radio Rebelde publicizing each MR-26-7 victory, support for Castro snowballed. By the end of 1958, rebels controlled most of the eastern half of the island. On the morning of January 1, 1959, radio stations across Cuba repeatedly played Mamá son de la Loma [Mama They Are from the Hill]. A Cuban standard dating to the 1920s, Mamá son de la Loma had become the unofficial anthem of the rebel movement, which prompted Batista to prohibit all public performances of the song. Hearing it on the radio signaled that Batista’s restrictions on the press were no longer in place and he was no longer in power.42 The man who had dominated Cuban politics and alienated practically all of his constituents had fled the island at 2:40 A.M. with his wife, President-Elect Rivero Aguero, and other top government officials. Passengers noted the significance of the event: “It’s the end of the world don’t you see?”43 On New Year’s Day, the streets of Havana became an orgy of celebration as word filtered through the public. Parking meters and casinos, symbols of Batista’s corrupt relationship with organized crime figures in the United States, were popular targets for vandalism.44 Radio stations aired testimonies from people who had been persecuted by the regime. Some speakers went so far as to identify those who carried out the atrocities.45 When mobs began stopping ambulances to arrest Batistianos— Batista supporters— who might be trying to escape, CMQ television announcer Emilio Guede urged viewers to exercise control: “We told them that it was better for a Batistiano to get away than to have innocent people die.”46 About 600 miles away from the Cuban capital, Fidel Castro did not celebrate because Batista had fallen somewhat earlier than anticipated. No MR26-7 leader was in a position to fill the power vacuum, which opened the door for one of Batista’s generals to replace him and jeopardized the MR-26-7 takeover.47 To prevent this, Castro recorded a speech for Radio Rebelde encouraging the people to stay vigilant against a military takeover: “Revolution, yes!

10

Introduction

Military coup, no! Coup d’état behind the backs of the people, no! Coup d’état in agreement with Batista, no! Taking victory away from the people, no!”48 Castro called for followers of the rebellion to maintain order until MR-26-7 leaders arrived.49 The civilian militia, did not attempt to establish any form of government.50 Batista’s military leaders, no longer motivated to fight and having no one to fight for, surrendered.51 Castro spent the next week making the 600-mile trek to Havana, crowds cheering him along the way. His arrival culminated in a speech delivered at what had been the base for Batista’s army. Someone released a group of doves, symbols of peace in Christianity and Judaism that are also regarded as deities in Afro-Cuban religions.52 The crowd gasped when one landed on Castro’s shoulder. It was a sign. Their liberator had arrived. Time reported that, in its first 100 days in power, Castro’s government had executed 493 people, mostly members of Batista’s death squads unable to escape.53 The accused had trials but the verdicts were rarely in doubt. A conviction generally required only an accusation. As Castro said, “We give them a fair trial. Mothers come in and say, ‘This man killed my son.’” 54 Fifteen thousand spectators packed Havana’s Sports Palace for one round of executions. Vendors sold peanuts, soda, and other traditional fare to spectators, who “showed up early to get the best seats in the stadium.”55 The most popular phrase was “≠Paredon!” which meant “to the wall,” the public’s call for a death sentence. Castro believed the procedures were valid and invited more than 350 journalists from throughout the hemisphere to witness the activities.56 The euphoria had faded by the end of 1959 when Castro began nationalizing all property on the island: farms, houses, factories, machinery, banks, ports, casinos, hotels, mines, railroads, busses, and practically everything else.57 Those who sympathized with MR-26-7 and provided the rebels with food and intelligence saw these same people take their property from them without compensation. Many Cubans who had cheered Castro’s arrival in Havana fled the island in the months that followed and vowed retribution. The most significant departures were those from Castro’s inner circle. As one employee at the U.S. embassy in Havana said, “By the end of the year, all of Cuba’s moderate cabinet ministers were gone.”58 This minimized the number of rivals who could take down the regime from inside. To minimize opposition, Castro seized control of the press. This began when the subsidies Batista had paid to some journalists ended. Castro’s takeover of businesses reduced the number of advertisers, which killed other media companies.59 Journalists were cut off from independent sources, leaving them with little more than material drawn from Castro’s speeches.60 When Diario de la Marina, one of the last independent newspapers on the island, promised to publish a call for free elections, government forces armed with machine guns entered the newspaper’s offices and shut down the publication before it could

Introduction

11

print.61 More than 60,000 mourners attended a mock funeral for the Diario the following day.62 U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower recognized the new regime after a week, although with some trepidation. The administration’s fears that Castro might be dangerous were confirmed in February of 1960 when the Soviet Union agreed to trade its oil for Cuban sugar and extend $100 million in credits to Castro. To make the break complete, Castro ordered U.S. oil companies with refineries in Cuba to use their facilities for Soviet crude. When the companies refused, as the Eisenhower administration requested, Castro nationalized the refineries and all remaining U.S. property on the island. Coca-Cola, General Electric, Woolworth, Sears Roebuck, and Westinghouse each lost a fortune, as did small companies like banks, distilleries, textile mills, sugar mills, rice mills, movie theaters, and retail stores. By the end of 1960, Castro had taken more than 150 U.S. businesses worth about a billion and a half dollars.63 In the United States, companies filed claims against the Cuban government for the property that had been taken from them without compensation, claims that remain unresolved to this day. The Eisenhower administration decided that Castro had to go. To expedite his removal, Eisenhower turned to the Central Intelligence Agency, who had a proven strategy for regime change in Latin America.

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CHAPTER ONE

Disposal Problem The ability to get to the verge without getting into the war is the necessary art. If you try to run away from it, if you are scared to go to the brink, you are lost.1 — John Foster Dulles

In 1951, Guatemalans democratically elected Jacobo Arbenz Guzman as their president in the country’s first peaceful transition of power.2 He soon angered the United States by trying to implement a program that would redistribute more than 350,000 acres of land. Most of this belonged to the United Fruit Company, a U.S. company more commonly known as la frutera, which owned 550,000 acres in Guatemala but used only about 15 percent of the land for its banana plantations.3 La frutera also controlled the key ports, a railroad, telegraph company, and other components of the country’s basic infrastructure.4 The Guatemalans offered United Fruit $627,572 (about $2.99 an acre) in compensation, a figure that came from the company’s own tax value assessment for the land. United Fruit demanded $15,854,849 (about $75 an acre), well beyond what the Arbenz government could afford.5 La frutera saw red and called on the White House to remove Arbenz, knowing that it would act. The director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Allen Dulles, served on the board for United Fruit. His brother, secretary of state John Foster Dulles, worked with a law firm that represented United Fruit. The CIA launched Operation Success (often referred to as PBSUCCESS for Presidential Board), a plan to facilitate a coup by undermining confidence in the Arbenz government. To serve as the primary agent for Operation Success’ six-week psychological operation (PsyOp) campaign, the CIA created a radio station, la Voz de la Liberación [the Voice of Liberation]. The station signed on May 1, 1954, and got an unexpected break when TGW, Guatemala’s state-operated radio station went off the air for three weeks for technical reasons.6 Arbenz had difficulty countering La Voz after a shipment of arms from Czechoslovakia arrived at one of the country’s east coast ports. La Voz claimed that the weapons were to be used for a civilian militia because Arbenz planned to de-emphasize the role of the armed forces. The rumor, which turned out to be true, created friction between Arbenz and his own military.7 13

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An Air War with Cuba

La Voz was gaining popularity when Arbenz ordered a blackout to make Guatemala City a less visible target for opposition bombers. Most people believed he wanted to minimize the station’s impact, an impossible task. Many homes used gasoline-powered generators, had battery-powered radios, or listened to the radio in the dark. People who lived in rural areas relayed news from la Voz de la Liberación to people in the city. The blackout increased tension, as urban residents could hear “incessant police sirens and curfew bells.”8 La Voz de la Liberación capitalized on the blackout by asking listeners in the city to put lighted candles in tin cans and place them on patios to orient rebel pilots making airdrops. Guatemala City residents failed to realize that the airdrops and rebel forces did not exist. After some Guatemalans defied the order, the country’s secret police declared that anyone lighting candles would be executed. La Voz went on the air and thanked the people for their assistance, noting that the areas without candles clearly identified military installations, making them easy targets for bombing. Flickering lights illuminated all areas of the city that evening, including some at military camps.9 The New York Times described la Voz as “an authoritative source” of information and Life wrote about the station located “deep in the jungle,” giving some credibility to the claim that the broadcasts emanated from within Guatemala.10 Finding the station became a priority for Arbenz, allowing la Voz to capitalize on the intrigue by staging a takeover of the studio. The station aired the fabrication during what appeared to be a “live” broadcast.11 TGW announced later that day that the government had forced la Voz off the air, a statement that ruined the credibility of the station and Arbenz government after la Voz returned the following day, broadcasting from a “new location.”12 The CIA and la Voz also benefited when Colonel Rodolfo Mendoza Azurdia, the head of the Guatemalan Air Force, defected to the anti–Arbenz side. Maintaining some loyalty to his former pilots, Mendoza Azurdia refused to go on la Voz and encourage the men to defect: “My family is still in Guatemala City.”13 La Voz announcers proceeded to get the pilot drunk on Scotch and asked him what he would say to get pilots to defect. Mendoza Azurdia proceeded to deliver a motivational speech to a nonexistent audience and then passed out. The announcers from la Voz then removed a tape recorder they had hidden between couch cushions and edited the pilot’s words into what sounded like a coherent call for the men to desert. Arbenz, now convinced that there would be mass defections of his pilots, grounded his planes and essentially surrendered control of the skies.14 To replace Arbenz, the CIA chose Carlos Castillo Armas, a prominent military figure in Guatemala who had trained at Fort Leavenworth in the United States. On June 18, 1954, Armas “invaded” Guatemala by driving a station wagon six miles across the Honduras-Guatemala border and stopping. Armas’ force

One. Disposal Problem

15

failed to advance due to small skirmishes with Arbenz forces. Surface to air gunfire from Arbenz loyalists took down at least two rebel planes.15 Arbenz had a superior force and greater numbers but ordered the Guatemalan army to pull back and allow the invaders to escape.16 He realized that completely dominating Armas would have encouraged the United States to intervene. A Cuban official in the Batista government issued a call via radio for the United States to assist: “It is only fair that the Americans should lend him [Armas] immediate aid.”17 Anyone who listened to the radio might have thought that the rebels were winning. CIA announcers “mimicked the voice of a communist leader” and began broadcasting on a frequency adjacent to the one used by the government so that listeners believed they were hearing the official message. The broadcasts included fabricated stories of victories won by a dominant rebel army when in fact no such army existed.18 The Arbenz government tried to differentiate their programs from the fake ones by introducing their content with chimes and a message: “Unless you hear these chimes you are listening to imposters.” The CIA simply recorded the chimes and message and played them on the anti– Arbenz stations using the adjacent frequencies.19 In a move that decisively gave the advantage to Armas, President Eisenhower agreed to sell two planes, flown by U.S. pilots, to the rebel force: “It’s too late to have second thoughts, not having faced up to the possible consequences, when you’re midway in an operation.”20 The bolstered rebel air force proceeded to strafe villages and drop bombs that caused minimal physical damage but generated a great deal of panic.21 The planes came to be known as sulfatos, the Spanish word for laxatives, which described the effect the flights had on the Guatemalan army.22 La Voz capitalized on this fear by announcing that columns of rebel forces were heading toward the city.23 The station asked Guatemalans to clear the roads to the capital and issued commands to phantom military units: “To Commander X, to Commander X. Sorry, we cannot provide the five hundred additional soldiers you want. No more than three hundred are available; they will be joining you at noon tomorrow.... To Commander Y, to Commander Y, please detach and send to Commander X three hundred of your men, to arrive at noon tomorrow.”24 With no one willing to fight for him, Arbenz resigned on June 27, nine days after Armas crossed the border. As a British diplomat later told David Atlee Phillips, a planner for Operation Success, “The soldiers had nothing to do with it. The war was won by that radio station.”25 A series of government juntas ruled Guatemala for the next two months. One by one, members resigned, until Armas was the only official that remained, giving him the presidency by default.26 Che Guevara, recently graduated from medical school, happened to be in Guatemala during Operation Success and witnessed the events firsthand. He would later remind Fidel Castro of the CIA’s actions against Arbenz, which contributed to Cuba’s contentious relationship with the United States.27 The

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An Air War with Cuba

Armas regime’s execution of hundreds of Arbenz supporters, as a means to eliminate dissent, may have set a precedent for Castro. The CIA called upon the organizers of Operation Success to develop a more complex version to get rid of Castro.28 Like Operation Success, the Cuban operation called for a radio propaganda campaign to undermine confidence in Castro and foster an opposition movement. The CIA would airdrop weapons and supplies to dissidents who were to join a CIA–sponsored brigade of Cuban exiles. The brigade would land on the island near the city of Trinidad in the center of Cuba’s southern coast and secure a beachhead. The CIA would then land a government-in-exile that would declare itself as the new leader of Cuba and broadcast a recorded plea for foreign assistance, “with background sounds of fighting ... as appropriate.”29 After recognizing the new government, the White House would commit military support to help the returning exiles. On March 17, 1960, Eisenhower approved the plan, initially code-named Operation Trinidad. Planners estimated that Operation Trinidad’s propaganda phase needed at least six months to undermine the Cubans’ confidence in Castro, much longer than the six-week campaign for Operation Success, because the Cubans were “more sophisticated” than the Guatemalans.30 To counter the negative image of the United States, Voice of America increased its broadcast hours to the island.31 At the time, VOA service to the region consisted of only 30 minutes of programming, all of it in English, which amounted to about one percent of VOA’s entire schedule.32 After World War II, VOA reduced its service to Latin America, cutting Portuguese and Spanish broadcasts in 1953 so that it could concentrate its efforts on curbing the influence of the Soviet Union in Europe. Four days after Eisenhower signed off on Operation Trinidad, “The Voice of America resumed Spanish-language broadcasts to Latin America ... edited with an eye toward Cuba.’”33 Voice of America would not be enough to destabilize Castro. VOA was created to foster a positive image of the United States, not undermine governments. To accomplish this goal, Eisenhower called for the creation of Radio Swan, a separate clandestine CIA–operated station that would disseminate anti– Castro propaganda. Planners eyed the Swan Islands, two landmasses of guano almost 100 miles off the coast of Honduras and 400 miles from Cuba, as the ideal location for a clandestine transmitter. In 1863, the United States claimed ownership of the islands under the Guano Act of 1856.34 Honduras had always disputed this, claiming that the islands belonged to them. During Operation Success, the CIA placed a radio transmitter on Big Swan Island (also known as Great Swan or Isla Grande), which was about two-and-a-half miles long and half a mile wide.35 Six years later, engineers built an airstrip on the island and brought in a new 50,000-watt AM transmitter.36 Little Swan was uninhabited. In April 1960, U.S. census workers counted 28 permanent residents of Big Swan Island, which inspired a group of Honduran students to visit the islands

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and re-claim them a few days later.37 With no heavy weapons on hand, U.S. officials on Big Swan had no way to repel the Hondurans or defend Radio Swan’s broadcasting facilities, referred to as “the family jewels.” A U.S. destroyer could be at Swan in a few hours but provided no immediate help. CIA officials ordered those stationed on the island to stall for time. “GIVE THEM PLENTY OF BEER AND PROTECT THE FAMILY JEWELS.”38 The cables that emanated from the island for the next several hours describe a very bizarre situation. SWAN TO HQS : HONDURAN SWAN SWAN SWAN SWAN

SHIP ON HORIZON. BEER ON ICE. TALKED TO STUDENTS . THEY CONFABING. HAVE ACCEPTED BEER . TO HQS : STUDENTS MIXING CEMENT IN WHICH THEY INTEND TO WRITE “THIS ISLAND BELONGS TO HONDURAS.” ONE GROUP MALINGERING, LISTENING TO EARTHA KITT RECORDS AND DRINKING FIFTH BEER . TO HQS : STUDENTS HAVE JUST RAISED HONDURAN FLAG. I SALUTED. TO HQS : BEER SUPPLY RUNNING LOW. NOW BREAKING OUT THE RUM. THESE KIDS ARE GREAT. TO HQS : STUDENTS HAVE EMBARKED FOR HONDURAS. LIQUOR SUPPLY EXHAUSTED. FAMILY JEWELS INTACT.39

The youths left after a few hours, unaware that they had stumbled upon a covert attempt to overthrow the Castro government or that the U.S. Marines had positioned themselves to repel an assault on the facilities.40 United Press picked up the story and acknowledged the presence of Radio Swan on the island. It did not tie the station to the CIA.41 Radio Swan began broadcasting on the AM band at 1160 kHz (AM) and 6000 kHz (shortwave) on May 17, just two months after Eisenhower approved plans for Operation Trinidad.42 Anyone who looked closely enough could see through Radio Swan’s cover. The Gibraltar Steamship Company, the CIA front organization that owned Radio Swan, claimed to be in New York yet had a Miami address and had not owned a steamship in 10 years.43 When asked if Radio Swan fell under the jurisdiction of the FCC, the agency responded, “We don’t know who owns the island.”44 The Miami Herald asked one of Swan’s “stockholders” about the station. The person answered, “Speak to the government.”45 About 40 other stations in five Caribbean Basin countries also hit the island with exile-produced anti–Castro programs.46 Voz Dominica (Dominican Voice) was a CIA operation on the Dominican Republic that was on the air before Radio Swan.47 The CIA also had access to WRUL, a shortwave array operating out of Boston, and began broadcasting two hours a day on WGBS-AM out of Miami. “About 140 stations” in Latin America relayed parts of VOA broadcasts and “roughly 400 hours a day” of content on 1,500 stations in the region from the United States Information Agency (USIA), VOA’s parent organization, which is under the authority of the State Department.48 There were also “lowkey” sleeper stations in the region waiting until the invasion was well underway to begin broadcasting.49 Swan Island served only as the station’s transmitter site. The programs were actually produced by the CIA and Cuban exiles in New York and Miami

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and flown to Swan. Broadcasts were in English and Spanish and consisted of music, religion, and anti–Castro propaganda.50 Cuban radio personalities who had defected to the United States and worked at some of Miami’s anti–Castro stations doubled as announcers on Radio Swan.51 E. Howard Hunt, a former spy novelist who trained announcers for La Voz de la Liberación, was called on to do the same for Radio Swan. When the first broadcasts sounded “too professional” Hunt order the announcers to “go back and put some rough edges on it. Make it more Cuban.”52 Officials went so far as to remove floor coverings so that chairs could be heard scraping.53 The “unpolished” touches made the broadcasts sound as if they came from a regular commercial station and were so good that CIA officials had to accede to U.S. companies’ requests to advertise on Radio Swan.54 Coca-Cola, Colgate, Pan American, and Goodyear, all of which had lost money due to Castro’s Revolution, purchased time.55 The station received about 3,000 letters from all areas of Cuba and 26 countries, impressive considering that Castro made listening to Radio Swan illegal and tried to jam the signal almost as soon as it signed on.56 The intrigue waned somewhat after June 12, 1960, when Radio Mambi, one of Miami’s leading anti–Castro broadcasters, revealed Radio Swan’s secret identity by announcing, “A counter-revolutionary radio station, supported by U.S. dollars, is now active on Swan.”57 With Swan’s true location and association with the U.S. revealed, the broadcasts never generated the same allure as those from la Voz de la Liberación. Radio Swan gained a propaganda victory in the fall of 1960 when it announced that Castro’s government wanted to take children from their parents and send them to indoctrination camps in the Soviet Union: “Cuban mothers, don’t let them take your children away! The Revolutionary Government will take them away from you when they turn five and will keep them until they are 18. By that time they will be materialist monsters.”58 A series of circumstantial coincidences gave the claim some credibility. Revolución, a state-sponsored newspaper in Cuba, said that the government launched a student assessment campaign to create a national “Accumulative Student Index.” Cubans believed that officials would use the index to identify the children that would be assigned to different camps.59 Castro’s announcement that 1961 would be the “Year of Education” increased anxiety as people draw parallels to the “Year of Agriculture” in 1960 during which the government nationalized private farms. The Year of Education most likely referred to Castro’s desire to create an Army of Education consisting of 100,000 schoolchildren from 6th grade through high school who would teach peasants how to read. To prepare for the literacy campaign, Castro announced that all schools, public and private, would be suspended from mid–April until January of 1962.60 What legitimized the claim most of all were the events that could be confirmed. Schoolteachers in Cuba were asked to modify their lessons to indoc-

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trinate children to learn the “ideological objectives of the revolution.”61 Cuban children from that time tell of “propaganda songs” in schools. “What does Fidel have that the Americans can’t beat him? Up, down, Americans are fools.”62 Castro’s literacy campaign required participants, mostly farmers in rural areas, to write “Dear Fidel” letters to thank him for helping them learn to read.63 Castro himself legitimized the indoctrination story by sending his own son Fidelito to the Soviet Union for schooling.64 Radio Swan urged Cuban parents to act: “Fidel Castro will have become the Mother Superior of Cuba.... Go to church and follow the instructions given to you by clergy.”65 In what became known as Operation Pedro Pan, the State Department, Catholic Services Bureau in Florida, and Catholic leaders in Cuba worked together to get children off the island. Doing so would turn the parents against Castro and the revolution. More than 14,000 minors, many of them unaccompanied, made the one-way trip to Miami from December 1960 to October 1962. Travel from Cuba ended after the Cuban Missile Crisis.66 Church leaders placed the children with relatives, foster families, or in orphanages throughout the United States. In her book Operation Pedro Pan: The Untold Exodus of 14,084 Children, Yvonne Conde surveyed 400 Pedro Pan children, most of whom said they could not speak English when they arrived. Two of Conde’s interviewees claimed to be just one year old when they left Cuba.67 Radio Swan’s other attempts to turn the people against Castro were less convincing. In his book The Bay of Pigs and the CIA, pro–Castro Cuban author Juan Carlos Rodriguez recalled Radio Swan stories now kept at the archives of the State Security Historical Resource Center in Havana: “Even the quiet of the grave has ended in Cuba. During the latest militia mobilization, Colón Cemetery was turned into a campsite. Militia are cooking their meals on the tombs and have put up beds in the pantheons. Washing has been hung out in some areas. As yet unconfirmed rumors state that vandals have desecrated some graves.”68 People who went to the cemetery could easily see that the story was false, diminishing the credibility of all Radio Swan broadcasts. Announcers questioned the machismo of Raul Castro by describing him as “a queer with effeminate friends.”69 Swan said that government officials were collecting “a million clothes hangers” to create “barbed wire fences to protect the rulers,” a rumor that suggested regime leaders were not only desperate and could not defend the island, but also placed their own safety above that of the people.70 One of the more bizarre rumors alleged that Castro officials were adding a chemical to beverages that would cause people to become communist.71 Other announcements created to remind islanders what they gave up for the revolution seemed to taunt and antagonize the audience: “Today it is 24 December 1960, but it cannot be Christmas Eve in Cuba. Although they would like to celebrate it, they cannot, because this date was always a date of the home and of the family, and the family and the home have been divided and destroyed by

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An Air War with Cuba

the Red group which rules the destinies of the country.”72 The December 1, 1960, issue of the Cuban newspaper El Mundo wrote, “The latest stories of Radio Swan would make us laugh ... if it weren’t for the infamy and poison that they distill.”73 One Cuban station described Radio Swan as “a cage of hysterical parrots” and as being “placed at the disposal of war criminals and subversive groups supported in this country.”74 The CIA later conceded that Swan’s credibility suffered due to inconsistencies from one program to another and attributed the lack of coordination to infighting among different exile groups who produced shows for the station.75 There were more than 100 anti–Castro organizations in Miami at the time, which averaged to a new one being created about every four days.76 Each created its own government-in-exile for the island determined to take over once Castro was gone. Rivals jockeyed for supremacy and used Radio Swan to promote themselves with outrageous claims while discrediting others. The infighting also delayed the formation of the “official” government-inexile that was to be landed in Cuba yet did not exist a month before “D-Day.” With the CIA directing operations, it mattered little who comprised the government-in-exile. Still, the group had to convey the appearance of a unified coalition. When a CIA official proposed creating a political convention for the exiles in Miami in order to allow them to choose their own leaders, a Latin American specialist at the State Department objected and said,77 “We have no time for consulting the Cubans on this.”78 U.S. officials knew very little about key figures in the exile community and did not “trust any goddamn Cuban” to carry out the task of actually leading the country.79 Only after threatening to terminate the entire operation did exile leaders agree to reconcile their differences and create the Cuban Revolutionary Council, which consisted of representatives from five different anti–Castro groups.80 Operation Trinidad’s military unit trained at a camp in Guatemala known as Base Trax. Training included bomb making, radio operations, and other guerrilla warfare tactics. To make the group seem larger than it actually was, each recruit got a number starting with 2,500.81 When recruit number 2506 died in training, the exiles decided to honor him by naming the group Brigade 2506.82 The brigade was diverse. Ages ranged from 16 to 61, the average recruit 29 years old. The group included doctors, lawyers, teachers, Jews, Catholic priests, Protestant ministers and pairs of fathers and sons.83 At least three recruits grew marijuana at the camp.84 One had been convicted of murder and at least one may have been “severely retarded.”85 Less than 200 had been professional soldiers in Cuba. Some had served under Batista. Others had fought for Castro but left after he betrayed them. As the largest and most visible component of Operation Trinidad, Brigade 2506 received the most attention from CIA officials, a situation that created a substantial amount of friction between the exiles in South Florida and the men at Base Trax. Three months before the invasion, Brigade 2506 commander

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“Pepe” San Roman noted that some of the newer recruits had been so disruptive that they threatened the cohesiveness of the unit. He believed the Miami leaders sent the men to the camp specifically to create problems. San Roman resigned, followed by 230 recruits, about half of the brigade at the time. When CIA officials intervened and reinstated San Roman, all but 40 of the 230 departures returned. Planners identified a dozen brigade members as “the principal troublemakers” and sent them to a remote location in the northern Guatemalan jungle, accessible only by helicopter, where they remained until after the invasion.86 President Eisenhower postponed Operation Trinidad so that Presidentelect John F. Kennedy could “review and approve” the action, a decision that ultimately forfeited the element of surprise and any chance for the United States to deny involvement in the operation.87 Cuban spies had infiltrated training camps where security was almost nonexistent.88 Letters from brigade members at Base Trax to relatives in South Florida found their way to Radio Bemba, slang for the Cuban grapevine, and eventually the mainstream media.89 Even worse was the location of Base Trax itself, which was not entirely secluded by the Guatemalan jungle. Train passengers moving between Tapachula, Mexico, and Guatemala City would wave to brigade members, who often signaled back.90 On October 30, the Guatemalan newspaper La Hora published a story about a military unit training at Base Trax.91 A month later, The Nation and Stanford University’s Hispanic American Report had stories about a planned invasion of Cuba. In January, the front page of the New York Times had a story with the headline, “U.S. Helps Train an Anti-Castro Force at Secret Guatemalan Air-Ground Base.”92 Even the U.S. ambassador in Cuba, Philip W. Bonsal, seemed to be signaling an invasion by posting signs on the homes of U.S. citizens still living on the island directing that the rights of property owners be respected by whoever might have authority, not necessarily the Castro government.93 Kennedy retained virtually all of Eisenhower’s top CIA men, including the architects of Operation Trinidad, making it possible for the invasion to proceed with minimal delay.94 By the time Kennedy arrived at the White House, Castro had become the CIA’s primary obsession. Robert Armory, the CIA’s director of intelligence, attended a post-inaugural costume party dressed as Fidel Castro in fatigues.95 Kennedy’s advisors found it difficult to justify the invasion of a sovereign state and struggled to prepare responses for the press should the president be questioned about Operation Trinidad. A mock question and answer script written by JFK advisor Arthur Schlesinger reflected their bewilderment: Q. Mr. President, would you say that, so far as Cuba is concerned, the U.S. has been faithful to its treaty pledges against intervention in other countries? Would you say that it has resolutely enforced the laws forbidding the use of U.S. territory to prepare revolutionary action against another state? A. ????96

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The young president feared a “noisy success” achieved by violating international and domestic laws more than a “quiet failure” that could be attributed to an independent group of exiles.97 To distance the United States from the operation, Kennedy tried to minimize the amount of military hardware involved. This included air support, one of the primary factors that allowed the CIA’s 1954 invasion of Guatemala to succeed.98 He also shifted the landing site to an area on the Zapata Peninsula, about 100 miles west of Trinidad, known as el Bahio de Cochinos (the Bay of Pigs) that would draw less attention. Instead of an all-out invasion of Cuba, the brigade could infiltrate the island by retreating to the nearby Escambry Mountains where they could join anti–Castro dissidents and fight a guerrilla war. The Zapata site offered the advantages of a vast amount of swampland that would limit Castro’s ability to use ground vehicles. The nearby town of Giron had an airstrip that could be captured and used to land supplies. Most important of all was the remoteness of the area, which meant “Castro could not react quickly to the landing.”99 One option not being considered was canceling the mission. The men of Brigade 2506 were determined to fight a war with Castro and had the weapons and training to follow through with that mission. CIA advisor Richard Bissell felt that the situation could create domestic problems: “Don’t forget that we have a disposal problem. If we have to take these men out of Guatemala, we will have to transfer them to the U.S., and we can’t have them wandering around the country telling everyone what they have been doing.”100 Kennedy agreed that this was a problem and believed that infiltrating the men back into Cuba offered the best solution: “If we decided now to call the whole thing off, I don’t know if we could go down there [to Guatemala] and take the guns away from them”101; “If we have to get rid of these 800 men, it is much better to dump them in Cuba than in the United States, especially if that is where they want to go.”102 Planners downplayed some obvious disadvantages. Coral reefs in the waters near the Bay of Pigs made it difficult to land ships. The Escambry Mountains the invaders were expected to infiltrate were 80 miles from the landing site. Much of the area was swampland, which made it difficult for the members of the brigade, which had increased to around 1,400, to do without being noticed.103 Despite these obstacles, Operation Trinidad officially became Operation Zapata on April 10, 1961.104 Even if the brigade could reach the mountains they were unlikely to make the effort. The same fear of exile backlash that convinced Kennedy to “dump” the members of the brigade in Cuba also prevented him from telling the brigade that they were being dumped. As a result, none of the exiles associated with Brigade 2506, the Cuban Revolutionary Council, or Radio Swan knew that the men should infiltrate the mountains. They believed that the invasion strategy remained in place and, most important, expected the United States to back them up if needed. As Brigade 2506 leader Pepe San Roman would later say,

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“We were never told about this [change]....What we were told was, ‘If you fail we will go in.’”105 Any members of Brigade 2506 that were able to make it into the Escambry Mountains would have been on their own because the network of contacts the CIA hoped to develop in Cuba had collapsed. Cuban forces intercepted half of the agency’s 30 airdrops. Only four were deemed successful, including one that gave the recipient more food and equipment than he needed or could handle.106 After releasing its payload, the plane “circled around and made numerous Uturns and even dropped propaganda leaflets.”107 Another drop that landed directly in the drop zone prompted a hostile radio response from the recipient: “You son of a bitch. We nearly killed by rice bags. You crazy?”108 Others did not get enough supplies: “Impossible to fight.... Either the drops increase or we die.... Men without arms and equipment. God help us.”109 Cuban officials usually picked up operatives within a few days.110 Castro was aided by the Committee for Defense of the Revolution (CDR), a civilian intelligence network in which those loyal to Castro turned in friends, family members, and neighbors suspected of betraying the government. Cuban newspapers called for islanders to do their part: “Citizens: Do you know well every occupant of your house? And if that one you doubt is a criminal counterrevolutionary, why do you not denounce him?”111 Cuban officials detained around tens to hundreds of thousands of CIA operatives and suspected operatives in the days prior to the invasion. When the jails reached maximum capacity, Castro filled movie theaters, sports venues, and other public buildings.112 Some people were executed.113 On April 15, 1961, nine exile bombers made to look like planes from Castro’s Fuerzas Armada Revolcionarias (Revolutionary Air Force, or FAR) took off from Nicaragua. Eight of the nine headed for Cuba to bomb Castro’s airfields and cripple the real FAR so that it would be unable to launch an air attack against the brigade during the invasion.114 The original plan called for more than 20 planes but this number was reduced to 16 when Operation Trinidad changed to Operation Zapata, and then to eight the day of the bombing run.115 Pilots in the Alabama Air National Guard trained Cubans to fly the missions but were grounded to allow the White House to deny U.S. intervention. Planners doubted that 16 bombers could eliminate the FAR, let alone eight, but they failed to convince Washington to cancel the mission. One of the eight planes in the bombing run was shot down, killing the pilot and navigator. The other seven survived and the mission was regarded as a success after sources reported that half of Castro’s air force had been destroyed. Radio Swan validated the claims and added that Che Guevara had been shot after a falling-out with Fidel Castro.116 A second air raid against Cuba had been planned that day and another the following day but they were canceled. Kennedy believed that they would attract more attention to the CIA’s role in the operation.117

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The ninth plane that left Nicaragua landed in Key West. The pilot claimed to be a defector who dropped bombs as he left but his story began to unravel when a second fake Cuban plane, a backup in case the first one did not make it, also landed in Key West and a third, this one a surprise bona fide defector, landed in Jacksonville. Reporters who had been invited to cover the collapse of the Cuban revolution began to notice subtle differences in the Key West planes and the genuine FAR plane in Jacksonville. Most telling was tape over the machine gun muzzles on the planes of the phony defectors that proved they had not been used.118 Less than 48 hours later, cryptic messages on Radio Swan hinted that an invasion would take place soon. The station was deliberately vague and confusing: “Alert! Alert! Look well at the rainbow. The first will rise very soon. Chico is in the house. Visit him. The sky is blue. Place notice in the tree. The tree is green and brown. The letters arrived well. The letters are white. The fish will not take much time to rise. The fish is red.”119 “As is well known, the fish is the Christian symbol of the resistance. When the fish is placed in a vertical position it is a sign that internal revolt is in full swing. The fish will stand tonight.”120 Cubans hearing the message were supposed to believe that a massive uprising was eminent, inducing panic just as la Voz de la Liberación had done in Guatemala.121 Instead, it only alerted Castro of the invasion he had been anticipating. Brigade 2506 reached Cuba’s southern shore shortly after 1:00 A.M. on April 17, 1961. In spite of efforts to make this an exile-only operation, CIA official Grayston Lynch was the first to land on one beach. Another CIA official, William “Rip” Robertson, landed at the other.122 Just as Castro had done when the Granma landed, Cubans returning to the island announced their presence to several local residents: “We are Cubans. We have come to liberate Cuba!”123 There were about 50 islanders who defected to the brigade on the first day.124 They faced little resistance until daybreak, when the FAR attacked. The bombing runs that were believed to have taken out half of Castro’s air force had done considerably less damage than reported. This was crucial because Kennedy had also postponed the bombing run that was to occur about the time the brigade hit the beaches until the airport in the nearby town of Giron had been secured.125 “We just can’t become involved,” he said. Navy admiral Arleigh Burke responded, “Goddammit, Mr. President, we are involved, and there is no way to hide it. We are involved.”126 Castro’s planes were allowed to fly with minimal resistance and overwhelm Brigade 2506 on the ground. On orders of the CIA, the Cuban Revolutionary Council gathered in New York and was flown to Opa-Locka Air Base outside Miami the day before the landing. The CIA sequestered the men and withheld information about the invasion. Council leader José Miró Cardona, whose son volunteered for Brigade 2506, and the other members of the council listened to updates on a small radio that someone had left at the base.127 Radio Swan and at least one Miami station

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carried a statement attributed to Miró Cardona: “Before dawn Cuban patriots in the cities and in the hills began the battle to liberate our homeland.” The release was actually created by the CIA. Miró Cardona knew nothing about it.128 As the exiles began to suffer heavy losses, Radio Swan continued its efforts to create paranoia by describing the operation as a success: The invaders are advancing on every front. Throughout all of Cuba, people are joining forces with the underground rebels fighting Fidel Castro. Castro’s forces are surrendering in droves....129 The militia in which Castro placed his confidence appears to be possessed by a state of panic.... An army of liberation is in the island of Cuba to fight with you against the communist tyranny of Fidel Castro.... [A]ttack the Fidelista wherever he may be found. Listen for instructions on the radio, comply with them and communicate your actions by radio. To victory, Cubans.130

Other messages were recorded specifically to “confuse and misdirect” Castro’s forces just as La Voz de la Liberación had done in Guatemala.131 “Proceed to Point Z.... Air group Pluto Norte” go to position “Niño Three N/S.”132 The strategy failed when Castro’s forces and Cuban civilians, who had been anticipating such developments, saw that the invasion force was on a much smaller scale than portrayed. Cuban radio stations aired “no news but plenty of lively music.”133 Eventually Castro himself addressed the Cubans, portraying the invaders as elements of Batista’s Cuba determined to return the country to its old ways: “Forward Cubans! Answer with steel and with fire the barbarians who despise us and make us want to return to slavery.”134 On the third day, the CIA allowed two planes flown by members of the Alabama Air National Guard to relieve the exhausted exile pilots. Once over Cuba, the men realized there would be no backup from U.S. forces as promised. Both aircraft were shot down. The two men from one plane were killed in combat after crashing. The two in the other plane parachuted safely but were captured and executed. A Havana radio station identified one of the men: The participation of the United States in the aggression against Cuba was dramatically proved this morning, when our anti-aircraft batteries brought down a U.S. military plane piloted by a U.S. airman, who was bombing the civilian population and our infantry forces in the area of Australia Central [which was a region of Cuba]. The attacking U.S. pilot, whose body is in the hands of the revolutionary forces, was named Leo Francis Bell. His documents reveal his flight license number, 08323 – LM, which expires 24 December 1962. His social security card is numbered 014 –07– 6921. His motor vehicle registration was issued to 100 Nassau Street, Boston 14, Massachusetts. The registered address of the Yankee pilot is 48 Beacon Street, Boston. His height is five feet six inches.135

Although some of the information was false, part of a cover provided by the CIA, Kennedy’s goal to maintain plausible deniability was long gone. The situation had turned desperate on the beach for Brigade 2506, as indicated by leader Pepe San Ramon’s radio dispatches.136

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ARE OUT OF AMMO AND FIGHTING ON THE BEACH. PLEASE SEND HELP. WE CANNOT HOLD.... IN WATER . OUT OF AMMO. ENEMY CLOSING IN. HELP MUST ARRIVE IN NEXT HOUR .... WHEN YOUR HELP WILL BE HERE AND WITH WHAT? WHY YOUR HELP HAS NOT COME?137

As U.S. destroyers floated off the coast but out of sight, San Roman sent his final transmission: AM DESTROYING ALL EQUIPMENT AND COMMUNICATIONS. TANKS ARE IN SIGHT. I HAVE NOTHING TO FIGHT WITH. AM TAKING TO WOODS. I CANNOT REPEAT CANNOT WAIT FOR YOU.138

San Roman added one final comment to his CIA contact that ignored the calls for help: AND YOU, SIR ... ARE A SON OF A BITCH.139 Just before leaving the beach some brigade members on the beach are said to have aimed their weapons in the direction of U.S. ships and fired in frustration.140 The operation collapsed. The men of Brigade 2506 no longer existed as a unit but as bands of renegades wandering the jungles of their home country. Castro went on the radio and declared victory on the evening of April 19: “The invaders have been annihilated.”141 Desperate for food and water, the men of Brigade 2506 ventured into nearby towns. Castro’s forces had cordoned off the area around the Bay of Pigs, allowing civilians and military personnel to capture the invaders one by one. Some of the arresting Cubans contacted relatives of those who had been captured to let them know their loved ones were alive.142 Several members of Brigade 2506 were surprised to discover that they had been in direct combat with friends and relatives. Most sources say that 114 members of Brigade 2506 were killed and 1,189 captured.143 The estimated number of Cuban casualties was much greater, 1,650 dead according to Castro’s doctors.144 When Cuban radio aired a funeral for some of the victims, a broadcast that reached South Florida, Castro mocked the operation: “Even Hollywood would not try to film such a story.”145 Kennedy’s efforts to conceal the CIA’s involvement in Operation Zapata failed to fool anyone. More than a year-and-a-half later, the United States traded more than $50 million worth of food and supplies in exchange for the prisoners. The history books say that the Bay of Pigs invasion failed because President Kennedy refused to provide sufficient air support. Although this decision gave the mission little chance to succeed, attributing the failure only to that element drastically oversimplifies the situation and ignores other miscalculations. On another level, Operation Zapata was a failure of intelligence, an underestimation of Castro’s power, with a critical error being the CIA’s belief that Radio Swan could turn the Cuban people against Castro the way La Voz de la Liberación had hoodwinked the Guatemalans. CIA counsel Lawrence Houston said, “As a result of Guatemala, I thought there was a great deal of overconfidence in the agency in the preparation to invade Cuba.”146

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It is unclear what Cuba would have been like even if Castro had been removed. The rival factions in the anti–Castro movement would have made any subsequent government just as unstable as all of the previous U.S.–supported regimes in Cuba. As one advisor said in an attempt to console JFK, “Mr. President, it could have been worse.” When Kennedy asked how that could be possible, the advisor responded, “It might have succeeded.”147

CHAPTER TWO

La Causa Tell me what company you keep and I will tell you who you are.1 — Proverb

Miami officially became a city in 1896, making it less than 70 years old when Castro assumed control of Cuba. In 1959, the city had a population of less than a million, making it smaller than Atlanta but larger than New Orleans. It was, in some ways, a “typical southern city” in that segregation still characterized some cultural and societal aspects.2 Born after the Civil War, the area could not be regarded as part of the Old South, particularly when one considers that a substantial portion of the population were migrants from other states and that many of these transplants were Jewish.3 The city lacked an established “good old boy” network and did not have an extensive legacy to protect. As one Washington official said, Miami “was a small southern town, with no roots and no power structure. Everything was up for grabs.”4 The first 500 Cuban exiles were on Florida soil less than 24 hours after Batista’s departure.5 The Cuban arrivals did not expect to be separated from their homeland for more than a few weeks, leading many of them to view their visit to South Florida as an “extended vacation.”6 The United States had too much to lose by surrendering Cuba to Castro. In the terminal at Miami International Airport, arriving Batista loyalists passed departing Castro supporters heading in the opposite direction. The two sides sparred briefly, an early skirmish in what would be an ongoing conflict for more than half a century.7 From the day of Batista’s departure until the Bay of Pigs invasion, about 135,000 Cuban refugees migrated to South Florida. This first wave of immigrants, known as the Golden Exiles, consisted of Cuba’s wealthy and elite.8 In the United States, they were members of the middle or lower class. Cuban doctors washed dishes in restaurants. One exile surgeon said his 14-year-old son supported his entire family by working as a printer’s devil.9 Ladies who had been members of Havana’s upper crust cleaned Anglo houses.10 Once prominent Cuban political leaders browsed Miami stores like ordinary customers, garnering glances and sneers from other exiles: “If he thinks he will ever be President again, he is loco.”11 Most Anglos were oblivious to the Cubans’ social status. 28

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Of the 10,000 Cubans living in Miami in 1959, which represented about 4 percent of the city’s population, most were in a neighborhood just south of the Orange Bowl known as Riverside.12 The Golden Exiles gravitated to the area, which had already earned the name Little Havana, to be with other Cubans and close to Catholic churches and schools that offered charitable services.13 Little Havana was a haven in a city with a reputation for being racist and ethnocentric, two reasons why the Cuban population was so low.14 In the 1950s, about 45 percent of all Cuban Americans in the United States lived in New York, giving it the largest Cuban population in the country.15 Florida had only about 27 percent of all Cubans in the U.S. Even within Florida, Miami had a low Cuban population. It was third after Tampa and Key West.16 Miami’s xenophobia was still in place by the time the Golden Exiles arrived. Apartment complexes posted signs that read “No pets, No kids, No Cubans.”17 Immigrant construction workers were excluded from white only unions.18 Banks were reluctant to grant loans to exiles.19 South Florida’s Anglo leaders pressured the federal government to move the Cubans away from the area.20 Washington obliged by passing the 1961 Cuban Refugee Program (CRP), a series of assistance projects available to Cubans only if they agreed to relocate. U.S. officials believed this would be beneficial after Castro was gone and the exiles that received government assistance would take over as the leaders of Cuba.21 About 64 percent of all Cuban arrivals from 1961 to 1978 registered with the Cuban Refugee Program.22 For 20 years, the federal government moved Cuban immigrants to all 50 states (even Alaska and Hawaii), the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and 26 foreign countries.23 The CRP also provided exiles with job training, health care, assistance with public schools, English classes, low cost college tuition loans, food stamps, housing subsidies, surplus food, and cash allotments.24 By the time the government ended the program, it had spent almost a billion and a half dollars.25 Miami schools began placing a greater emphasis on Spanish. Cuban immigrants applying for Small Business Administration loans were given special consideration.26 Professional organizations recognized licenses and certifications for exile doctors, lawyers, and teachers that had been issued in Cuba. The new licenses were issued free of charge and often ignored citizenship requirements.27 The exiles who arrived in the years immediately following Batista’s departure were the intellectuals Castro needed to advance his revolution. The Eisenhower administration believed that the absence of these people would cause Cuba to collapse internally. The unpleasant conditions that resulted would cause the Cuban people to blame Castro and launch their own counterrevolution to remove him. It was the same strategy Eisenhower applied to dissidents fleeing Hungary in 1956.28 In 1962, James C. Davies, a sociologist at the California Institute of Technology, published a paper in the American Sociological Review titled “Toward

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Theory of Revolution.” After examining other political upheavals, Davies theorized that “revolutions are most likely to occur when a prolonged period of objective economic and social development is followed by a short period of sharp reversal” and focused on the discrepancy between two key factors.29 The “expected need satisfaction” is the standard of living that people believe they should have and is typically greater than the “actual need satisfaction,” which is the standard by which individuals actually live. The average person will see the difference between the two as tolerable as long as the expected and actual need satisfaction increase at approximately the same rate. A sharp decrease in the actual need satisfaction creates what Davies calls a “J Curve” and increases the gap between the two to an intolerable level that drives the public to consider a revolution. The 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis guaranteed that Miami would become a Cuban city. As a concession for removing the missiles, President Kennedy promised Nikita Khrushchev that the United States would never again invade the island. With this guarantee, the United States solidified Castro’s power and extended the exiles’ “temporary stay” in the United States indefinitely. The Brigade 2506 members held in Cuba returned to the United States in exchange for food and medicine. The Cuban Revolutionary Council, the governmentin-exile waiting to replace Castro, disbanded in 1963.30 In the three years that followed the Cuban Missile Crisis, the number of Cubans in the United States increased by only about 30,000 because there was no normal means of transportation from the island to the United States.31 This changed in late 1965 when the discrepancy between the Cubans’ expected need satisfaction and actual need satisfaction reached an intolerable gap. Disgusted with poor economic conditions and disappointed by the revolution, the Cubans demanded that Castro increase “migration venues” to the United States.32 Castro defused the situation by announcing that Cubans were free to leave from the port of Camarioca. After six weeks and about 5,000 departures, the Camarioca Boatlift ended when a group of Cubans departed on less than seaworthy vessels in bad weather and died. An embarrassed Castro agreed to allow 3,000 to 4,000 Cubans fly to the United States each month. In what would become known as the freedom flights, more than 260,000 exiles came to the United States from 1965 to 1973, when Castro, without giving a real reason, announced that Cuba would no longer permit the departures.33 The parents of the unaccompanied minors that arrived in the United States during Operation Pedro Pan were given first priority. About 90 percent of the Pedro Pan children were reunited with parents within six months after the first freedom flights.34 Little Havana began to look a lot like Havana as the number of Cuban arrivals increased. In one sense, the temporary visitors did not leave Cuba; they simply extended the country’s border north.35 South Florida became North Cuba, the free part of the country, just as West Germany existed as Free Germany

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and South Korea became Free Korea. In 1961, the Miss Universe pageant recognized Miss Free Cuba (south Florida) for the first time.36 Two Cuban presidents are buried in Free Cuba’s Woodlawn Memorial Park in Miami.37 In 1854, Queen Isabel II of Spain helped found the Belen Jesuit Preparatory School in Havana. After Castro took over the school in 1961, the Jesuits rebuilt the campus in Miami but continued to mark 1854 as the institution’s founding year.38 According to one legend, Versailles Restaurant in Miami was laid out identical to the original location in Havana. It had the same wait staff that served the same customers at their regular tables.39 To further ease the Cubans’ assimilation, President Johnson signed the 1966 Cuban Adjustment Act, which prohibited the deportation of any Cuban that reached U.S. soil or was picked up in international waters. It also granted permanent resident status to Cuban refugees after just one year and one day, putting them on a faster track to citizenship than immigrants from other countries.40 The benefits outlined in this law gave Cubans “the most preferential status ever given to arrivals from other countries.”41 Miami’s black leaders resented the way the federal government welcomed the Cubans who had simply shown up on the United States’ doorstep while blacks continued to live in slums, lacked adequate health care, and attended lower funded schools.42 In just a few years Cubans had surpassed blacks in most social and economic categories. The number of black-owned businesses decreased while the number of Cuban businesses increased.43 At one time, blacks had owned many of the new Cuban businesses.44 The construction of the Highway 395 interchange and urban renewal projects of the 1960s symbolized the difference between the two communities. The projects displaced about 12,000 residents of Overtown, a black housing project known as the Harlem of the South, at the same time the government was finding homes and jobs for Cuban arrivals.45 The Cubans also received assistance from the CIA, so much that Little Havana could have been renamed Little Langley, as in Langley, Virginia, home of the Central Intelligence Agency. After the Bay of Pigs invasion failed, the Central Intelligence Agency created JM/WAVE, its extended anti–Castro program based in South Florida that covertly conducted “near nightly raids on Cuba.”46 The JM/WAVE Navy was the third largest fleet in the world with more than 100 vessels. Its air force included 50 amphibious planes (capable of landing on land or water) and several single engine planes as well as access to jets stationed at Homestead Air Base. 47 With an annual budget of $50 million, JM/WAVE operated as the largest CIA installation in the world outside of Langley. The operation had hundreds of CIA operatives, each with thousands of their own Cuban agents, making it one of Dade County’s largest employers.48 Calling itself Zenith Technical Enterprises and disguising the facilities to give the appearance of a legitimate business, the main complex for JM/WAVE rested

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on 1,571 wooded acres on the campus of the University of Miami in Coral Gables.49 There were “over fifty front businesses in the area: CIA boat shops, CIA gun shops, CIA travel agencies, CIA detective agencies and CIA real-estate agencies,” each one camouflaging an anti–Castro operation.50 The CIA turned to the exiles to carry out plans to assassinate Castro, plans that often bordered on outrageous. Ballpoint pens with a needle that would inject poison when Castro clicked it. Shells designed to explode when Castro, who liked to dive off Cuba’s coast, was nearby or picked one up. Small bombs made to look like baseballs that would explode on impact. Some of the more outlandish plots are documented in the book 634 Ways to Kill Castro written by Fabian Escalante, Castro’s former head of State Security.51 A popular Cuban television program in the 1970s regaled Cubans with tales about how Castro officials foiled exile and CIA attacks against the island.52 Cuba’s Ministry of the Interior created a museum that showcases some of the devices used in these schemes.53 The United States used numbers stations to communicate with operatives in Cuba. There were also Cuban spies in the United States who used numbers stations to communicate with officials on the island. A numbers station was simply a shortwave broadcast of a person reading a series of numbers that could be decoded to create a coherent message. Spies deciphered the numbers by using a one-time pad, a matrix in which numbers corresponded to letters and were discarded after their use to hinder efforts to break the code. Some onetime pads were written on water-soluble paper or flash paper, often used by magicians because it can burn without leaving residue. Fidel Castro’s own sister Juanita, six-and-a-half years younger than he, communicated with the CIA via a numbers station to move people out of Cuba. As per Juanita’s request, authentic messages from her CIA contact followed a cut from Madama Butterfly, her favorite opera. Any other messages were decoys.54 Fidel Castro would call his own sister a gusano (worm), a derogatory label for anyone who fled Cuba as an opponent of the revolution. The CIA believed that Cubans in Miami “proudly” welcomed the characterization, as would those still on the island. Based on this assumption, the agency planned to use the Voice of Free Cuba, a CIA station that operated from a submarine, to promote the Gusano Libre (Free Worm) as “the symbol of resistance against the Castro regime” and encourage “the people of Cuba to show their defiance of the government by scrawling this symbol in public places.”55 The objective was to create the impression that a dissident movement was growing internally, which would be more likely to be accepted than an external faction, like Brigade 2506. Follow-up radio broadcasts and other propaganda items produced within or smuggled into Cuba were to reinforce the image of the Gusano Libre. Later that year, Robert F. Kennedy approved a plan to release balloons from a ship off the island’s coast that would drop a payload of printed Gusano Libre propaganda and “novelty items such as ... pins ... small plastic phonograph records, decals, stickers, etc.”56 The Gusano Libre campaign was part of a larger campaign called Operation

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Mongoose, a series of plans created to foment internal dissent. The strategy included broadcasts of La Garra Escondida [The Hidden Claw], a VOA radionovela in which ordinary people struggled against the communist regime.57 Other plans were more outrageous. Operation Full-Up called for agents to sabotage the fuel supply in Cuba. Operation Free Ride planned to drop airline tickets in Cuba good for one-way trips to the United States, Mexico, or Venezuela.58 In Operation Bounty, leaflets would be dropped that offered up to a million dollars for the capture or killing of “known communists.”59 There were more than 30 individual plans for Operation Mongoose. It is not known how many were actually attempted. Edward R. Murrow, who had become USIA director in 1961, thought that Voice of America could play a role in these efforts. After the Cuban Missile Crisis, VOA ended the practice of using exile announcers. Murrow, who championed integrity for journalists throughout his career, believed that this was a mistake and encouraged the CIA to reinstate them to incite civil disobedience on the island: “putting glass and nails on the highway, leaving water running in public buildings, putting sand in machinery, wasting electricity, taking sick leave from work, damaging sugar stalks during the harvest, etc.”60 Murrow believed that the use of exiles in this way would give them “an outlet for their energies with a potential for real accomplishment.”61 Radio Swan continued to broadcast but was associated with the failed Bay of Pigs invasion and was not regarded as a legitimate operation. U.S. officials tried to remake Swan’s image by changing its name to Radio Americas and its owners to Vanguard Service Corporation, which happened to have the same contact information as the previous owners.62 Listeners were not fooled. Cuba increased the intensity by expanding its broadcasting propaganda campaign. Radio Havana Cuba (RHC) first went on the air around the time of the Bay of Pigs invasion for the purpose of “providing continuity in the work of enlightenment, broadcasting the truth, [and] acting as a spokesman for the Revolution and its ideas.”63 The station was not intended for Cubans but others in the hemisphere hoping “to follow the example of the Cuban revolution and throw off the yoke of Yankee imperialism,” consistent with Che Guevara’s desire to export revolution throughout the region.64 Programs were broadcast in Spanish, English, Portuguese, Arabic, Guarani, Quechua, and Creole and sometimes consisted of simply reading guerrilla warfare manuals.65 In 1961, Radio Havana Cuba began airing Radio Free Dixie, a program produced by North Carolina black activist Robert F. Williams that called for blacks in the Deep South of the United States to create civil disobedience.66 The militant broadcasts on Radio Free Dixie contrasted drastically with the calls for integration espoused by Dr. Martin Luther King during this time: We have no recourse but to raise our battle cry. Let every street become a battle field [sic] and every fist strike a blow. Let every stone become a weapon and every black man, woman and child become a soldier and patriot in our cause of liberty. My brothers

34

An Air War with Cuba and sisters, it is now or never. We must overcome at any price. No, we are not afraid for it is better to die than to survive as a subhuman. It is better to live just 30 seconds in full and beautiful dignity of manhood than to live a thousand years crawling and dragging our chains at the feet of our brutal oppressors. In the spirit of Lexington and Concord, LET OUR BATTLE CRY BE HEARD AROUND THE WORLD, FREEDOM! FREEDOM! FREEDOM NOW OR DEATH!!!”67

By 1965, internal support for Castro’s revolution was waning, as illustrated by the Camarioca boatlift and freedom flights, forcing Cuba to place more emphasis on domestic propaganda. On October 4, 1965, Granma, a newspaper named after the boat that brought Castro back to Cuba in 1956, began publishing to disseminate the position of Cuba’s communist party. The publication came about by merging Revolución, the newspaper of MR-26-7, and Hoy, the paper of Cuba’s communist party.68 Granma would go on to disseminate the positions of the Castro regime. Other media on the island were expected to follow Granma’s lead.69 As the two countries settled into détente, U.S. officials realized that, just as most of the intelligence prior to the Bay of Pigs had been miscalculated due to wishful thinking, so was the information about radio broadcasting to Cuba. There was no way to measure the number of people on the island who were actually listening to the Voice of America nor was there any way to measure audience attitudes toward the programs with any validity. Most VOA research consisted of interviews with émigrés arriving in the United States, a population that most likely already had a favorable opinion about the broadcasts: “Once a Cuban requests permission to immigrate, he identifies himself as not in sympathy with the current regime.... It is thus very doubtful that he would know much about radio listening habits of Cubans loyal to the regime, even if we can rely on him to report accurately the extent of his own listening to VOA.”70 The two governments downsized their broadcasting efforts in the late 1960s and 1970s. Radio Free Dixie ended in 1965.71 Radio Havana Cuba ended many of its other programs calling for revolution.72 Radio Americas signed off in 1968.73 Another shortwave station calling itself Radio Swan signed on in 1975 but, according to Radio Swan authority Tom Kneitel, “was mysteriously blown up” the following year.74 The number of Cuba-oriented programs on VOA was reduced to one, Cita Con Cuba [Rendezvous with Cuba], which aired five hours a day. In 1973 it was reduced to a 30-minute show that aired twice a day. The following year, the Nixon administration reduced Cita Con Cuba to just once a day and eventually terminated the program after determining “it was not any more effective than the Voice of America by itself.”75 As the 1960s progressed into the 1970s, hard-line exiles in Miami found themselves attacking each other more frequently than they were fighting Castro. The anti–Castro movement quickly became a part of Miami culture, creating a literal “Live Free or Die” atmosphere in Little Havana. Anyone not completely committed to the crusade to oust Castro, commonly known as la Lucha (the

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Struggle) or La Causa (the Cause), became a suspected Communista or Castrista and a target for retribution.76 More than half of the violent actions committed by exiles in the 1970s occurred not in Cuba but within the United States.77 In 1970, exile Jose Elias de la Torriente held a rally for 40,000 at Miami Stadium to generate support for Plan Torriente, a series of actions designed to overthrow Castro and restore the exiles to power. Four years later Torriente was dead, shot while watching television in his Coral Gables home. He had collected substantial sums of exile money in the name of the Plan Torriente. Like most anti–Castro plots, it never really got off the ground, making Torriente an enemy of La Causa. As mourners gathered at the funeral home the family received several bomb threats and phone calls promising to kill the remaining Torriente supporters: “You’d better be careful. We’re going to blow all of you up.” A week later, the Spanish language newspaper Diario de las Americas received a letter from a group calling itself “Zero” which said that Torriente died for delaying “the process of liberation.” The note included a hit list of other exiles and ended with a promise: “The cemeteries are big and to fill them we have a lot of time.”78 Rolando Masferrer and Fidel Castro were rivals when both were enrolled at the University of Havana. Masferrer went on to form Los Tigres (the Tigers), a paramilitary group that served as the mafia’s muscle on the island in the 1950s. When Batista fled, Masferrer was forced to hide out for days before escaping the island for the United States. In exile, Masferrer re-formed Los Tigres as an anti–Castro paramilitary group that made several attempts to overthrow or assassinate his rival. One of his more elaborate plans was Project Nassau, which consisted of invading the Dominican Republic, using it as a base to invade Haiti, and then using Haiti as a base to invade Cuba. To finance the operation, Masferrer approached CBS, offering the network exclusive broadcast rights to cover the invasion of Cuba. CBS eventually invested almost $200,000 in underwriting.79 No one questioned Masferrer’s commitment to the anti–Castro movement. If anything, Rolando Masferrer was too bold in his dedication to La Causa, perhaps so much that other exiles viewed him as a competitor. In October of 1975, Masferrer published a statement in his newspaper that said bombing could be an effective agent of political change. A week later, Rolando Masferrer was himself the victim of a car bomb.80 In a strange twist, a Cuban refugee who defected back to Cuba went on Radio Havana Cuba and claimed to have received explosives from the CIA, which he then passed on to another exile who used the materials to kill Masferrer.81 Max Lesnick served the 26th of July Movement in the Escambry Mountains in Central Cuba. The day Batista left, Lesnick was dispatched to Havana to organize the transition via broadcasting. “I suppose I was the one of those who appear[ed] on television telling Batista left and we are here.”82 The two had a falling-out when Fidel turned to the Soviet Union.

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Lesnick came to Miami in 1961 but did not align himself with militant hard-line anti–Castro organizations. He eventually conceded that his future would be in Miami and not Cuba. “Morally, we are still at war with Castro ... but realistically we know the situation is different. We have been in Miami for long-time. We pay taxes here; our children go to school here. This is where we live.”83 Lesnick started Replica, a magazine that advocated normalizing relations with Cuba, unacceptable for Little Havana’s hard-liners. According to Lesnick in a 2007 interview with the radio program Democracy NOW!, Replica offices have been bombed 11 times.84 Emilio Milian, his wife, and his three children left Cuba in 1965 for Mexico. A few months later, the Milians arrived in Miami, where Emilio took a job at radio station WMIE-AM (which later became WQBA-AM). He opposed Castro and communism and regularly denounced both on his radio program but he also condemned the intra-exile violence that plagued Little Havana. On April 30, 1976, Emilio Milian left work, started his car, and unknowingly detonated a bomb that took off both his legs. A witness said, “His eyes were full of pain.”85 After Milian returned to work, WQBA management fired him because he refused to end his anti-violence crusade. His son, Alberto, described it as a watershed moment for the city: “It cut his voice and at the same time it allowed other, more intolerant, voices to seize the microphone in Miami.”86 Less than a year later, Milian received a phone call from his friend Juan Jose Peruyero. After landing at the Bay of Pigs as a member of Brigade 2506, Peruyero was captured and incarcerated in Cuba for more than a year.87 Once released, he returned to the United States even more determined to oust las Barbudas (the Bearded ones): “I will go again — all of us will, someday. And next time we’ll finish the job. There’ll be no quitting or excuses. We’re ready to fight again to free our country.”88 Peruyero told Milian that he had found new details regarding the attack outside WQBA and planned to meet him the following day. Juan Jose Peruyero never made it. While leaving his home, someone in a passing car shot him six times in the back. As the Associated Press would write years later, “He died with $3 and a tiny Cuban flag made of paper in his pocket.”89 About 2,500 people attended the funeral of Juan Jose Peruyero, including Juanita Castro. As the exiles focus shifted from attacking Castro to attacking each other, the CIA also shifted its focus to domestic matters. In the 1970s, the CIA devoted more of its energy to managing exiles in Little Havana than fighting Castro in Havana.90 South Florida law enforcement officials were often at odds with the CIA, which often refused to disclose information about the parties under investigation.91 Intra-group and intergroup rivalries made it difficult for one group to emerge as the definitive leader of La Causa.92 Officials from the Miami-Dade County Public Safety Department estimated that there were only about 10 radical exile groups consisting of fewer than 300 individuals.93 By the mid–1970s, the FBI and local officials were investigating more than

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100 bombings and at least six political assassinations in south Florida.94 Cuba and the U.S. began cooperating to curb the number of paramilitary actions against the island. Castro’s spies who had infiltrated Miami’s paramilitary organizations often gave the FBI advance warning of paramilitary actions by exiles against Cuba or each other.95 After learning about the relationship, exiles bombed FBI offices as retribution for collaborating with Castro.96 In 1977, Miami television station WTVJ reported that the State Department had informed the Cuban government about a planned invasion by Brigade 2506 veterans. According to one State Department spokesperson, “We have had and do have exchanges with the Cuban government on possible terrorism.”97 One anti–Castro organization, the Coordination of United Revolutionary Organizations (CORU), demanded the resignations of all Cuban Americans working in the Carter administration: “Those who do not do so, we accuse them of being participants in the denunciation of all the combatants who fight for a free Cuba and will be held responsible for any consequences their attitude brings upon themselves, which is an act of high treason to the motherland.”98 The CIA’s authority was diminished after 1975, the first year of the Church Committee. Idaho senator Frank Church led the 11-member group, which was formed to restore integrity to the government that had been lost during Watergate and the Vietnam War. The committee acknowledged the possibility of Cuban exiles’ involvement in the assassination of John F. Kennedy and investigated CIA attempts against Fidel Castro. Responding to the committee’s work, President Ford signed Executive Order 11905 prohibiting the assassination of foreign leaders. The 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which outlined procedures for domestic spying, was another product of the Church Committee. Bernardo Benes arrived in the United States in November of 1960 with just $215 sewn into the shoulder of his jacket.99 A rising lawyer in Cuba, Benes fared better than other Cuban arrivals at the time by securing a job in the audit department of the Washington Federal Savings and Loan Association.100 For the next two decades, Benes would call himself the “token Cuban,” a reference to his being the only exile regularly involved in community affairs. He worked to facilitate opportunities for Cubans and Anglos to collaborate and met with African American leaders to address the lack of black influence in community affairs.101 Like many exiles, Benes also had his hard-line La Causa moments. He joined hard-liners who planned to broadcast “loving, not confrontational” messages to Cuba via a radio transmitter mounted on a yacht. Benes contacted the CIA only to have President Nixon reject the idea. The moment was an epiphany for Benes: “That is how I became a dialoguero. I knew that the Cuban exile community lacked the power to become effective opponents of the Cuban government. We needed the support of the U.S. government, and if the president did not help us, I decided that we had to look for an acceptable and dignified

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coexistence with Castro. So I converted myself from belligerent to a dialoguero.”102 Bernardo Benes was vacationing in Panama in 1977 when a friend invited him to lunch with Cuban officials.103 He proceeded to use the connections he had formed with the new Carter administration as the chair of Carter’s Hispanic Committee in Florida. Over the next several months, Benes negotiated with Cuban officials, including Fidel Castro himself, for the release of political prisoners in Cuba. Carter lifted restrictions on traveling to Cuba, which allowed Benes to meet Cuban officials in private. This was necessary to avoid offending the Soviet Union and creating unnecessary tension. 104 In September of 1978, Castro announced that Cuba would release more than 3,000 political prisoners. Benes’ role in negotiations would not be acknowledged until he led a larger group known as the Committee of 75 to Cuba in the final months of the year. The name referred to the number of people the group had “at a certain point.”105 The Committee of 75 meetings with Castro were largely “for show,” because most of the groundwork had already been established. Still, the Committee of 75 trips represented the largest nonconfrontational exchange between Cuban exiles and the Castro government.106 The Washington Post called Benes “the most logical man for the Castro government to approach.”107 The New York Times described his work as “remarkable amateur diplomacy.”108 In spite of the positive outcomes, Benes and other members of the Committee of 75 became pariahs in Little Havana for collaborating with Castro and betraying La Causa. La Cronica, a Spanish-language newspaper in Miami, published committee members’ names, addresses and telephone numbers.109 Two members of the group were killed and 20 others found bombs in their homes.110 Hard-line exiles picketed and bombed Continental National Bank where Benes served as vice president. He wore a bulletproof vest for a year and lived in constant fear: “[M]y children’s friends were never allowed to come to our house. Because their parents were afraid. All the parents were afraid that their children might be at our house when the bomb went off.”111 Even with the prospect of violence, many exiles took advantage of the opportunity to return to Cuba after Trans World Airlines (TWA) initiated charter service to the island in January of 1978. More than 100,000 exiles, about one-eighth of the United States’ Cuban American population at the time, visited the island from 1978 to 1979.112 Ironically, engaging the Cubans succeeded in accomplishing what the strategy of isolation failed to achieve. Island Cubans were envious how well their relatives in the United States were living: “The gusanos had become butterflies.”113 They began to question the revolution and challenged the regime as to why it had failed to produce a comparable standard of living. In the months that followed, drought and insects produced dismal sugar and tobacco crops, which hit the Cuban economy hard and fostered antirevolutionary sentiment.114

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By April of 1980, the difference between Cubans’ expected and actual outcomes had reached the intolerable gap described in Davies’ theory of revolution. On Good Friday, six Cuban dissidents hijacked and crashed a bus through the gates at the Peruvian embassy in Havana and demanded asylum. When embassy officials refused to release the men, Cuban officials announced via radio that they would withdraw the guards from embassy grounds and all those interested in leaving the island should go there. Castro believed the Peruvians would either seek the assistance of his government or remove the Cubans themselves.115 Within a few days, more than 10,000 desperate Cubans had sought refuge at the embassy, spilling onto the grounds, where space was so scarce that people had to camp out on the roof and on branches of trees.116 Costa Rican president Rodrigo Carazo neutralized the tension by offering to accept all 10,000. Castro’s image took a serious hit when the Cubans deplaned in Costa Rica and explained, in detail, why they wanted to leave. Castro needed to get these people off the island before they organized a coup against him. He called on an old friend to redirect the problem to the United States. Napoleon Vilaboa volunteered for Brigade 2506 but, after landing on the island, befriended the Cubans he was supposed to be fighting. He eventually found his way back to Miami where he took a job as a car salesman and participated as a member of the Committee of 75. Vilaboa was visiting Cuba when the events at the Peruvian embassy unfolded. Castro called him to his office and asked, “Chico, what do you think we should do with these embassy people?”117 Vilaboa suggested a Camarioca-type solution.118 He was then asked to return to Miami and wait for a call. As the flights to Costa Rica ended, Granma wrote, “To travel to the U.S., there is no need to make a stop in Costa Rica.... It costs less and is quicker to travel to Key West, some 90 miles away.”119 Cuban officials generated more interest two days later when they repeated their statement via radio.120 The most significant impact came from Vilaboa who, after receiving the call to move forward with the plan, led a flotilla of 42 boats back to Cuba.121 Castro appeared on Cuban radio and announced that exiles could follow Vilaboa’s example and pick up relatives from the port of Mariel without penalty. Within 24 hours the Straits of Florida were peppered with exiles in transit between Florida and Mariel. In spite of his actions, Vilaboa denied that he was a spy.122 The White House hoped to stem the problem by threatening to fine boaters $1,000 for every refugee picked up. It quickly abandoned that policy to avoid alienating Cuban voters during an election year or instigating them to riot.123 Instead, President Carter ordered the Coast Guard to set up a “picket line” to prevent further entries into Cuban waters.124 It didn’t work either. Vilaboa appeared on Miami’s Spanish-language radio and encouraged exiles to ignore Carter and pick up their relatives in Cuba. The trickle of refugees turned into a flood after WQBA, prompted by Vilaboa, issued the call “≠Qué vengan todos!” (Let them all come!).125 Broadcasters began nonstop coverage of everything

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Mariel: fund-raisers, announcing names of arrivals, donation drives.126 One station called for exiles to demonstrate their solidarity with the Mariel arrivals by honking their horns, an activity that seemed to annoy people more than it did anything else.127 The Mariel boatlift would bring 124,769 refugees (often rounded off to 125,000) to the United States from April through October.128 Officials tried to place each arrival with a sponsor, usually relatives or church leaders who would be responsible for the individual.129 The time required to process each person, referred to as a Marielito, complicated by the number of arrivals, quickly overwhelmed south Florida officials. They housed refugees at the Orange Bowl and in a tent city under an elevated portion of Interstate 95.130 To alleviate the pressure on the region, about half of the Marielitos were transferred to camps at Elgin Air Force Base, Florida; Fort McCoy, Wisconsin; Fort Indiantown Gap, Pennsylvania; and Fort Chaffee, Arkansas. Fidel Castro downplayed the negative publicity by describing the Marielitos as “the scum of the country — antisocials, homosexuals, drug addicts, and gamblers, who are welcome to leave Cuba if any country will have them.”131 The rhetoric turned out to be true. The Marielitos included a substantial number of prisoners, some of a political nature but also many bona fide prisoners who had been incarcerated for bona fide murders and rapes. Also interspersed with the arrivals were mental patients released from hospitals and Cuban spies, all allowed to leave for the sole purpose of causing disorder in the United States. After little more than a week, immigration officials noticed that several arrivals had “questionable backgrounds,” including robbery, drug trafficking, and “moral turpitude.”132 Castro had given the United States a Trojan horse. Miami’s crime rate increased 775 percent from the previous year.133 Miami-Dade police noticed a trend of homicides involving “crazy people for no other reason than they are crazy” and “just plain stupid arguments.”134 The Marielitos also disrupted air travel throughout the United States. In one six-week period, there were at least 10 attempted hijackings to Cuba, six of which occurred in the same week. Most were homesick Marielitos, who had regrets about leaving.135 About 3,000 of the almost 125,000 Mariel refugees could be categorized as undesirable or excludable. Although it was only about 2.5 percent, the introduction of 3,000 people who were presumed dangerous to society was far more than most people in the United States wanted and enough to create a nationwide wave of anti–Cuban sentiment. A 1982 poll taken by the Roper Organization found that only 9 percent of Americans believed that Cubans had “been good for society,” with 59 percent saying that they had “been bad for society,” making Cubans the least respected of all ethnic groups.136 Another poll a year later asked people who they “would not like to have as neighbors.” Cuban refugees ranked second behind members of religious cults.137 Even middle-of-the-road Reader’s Digest seemed to withdraw the welcome mat. In a December 1982 story titled

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“From Cuba with Hate: The Crime Wave Castro Sent to America,” author Peter Michelmore reinforced the idea that Marielitos brought problems: “The privilege of America, the country that had given them refuge, meant nothing. Human life meant nothing.”138 Hollywood capitalized on the Mariel boatlift with the 1983 film Scarface. Originally intended to be a remake of the 1932 film of the same name, Scarface was modified to tell the story of a Marielito turned Miami drug lord.139 In 1973, Dade County acknowledged the contributions of the Cuban exiles by declaring itself to be bilingual and bicultural.140 This sense of fellowship was gone seven years later when an Anglo organization called Citizens of Dade United successfully lobbied for an ordinance that prohibited the use of county funds for projects using a language other than English.141 Spanish and Creole disappeared from hurricane warnings, bus schedules, and health publications. Signs at the Dade Metro Zoo vanished because they included the Latin species names of animals.142 A popular bumper sticker at the time read, “Will the last American to leave Miami Please Bring the Flag” as white flight from the city to places like Broward County, just north of Miami, accelerated the “Cubanization” of the area.143 Those that remained refused to surrender. Common signs in the area read “Save America for Us” and “Learn and Speak English, Dammit.”144 Editorials in the Miami Herald bemoaned the presence of the Cubans as a persistent problem: “Castro always seems to call the shots here.”145 Even without Mariel, the Anglos were fighting a losing battle. In spite of efforts to move the Cubans out of the area in the 1960s, many found their way back to South Florida in the 1970s. The percentage of Cubans in Miami who had lived elsewhere in the United States increased from 27 percent in 1972 to 34 percent in 1977 and about 40 percent in 1978.146 Returnees cited Miami’s warm climate and proximity to friends as reasons for their reverse migration. Surprisingly, less than 20 percent cited economic opportunities as a reason.147 Arthur McDuffie, a black insurance salesman and former Marine, wrote a bad $35 check for a fine he incurred as a result of a traffic accident. His license was suspended but he continued to drive. McDuffie was later cited for driving with expired plates and then missed a court date related to that offense. On December 17, 1979, police officers saw McDuffie on a motorcycle and launched an eight-minute chase at speeds that exceeded 100 miles per hour. McDuffie slowed down and surrendered on an overpass, shouting, “I give up.”148 “No fewer than six and as many as 12” white officers proceeded to beat the 33-yearold McDuffie in the head with the butt ends of flashlights.149 One of the men used McDuffie to demonstrate how to break someone’s legs. Another officer who witnessed the incident but did not participate said the men were “like a bunch of animals fighting for meat.”150 Within three minutes, McDuffie’s head was split open.151 He died on the way to the hospital. The officers then tried to

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stage the scene as an accident, at one point driving a police cruiser over the motorcycle to augment the damage. Five months later, days after the first Marielitos arrived in Florida, an allwhite jury in Tampa deliberated just three hours before acquitting the officers. Blacks in Miami’s Liberty City area rioted for three days, which resulted in $100 million in damage and at least 17 deaths.152 Police arrested more than a thousand people. According to Marvin Dunn, author of The Miami Riot of 1980: Crossing the Bounds, “Most of the federal money to deal with the riot went to white and Hispanic business owners who were impacted — and they depopulated the area.”153 The McDuffie riots illustrated the tension that had been building in south Florida for decades. A 1981 Time cover story titled “Paradise Lost” detailed the ethnic differences, unwanted Marielitos, skyrocketing murder rate, drug trafficking, and rapid development. These were problems that the Cuban exiles would have to solve. As Miami became more Cuban, it seemed inevitable that exiles would develop their own “good old boy” network that would determine the city’s fate. The only uncertainty was determining who the “good old boys” would be, the anti–Castro hard-liners or the moderates. Ronald Reagan would make that decision, altering Miami’s destiny once again.

CHAPTER THREE

“Détente Is Dead” On November 4, 1979, hundreds of Iranian students stormed the United States embassy in Tehran and took 66 American diplomats hostage.1 The Iranians wanted the United States to extradite Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, the country’s head of state who was receiving cancer treatment at the Mayo Clinic. Iran was experiencing an Islamic revolution that rejected Pahlavi, who used the state police (SAVAK) to preserve order through intimidation. The Iranians also opposed the United States, which had backed the shah for more than 20 years in exchange for maintaining a government with Western values. Returning Pahlavi to Iran would have most likely resulted in his being tried and executed, an action that the Carter administration was unwilling to facilitate. Support for the president surged in the days immediately following the embassy takeover but plummeted as the conflict reached a stalemate and the public began to see Carter as inept. Every evening, television networks announced how many days the hostages had been in captivity and aired footage of Iranians denouncing the United States. By the time of the Mariel boatlift, Carter’s approval rating had dropped to almost 20 percent. On April 24, Carter launched Operation Eagle Claw, a plan to fly 90 men into Tehran, storm the embassy, and free the hostages. In the darkness of the Arabian night, one of the eight Sikorsky RH53 helicopters on the rescue team experienced mechanical problems en route to the refueling point and had to withdraw from the mission.2 The pilot of another became disoriented after flying through a sandstorm, forcing him to retreat to the aircraft carrier Nimitz in the Arabian Sea.3 The remaining six helicopters proceeded to an interim point in the Iranian desert where six C–130 cargo planes were to refuel them. The team then discovered that mechanical problems had disabled yet another chopper, leaving the group short of the minimal number of aircraft needed to execute the mission. When the team leader suggested that the operation be scrubbed and relayed the information to the White House, Carter called it off: “Let’s go with his recommendation.”4 As the choppers began their departure amidst blinding dust, the sound of metal striking metal cut through the cold desert air and then ... an explosion. The rotor of one helicopter had hit one of the C–130s. Eight members of the team were dead. 43

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The debacle in Iran represented not only a failed mission but also a failed policy. Jimmy Carter, the likable peanut farmer from Plains, Georgia, entered the White House in 1977 with a contemporary approach to foreign policy. Carter believed that a human rights-based foreign policy strategy would de-emphasize the issues that perpetuated conflicts throughout the world. Carter wanted to reduce funding for countries with governments that represse human rights and recognize countries with a positive human rights record. Doing so countered traditional Cold War ideology in which relations with a state were determined by how the relationship affected the balance of power with the Soviet Union. Carter’s approach was conciliatory, as illustrated by the United States relinquishing control of the Panama Canal. Any aspirations Carter had for this approach now lay in ashes in the Iranian desert. The Iran hostage crisis illustrated the primary obstacle in executing a human rights approach to foreign policy: Military action became a last resort. Before Operation Eagle Claw, Carter had not called for a single military action. To minimize harm to civilians during the hostage mission, Carter called for the rescue team to use “non-lethal” agents (tear gas) and shoot only if necessary. Former California governor and dedicated anti-communist Ronald Reagan described Carter’s approach to foreign policy as “balky and contradictory.”5 In the days prior to signing the Panama Canal Treaty, Reagan predicted that the “giveaway” would lead to increased Marxism in Central America.6 By the time voters went to the polls for the 1980 elections, Reagan felt that he had been vindicated. Nicaraguan President Antonio Somoza Debayle ruled his country like a king, controlling more land than anyone else in the country and many of its key businesses.7 Less than 1 percent of Nicaragua’s population controlled about 30 percent of the arable land, while about half of the country’s farmers owned less than 4 percent.8 When an earthquake hit Managua in 1972, Somoza intercepted relief funds and then ordered the city to be rebuilt on his land using his construction company.9 This alienated most of Nicaragua’s business leaders and elite, the very people who had been supporting him.10 Amnesty International criticized Somoza’s state police, known as the National Guard, for “widespread abduction, torture and killing of peasants” and for committing crimes such as taking “food and animals.”11 President Ford realized that the situation in Nicaragua had become a liability and began to “nudge Somoza to open up the political process.”12 Carter continued this trend by gradually reducing the amount of foreign aid to the country, which weakened the National Guard and bolstered antigovernment forces. By 1979, various rebel groups had taken several key cities and were on the verge of ousting Somoza. When Somoza fled for Miami in 1979, the Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional (FSLN), also known as the Sandinistas, emerged as the new leaders and quickly established a Marxist government. Contrary to the traditional Cold War tactic of removing one dictator and replacing him with another that would

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be favorable to the United States, the Carter administration took a hands-off approach to Nicaragua and did not specifically back any group to replace Somoza. Even though the Sandinistas sought assistance from the Soviet Union and Cuba, the United States recognized the new government to avoid driving it further away. Carter officials could accept another Cuba-type state in the region but hoped to avoid having another Cuba-type relationship, that being no relationship at all. As Ambassador Lawrence Pezzullo said, “We should stay out of the ‘foreign devil’ role, which they’d just love to put us in.”13 El Salvador could be described as a right-wing oligarchy where approximately 2 percent of the population controlled almost 60 percent of the land and practically the entire legislature.14 To protect its interests, the oligarchy allied itself with El Salvador’s armed forces. Death squads kept peasant workers in line by killing any individual who advocated modifying the status quo. The military also supervised the electoral process, which consistently chose leaders that favored the oligarchy. After witnessing the events in Nicaragua, a group of “young progressive [military] officers” ousted El Salvador’s President Carlos Humberto Romero “in a bloodless coup” on October 15, 1979, to prevent a takeover by leftist forces.15 In an effort to appease a growing peasant opposition, the officers created a five-person junta consisting of two military and three civilian leaders and vowed to investigate human rights abuses committed by the armed forces. This proved to be almost impossible because rightist military leaders were, by instinct, loyal to the status quo and reluctant to cooperate with the progressives. Almost immediately, the junta began to collapse and Salvadorans realized they would be unable to reconcile the issues that divided the different factions. Another relevant party was the Catholic Church, whose leaders began to denounce the military’s excessive use of violence. This prompted death squads to view church leaders as threats and adopt the mantra, “Be a patriot. Kill a priest.”16 Eight priests in El Salvador lost their lives or were desaparecido (disappeared) from 1977 to early 1980, each action attributed to government death squads. The Roman Catholic Diocese of San Salvador operated YSAX-AM, one of the only media organizations in El Salvador that acknowledged the actions of the death squads. The station covered the funerals of murdered priests and rejected government accounts of how they and others died.17 The station also carried the services of Monsignor Oscar Romero, the archbishop of San Salvador and the country’s most prominent religious figure. A bomb destroyed the station not long after Romero urged the United States not to fund the Salvadoran government.18 Romero expected to die: “I don’t believe in death without resurrection. So even if they kill me, I will rise again in the Salvadoran people.”19 Oscar Romero was assassinated on March 24, 1980, while conducting mass. In the months that followed, guerrilla forces that had been operating independently formed the unified Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN)

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and, with support from Castro’s Cuba, went on the offensive. El Salvador’s civil war had begun. In 1980 both sides would lose more than 9,000 lives. Grenada was a much simpler conflict that failed to attract international interest. For more than 20 years, Sir Eric Gairy had been the most prominent figure in this Caribbean island state about the size of Martha’s Vineyard. In 1951, Gairy organized a general strike to oppose British control of the colony, which allowed his Grenada United Labor Party to become the most influential political force on the island. Gairy maintained his position through force and illegal elections. As prime minister, he passed the 1968 Firearms Act, which prohibited Grenadians from owning weapons and minimized the likelihood of an uprising against him. Gairy placed the marketing associations for the country’s three primary agricultural products (nutmeg, bananas, and cocoa) under government authority, minimizing the influence of the island’s farmers.20 The New Jewel (Joint Endeavor for Welfare, Education, and Liberation) Movement opposed Gairy. The organization paralleled militant black power organizations in the United States and had been trying to take control of the government since Grenada’s days as a British colony. Two years after the country gained its independence, the New Jewel movement won six of 15 seats in Grenada’s legislature but failed to achieve the more significant goal of ousting Gairy. UFOs fascinated Gairy, who on more than one occasion spoke before the United Nations hoping to persuade the organization to conduct research on extraterrestrial beings. Gairy was in New York to deliver one such speech on March 13, 1979, when he heard that there had been a coup in his country and he had been deposed. With Gairy out of the country, New Jewel leaders politely entered the barracks of Grenada’s defensive forces and captured “100 soldiers who were sleeping and unarmed.”21 News of the coup appeared on page nine of the New York Times after stories from Israel, Egypt, Thailand, South Korea, Kenya, Northern Ireland, West Germany, the Philippines, Great Britain, Qatar, and Lebanon. The Washington Post had the story on page 20 and quoted Gairy as saying the new regime was “a little group of communists.”22 After ten days, the United States and Great Britain recognized the new government despite that possibility. Anyone with a map detailing the spheres of influence for countries in the Western Hemisphere could see that the perimeter of the Caribbean Basin was turning red and Cuba was at the hub. Ronald Reagan said what other hardliners were thinking; Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Grenada were Cuban and Soviet satellites. Castro’s island had always been an obsession for Reagan. When he challenged incumbent President Gerald Ford for the Republican presidential nomination in 1976, Reagan characterized Ford as weak on Cuba. Republicans narrowly renominated Ford, 1,187 delegates to Reagan’s 1,070. Reagan continued to campaign after the 1976 election, maintaining his anti-communist and anti–Castro rhetoric throughout. He produced a series of

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radio broadcasts, nearly a third of which dealt with foreign policy, and occasionally took a jab at Cuba.23 After it was revealed that a Soviet combat brigade of 2,000 to 3,000 soldiers was stationed in Cuba, Reagan called for the United States to sever all ties with the Soviets. When the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, Reagan appeared on 60 Minutes and said that a blockade of Cuba should be considered.24 While campaigning for the White House in 1980, candidate Reagan spoke about Cuba more frequently than he did Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Grenada and rarely mentioned the latter states without referencing the former: “Must we let Grenada, Nicaragua, El Salvador, all become additional ‘Cubas,’ new outposts for Soviet combat brigades? ... Will the next push of the Moscow-Havana axis be northward to Guatemala, then to Mexico, south to Costa Rica and Panama?”25 Reagan was not alone in arguing that the United States should keep an eye southward. In May of 1980, a five-member group of conservatives called the Council for Inter-American Security, commonly known as the Committee of Santa Fe, released a 54-page document that warned of a communist takeover of the region. A New Inter-American Policy for the Eighties, also known as the Santa Fe Report, painted a dire picture of the situation as evidenced by the following quotes: • America is everywhere in retreat.26 • Even the Caribbean, America’s maritime crossroad and petroleum refining center, is becoming a Marxist-Leninist lake.27 • Not only are U.S.–Latin American relations endangered, but the very survival of this republic is at stake.28 • For the United States of America, isolation is impossible. Containment of the Soviet Union is not enough. Détente is dead. Survival demands a new U.S. foreign policy. America must seize the initiative or perish for World War III is almost over.29 The Santa Fe Report served as a blueprint for a hard-line foreign policy designed to roll back communism in the Western Hemisphere. This included a call for the United States to assist right wing forces in the region’s hot spots: Reactivate as the third element of our hemispheric security system our traditional military ties within this hemisphere by offering military training and assistance to the armed forces of the Americas with particular emphasis on the younger officers and non-commissioned officers. Offer technical and psychological assistance to all countries of this hemisphere in the struggle against terrorism, regardless of the source.30

Anyone reading between the lines could see that this meant supporting rebel forces that opposed the Sandinista government in Nicaragua and backing death squads in El Salvador, the diametric opposite of Carter’s human rights based approach. The strategy also called for the United States to take “punitive” actions against the “Soviet vassal state” Cuba. Again this was the opposite of Carter

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who hoped to bring the United States and Cuba closer.31 In Presidential Directive NSC 6 –77, issued March 15, 1977, Carter stated, “I have concluded that we should attempt to achieve normalization of our relations with Cuba.”32 Later that year, the administration made the first steps toward achieving that goal by establishing a fishing agreement with the Castro government. The treaty did little more than establish boundaries on where and what kinds of fish the two countries could catch but still it had symbolic value. Less than two weeks later, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted to end restrictions on sending food and medical supplies to the island. Cuba and the United States agreed to establish interests sections in the respective capital cities of each country, their first exchange of diplomats in 16 years. Although the interests sections could not conduct the same duties as embassies, because the two countries did not have normal relations, they did allow each government to have a form of diplomatic representation. The progress toward normalization stalled when Cuba increased its support of leftist forces in Africa. In 1975, Cuba began helping pro-communist factions in Angola’s civil war, help which consisted primarily of about 12,000 Cuban troops. During the Carter administration, Cuba tried to extend its influence in Africa by sending troops to Ethiopia and Zaire.33 Relations between the United States and Cuba deteriorated further with the revelation of the Soviet brigade on the island and after Castro initiated the Mariel boatlift. Castro wanted Carter to be reelected. Even though the reunification trips to the island, led by the Committee of 75, had shown the islanders that their exile relatives were better off in the United States, the visits bolstered the Cuban economy by introducing a substantial amount of U.S. currency to the island. To improve Carter’s chances, Castro ended the Mariel Boatlift just days before the election and released 33 Americans from Cuban prisons. The strategy backfired. Most of the released prisoners supported Reagan’s agenda. As one said, “I hope our next president takes a hard stance against communism —and that means Cuba.”34 On November 4, 1980, one year to the day that the Iranians stormed the U.S. embassy in Tehran, voters in the United States elected Ronald Reagan as their 40th president with 50.8 percent of the popular vote and 44 states.35 It was Carter’s inability to address the situation in Iran, not the changes in Latin America, that sold the public on Reagan. Rightists throughout Central America cheered, while those on the left knew they had to act before Reagan entered office and strengthened the other side.36 FMLN forces went on their “final offensive” in San Salvador to establish a Marxist government prior to Reagan’s inauguration. The drive stalled, ensuring that Salvadoran civil war would continue. The Iran Hostage Crisis helped Reagan win the White House but ended about two hours into his administration.37 With that problem solved, foreign policy shifted to the Reagan Doctrine, his pledge to support factions that opposed communism around the world. “We win and they lose” was how Reagan described his vision to fellow conservative hard-liner Richard Allen in

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1977.38 With those five words Allen dropped his plan to run for governor of New Jersey and eventually became Reagan’s national security advisor. It was the simplicity of the idea that made the proposal most appealing: Confront the Soviet Union on every possible front in order to bankrupt its government. As one pundit said, Reagan took a strategy Che Guevara had of giving the United States “many Vietnams” but reversed it to give the Soviets “many Afghanistans.”39 On his second day in office, Reagan suspended aid to Nicaragua’s government, citing its support of leftist factions in El Salvador. A few weeks later, the State Department issued Communist Interference in El Salvador, a white paper that linked the rebels in El Salvador to the Soviet Union and Cuba.40 Reagan advisor Ed Meese announced that the administration had not ruled out the use of a blockade to prohibit Cuban arms shipments to Central America.41 Opinion polls suggested that Reagan’s aggressive strategy would be difficult to sell to the public. Most people opposed sending aid to El Salvador’s government and viewed the situation as a “potential Vietnam.” Others did not seem to understand the conflict. When one CBS/New York Times poll asked, “Can you tell me what part of the world El Salvador is in,” only 25 percent correctly answered “Central America.” To be fair, 28 percent gave “South America” as their answer, which some would regard as correct due to differences in interpreting the boundaries of the continents in the Western Hemisphere. Still, that does not account for the remaining 47 percent of people who did not give either of those responses, including the 39 percent that answered “no opinion,” which probably meant, “don’t know.”42 To gain support for the administration’s Latin America agenda, Allen and his assistant, Mario Elgarresta, an anti–Castro Cuban hard-liner, suggested creating a Cuban American lobbying group.43 The idea was to convert the exiles’ hatred of Castro to hatred of Cuban satellite states. Any friend of Castro was an enemy of the hard-line exiles who would be asked to support a campaign against them. The organization was to be called the Cuban American National Foundation (CANF) and it would tell Congress and the general population that Fidel Castro still posed a threat to the United States, reversing the pro-dialogue movement of the 1970s that had softened Castro’s image. It would be easier to sell a strategy that opposed extending this type of regime to other countries in the region rather than trying to convince the public to back right-wing death squads. Reagan spelled out this strategy in National Security Decision Directive 17 (NSDD–17), issued in January of 1982: “Build public pressure against Cuba by highlighting human and political rights issue. Use international Cuban community to carry the message.”44 A public alliance between the Cuban American community and the Republican Party capitalized on what was already a strong relationship. Exiles had aligned themselves with the GOP after Kennedy’s betrayal of Brigade 2506 and his promise during the Cuban Missile Crisis to never invade the island again.

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More than 10 years after helping to plan the Bay of Pigs invasion, E. Howard Hunt organized Nixon’s White House plumbers, who broke into the Watergate Hotel on June 17, 1972. Four of the five burglars arrested had connections to CIA operations against Cuba. The CANF would also counter the negative stereotypes of Cuban Americans fostered by the exile violence of the 1970s and the Mariel boatlift of 1980.45 To deal with the image issue, Allen and Elgarresta approached Raul Masvidal and Carlos Salman, exiles who supported a hard line against Castro yet were reputable enough to give the organization some credibility. According to Masvidal, “We were told that there was a chance of doing something during the Reagan administration for Cuba if we could organize to improve our image.... That was the hype.”46 Masvidal epitomized Cuban American success. He arrived in the United States in 1960 at the age of 17, volunteered for the Bay of Pigs invasion, and worked his way up to become president of Biscayne Bank. Salman, a realtor by trade, was politically savvy and already had an established relationship with the Republican Party, including working on the 1980 Reagan-Bush committee for Dade County.47 Shortly after helping the CANF get off the ground, Reagan appointed Salman to be a member of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC).48 Elgarresta later recommended Jorge Mas Canosa, a business associate of his, as a third CANF leader. Mas, who was also a Bay of Pigs veteran, owned and operated Church and Tower, a successful communications company in South Florida, but he did not have the same amount of clout as the other two men. As Masvidal said, “Originally, Salman and I had a lot more connections than Jorge.”49 After 20 years of fighting Castro with intermittent support, hard-liners finally had a way to play a direct role in developing policy, not just action, for Cuba. The hard-liners had become more civilized in their loathing of Castro and, for the first time ever, seemed to respect their adversary. As Masvidal said, “There’s no question that he’s beaten us— he’s won so far.”50 More important, the CANF was legal and overt. As Jorge Mas Canosa said, “We had to stop commando raids and concentrate on influencing public opinion and governments.”51 The CANF focused La Causa by uniting rival factions. Hard-liners that targeted each other during the inter-group conflicts of the 1970s were suddenly on the same team. Allen encouraged Masvidal to “copy the Israeli lobby,” specifically mentioning the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), arguably the most successful foreign policy lobbying group.52 With a budget of 1.3 million dollars and a staff of 30, AIPAC had played a key role in persuading the United States to continue its support of Israel. AIPAC leaders shared their knowledge of fund-raising and lobbying with the new organization and provided the Cubans with inexpensive office space.53 They recommended that the exiles create three distinct yet interrelated bodies: one for lobbying (Cuban American Foun-

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dation), one for funding (Free Cuba PAC), and one for research/education (the CANF). This arrangement gave the organization tax-exempt status yet allowed them to receive government funding.54 The CANF’s first objective was obvious. On September 22, 1981, Reagan issued Executive Order 12323 calling for the creation of the Presidential Commission on Broadcasting to Cuba, an 11-person panel tasked with devising a radio station that would serve Cuba the way Radio Free Europe served countries on the other side of the Iron Curtain.55 As Allen said at the press conference issuing the order, the station would “tell the truth to the Cuban people” and address “Castro on his own ground.”56 The idea for “Radio Free Cuba” came directly from the Santa Fe Report, which said that illuminating the horrors of the Castro regime would show how the “unholy alliance with Moscow” has been detrimental for Cuba and might encourage the Cubans to reconsider and possibly terminate their relationship with the Soviet Union.57 The United States might be “generous” if such a change was made. All of this advice came with the caveat that, “if propaganda fails, a war of national liberation against Castro must be launched.”58 Within 24 hours after Allen’s announcement, the operation had an identity, Radio Martí, named after the 19th century poet and patriot Jose Martí, who helped inspire Cuba’s drive for independence from Spain. The decision to name the station after Martí was odd considering that part of his motivation for Cuban independence was to prevent the United States from annexing the island. In a letter he wrote shortly before he was killed at the Battle of Dos Rios, Martí seemed to think that an independent Cuba would save the entire hemisphere: “It is my duty to prevent, by the independence of Cuba, the United States from spreading over the West Indies and falling, with that added weight, upon other lands of our America. All I have done up to now, and shall do hereafter I do to that end.... I have lived inside the monster and know its entrails— and my weapon is only the slingshot of David.”59 Six days after issuing Executive Order 12323, Radio Broadcasting to Cuba, Incorporated (RBC, Inc.) was created as a private nonprofit corporation in Washington, D.C., to operate Radio Martí. Trustees were identified as William Stedman, former ambassador to Bolivia, Robert Zimmerman, a retired foreign-service officer, and Midge Decter, a conservative writer for Commentary magazine who cofounded the anticommunist organization Committee for the Free World with Jeanne Kirkpatrick. As a nonprofit entity, RBC, Inc., would have more independence and less Congressional oversight than Voice of America. Nonprofit status also allowed Radio Martí to receive donations from independent corporations like the Cuban American National Foundation. Even with this advantage, the White House requested $10 million from Congress to operate Radio Martí. The White House hoped the broadcasts could begin in January even though legislation authorizing the station did not exist. No bill had even been

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introduced and there had been no hearings on broadcasting to Cuba. The station had not even entered the planning stage because Reagan had yet to name anyone to the Presidential Commission on Broadcasting to Cuba. The subject of Radio Martí came up when William Salmon and Myles Frechette, Department of State advisors on Cuba, spoke before the House Committee on Government Operations in a hearing on international broadcasting. Representative Glenn English, a Democrat from Oklahoma, questioned Salmon as to how the station could progress without Congressional authorization: MR . ENGLISH: The terms of the incorporation of RBC limit the functions to activities which are “in accordance with Federal legislation governing Radio Broadcasting to Cuba and grant there under.” What legislation and grants does the Radio Broadcasting to Cuba charter refer to? MR . SALMON: Perhaps Mr. Frechette can help us on this. MR . FRECHETTE: Mr. Chairman, we are in the process of coming forward to Congress and seeking legislation for radio broadcasting. Such legislation does not exist at this moment. MR . ENGLISH: So the reference within the charter is for legislation that hasn’t been created yet? MR . FRECHETTE: That is correct. MR . ENGLISH: Isn’t that kind of getting the cart before the horse a little bit? MR . FRECHETTE: No sir. We wanted to be ready in the event that we did get some legislation so that we could get moving right away. In addition, since this is a private nonprofit corporation, we also expected to get some private contributions and we wanted to be in a position to accept those should they come forward. MR . ENGLISH: What about the legislation you get out of Congress? MR . FRECHETTE: We are taking our chances.60

In June 1982, the Washington Post and the New York Times reported that the navy was building four 250-foot AM transmitter towers for Radio Martí in the Florida Keys. When Timothy Wirth, a Democrat from Colorado and chair of a House subcommittee on telecommunications, said the construction was “illegal” without congressional approval, the White House responded that the transmitters would be used only if Congress approved the station.61 Frechette assured critics that “not one penny of public money will be spent for Radio Martí until Congress authorizes and approves money for it.”62 The most vocal critics of Radio Martí came from the State Department’s own officials at the interests section in Havana. Wayne S. Smith joined the Department of State in 1957 and served as executive director of President Kennedy’s Latin American Task Force. In 1979, Smith was named head of the U.S. Interests Section in Havana. Two years later, he advocated a “policy of gradual engagement” with Cuba, continuing the trend toward normalization initiated under Carter. He rejected Reagan’s hard-line tactics and felt that Cuba posed a minimal threat to the region. He also predicted that Radio Martí would fail if allowed to operate as Radio Swan had been.63

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After more than a year of sparring with the White House, Smith resigned his position as head of the U.S. Interests Section. A month later, he had an article in Foreign Policy that criticized Communist Interference in El Salvador, the white paper that alleged Cuba was aiding insurgents in the region. He challenged the validity of the research and claimed that the document exaggerated estimates of Cuban arms shipments: “If the guerrillas had received all the arms reported by U.S. intelligence, the Salvadoran army would be outgunned 20 to 1.”64 According to Smith, both Nicaragua and Cuba wanted to have positive relations with Reagan but were consistently rebuffed.65 Smith’s efforts did not impede Reagan’s momentum as he proceeded to tighten restrictions on Cuba, reversing everything that Carter had done. Less than a week after the plan to break Castro’s hold on information via Radio Martí was announced, it was revealed that the Treasury Department had blocked more than 100,000 Cuban publications from entering the United States. Officials claimed the materials violated the embargo against Cuba, a charge that did not seem to apply because most of the documents were free and therefore generated no revenue for Castro’s government. U.S. citizens could receive the periodicals but only after applying for a license, which required the applicant to tell what the documents were and why they were needed.66 Customs officials also penalized American Airways Charters (AAC) $4,000 for failing to document all cargo it carried on its flights to Cuba. The goods in question were complimentary copies of U.S. newspapers the company offered to its passengers, most of whom were diplomats from the U.S. Interests Section.67 AAC had been the primary carrier from the United States to Cuba since 1979. Hard-liners resented AAC and once planted a bomb at the company’s offices in Hialeah, Florida.68 A more serious charge alleged that AAC transferred funds and gave office equipment and machine parts to the Cuban government. The death knell for American Airways Charters came when the Treasury Department determined that Cuba “controlled” the company. Reagan abruptly prohibited all AAC flights a week later, leaving about 2,000 U.S. citizens in Cuba without return transportation to the United States. He terminated all travel to Cuba a month later, officially ending the dialogue that began under Carter, and began a monologue with the island, which was to be carried out by Radio Martí.69 Reagan’s actions revived La Causa passion in Little Havana. Speaking to the Inter American Press Association (IAPA), exile leader Tony Cuesta said that the Movimiento Interno de Liberación (Internal Movement of Liberation) was “preparing itself to launch forth against Soviet domination inside the island [of Cuba]” and take actions “to destroy an enemy.”70 The Movimiento was Cuesta’s latest in a series of anti–Castro organizations.71 In the early days of La Causa, Cuesta made more than 30 raids on Cuba, losing an arm and his sight before being captured in 1966 and serving 12 years in a Cuban prison.72 He was one of the more than 3,000 released following the Committee of 75 meetings in 1978.

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Another exile leader spoke to the IAPA and used the same rhetoric as Cuesta: “We wish to request that you follow Cuban-related events very closely in the immediate future. It is possible that events of great transcendency will come to pass inside Cuba.” Those were the words of Jorge Mas Canosa, the Bay of Pigs veteran, added to the CANF triumvirate at the request of his friend Mario Elgarresta.73

CHAPTER FOUR

Propaganda Realities In theory, communism works — in theory. — Homer Simpson

Serious study of mass communication began after World War I, with the common belief that propaganda messages could enter the vulnerable human mind and cause the recipient to react in an uncontrollable manner. It has been compared to a hypodermic needle inducing changes in the body of a recipient, or a magic bullet in which information enters an individual’s brain as a projectile and separates. The bullet fragments diverge and affect different areas of the mind, producing different reactions. Although propaganda dates to ancient times, the advent of radio intensified the process by allowing a single speaker to reach many people and overcome geographical and literacy barriers that hindered print media. The panic caused by the October 30, 1938, War of the Worlds radio broadcast seemed to validate fears that radio could be used to influence a mass population. In 1937, a group of intellectuals formed the Institute for Propaganda Analysis (IPA), which believed that people could make intelligent decisions if taught how to defend themselves from persuasive messages.1 The institute published several books and a newsletter, Propaganda Analysis Bulletin, which had almost 6,000 subscribers in its first year, more than twice as many as anticipated. The group is best known for identifying seven propaganda devices: Name calling, glittering generalities, transfer, testimonial, plain folks, card stacking, and bandwagon. Many high school textbooks still include these devices as standard methods of persuasion. As it became more evident that the United States would enter World War II, interest in the IPA publications decreased and underwriters withdrew their support. Leaders in the organization were concerned that people would use the lessons provided by the IPA to benefit the Axis Powers.2 After four years, the Institute for Propaganda Analysis folded. Researchers who applied a scientific approach to the workings of propaganda they found that messages were not as influential as they seemed. From May to November 1940, Paul Lazarsfeld, Bernard Berelson and Hazel Gaudet 55

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of Columbia University interviewed hundreds of Erie County, Ohio, residents prior to the presidential election between Franklin Roosevelt and Wendell Willkie. The researchers were surprised to find that about half of the participants chose a candidate in May and continued to support that candidate for the duration of the campaign. Of those who were undecided in May, about half made their decision after learning who the nominees were for each party.3 Only eight percent of participants switched from one candidate to the other.4 The researchers also found that an individual’s inner circle of contacts, not the media, had the greatest amount of influence over voting decisions. Perhaps most damaging for the hypodermic needle theory was Lazarsfeld’s conclusion that people used media to reinforce existing ideas and therefore resisted consideration of new ideas.5 Other studies validated Lazarsfeld’s conclusion that the media have limited effects. In 1944, colleague and Lazarsfeld’s 2nd wife, Herta Hertzog, found that women listened to radio soap operas for emotional release, wishful thinking, and advice. The effects were desired by, not forced upon, the women. Hertzog’s study also suggested that listeners place a great deal of “cultural and symbolic values” on the programs, meaning they could provide a model for living but only for those who wanted to use them in that way.6 When newspaper distributors in New York City went on strike for more than two weeks in 1945, Bernard Berelson studied how people coped with the absence of the dailies. Reporting in “What ‘Missing’ the Newspaper Means,” Berelson found that, in addition to the “rational” need for information, people also longed for the act of reading and struggled to find substitute activities to pass the time. Deprived readers turned to books and magazines, some of which they had already read. Other people were not able to cope as well: “Life is more monotonous without the paper. I didn’t know what to do with myself. There was nothing to do to pass the time. It just doesn’t work. Nothing to pass the time.”7 Berelson argued that the newspaper provided a “source of security” by giving readers a routine they could follow every day. The study found that people read the newspaper for reasons other than to be informed. Wilbur Schramm, Jack Lyle and Edwin Parker conducted a series of studies over three years on children’s television viewing. On the first page of their 1961 book summarizing their findings, the scientists made it clear that television viewing did not cause children to be aggressive: “In a sense the term ‘effect’ is misleading because it suggests that television ‘does something’ to children.... Nothing can be further from the fact. It is the children who are most active in this relationship. It is they who use the television rather than the television that uses them.”8 Additional studies helped create what is known as the “uses and gratifications theory,” which argues that audiences are active and use the media to induce certain effects. It also acknowledges that media compete with each other

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for audiences’ attention, forcing people to choose which medium or media source best satisfies their needs.9 It is part of a larger school of thought known as the Limited Effects Paradigm, in which the media are believed to have a minimal impact on society, diametrically opposite the hypodermic needle theory of communication. If the human mind were easily manipulated, individuals would be unable to control their own thoughts or actions. Studies have shown that an individual must be open to change and willing to consider new ideas in order for them to take root. Under most circumstances, new ideas cannot be forced upon an individual who does not want them.10 Central to this concept is a person’s choice of media. People will typically ignore a source of information that conflicts with their existing attitudes, even if the person knows the source to be correct. The recipient will, however, welcome an information source that confirms what that individual already believes.11 Simply put, propaganda by itself does not cause an individual to believe something they do not want to believe. It does not have the hypnotic effect most people believe it has. Even the 1938 War of the Worlds broadcast did not have as broad an impact as we are led to believe. What has been ignored in the telling of the story over the years is that more than 70 percent of the people who heard the program knew that it was a dramatization and did not panic.12 An easy illustration of this is a mother who believes her child is an angel at school when he is really a terror at school. When the teacher and mother meet in the principal’s office to discuss the child’s behavior, the mother remains steadfast in defense of her child because she wants him to be perfect. Any information that conflicts with this desire could force the mother to question the manner in which she raised her child, meaning that the criticism of her child is really criticism of her. Any veteran kindergarten teacher will tell you stories of mothers who rationalize such claims (My child would never do such a thing) or downplay their impact (Boys will be boys). The inner conflict created when an individual is faced with information that conflicts with an existing belief is known as cognitive dissonance. According to Joseph Klapper, individuals use three techniques to cope with these inconsistencies: Selective exposure (turning to sources that tell you what you already believe), selective interpretation (seeing what you want to see), and selective retention (remembering only the things that confirm your beliefs and forgetting or discrediting those that do not). For example, sports fans want to believe that their team is the best. Why back a loser? When listening to a game on the radio, these people will probably choose sources or a source affiliated with that team and not the network affiliated with the opponent (selective exposure). These sources will most likely present its team in a favorable manner. If the fan’s team loses, the listener may reject the idea that the other team was better and attribute the loss to something else and use information from the chosen source to validate that claim (selective interpretation). Maybe the announcers said

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there were a lot of injuries or the officials made a bad call. In the weeks that follow, the listener is more likely to forget a loss but remember a victory (selective retention). The sources from which the person chooses to receive information are also likely to minimize the references to the loss. Cognitive dissonance is often exacerbated by a dichotomous view of the environment in which there seem to be only two positions, right and wrong. This surveillance of the environment is unrealistic because few situations are limited to two possibilities. Analyzing a situation takes too much time, so the human mind tends to take shortcuts and jumps to what we already know, or believe, to be true. It is this desire to process information as quickly as possible that allows stereotypes to influence our judgments. Imagine a half-hour radio program consisting of abortion-related stories produced by Planned Parenthood, a pro-choice organization. What would the stories be like? Would they be objective? Who would listen to the station? would they be people who already agree with what the program says and nod their heads with every word or are they individuals that find fault with every story and write off the producers as being radical? What would happen if the American Right to Life committee, a pro-life organization, produced a program? Again, how would the stories be presented? Would they be objective? Who would the audience be? Is the audience that listens to one program likely to listen to the other? In most cases no, at least not without criticizing the content. The casual observer may point to Nazi Germany as evidence that the hypodermic needle theory is valid. It has been well documented that Adolf Hitler and Joseph Goebbels used propaganda to convince an entire country to do terrible things or at least overlook the actions. Receiving less attention are the conditions that existed in Germany prior to the rise of the National Socialist Party. The Germans were immersed in defeated nation syndrome, a state of self-deprecation and hopelessness that ensued after their defeat in World War I. The primary source of this despair was the Treaty of Versailles, the document that ended the conflict and blamed Germany for its cause. The allies occupied some of Germany’s key industrial areas and forced the Germans to pay for the allied occupation.13 The treaty also required Germany to pay billions in reparations to Britain and France as a form of punishment, leading to hyperinflation that devastated the German economy.14 In their book, Mass Communication Theory: Foundations, Ferment and Future, Stanley Baran and Dennis Davis attribute the Nazis’ propaganda success to the conditions that existed in Germany rather than to the propaganda itself: “When conflict escalates to the level it did in Germany during the Depression, an entire nation could become psychologically unbalanced and vulnerable to manipulation.”15 The despair experienced by the German people created a feeling of cognitive dissonance within them and drove them to find a scapegoat, the Jews. For centuries the Jews had been shunned in every corner of the world,

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partially because they did not assimilate and maintained their own traditions. They had always been a minority and served as an easy target. Cults are also often cited as proof that propaganda in the form of brainwashing can influence people to do destructive things. It would be wrong to say that cults have no influence over their followers. It would also be wrong to say that cults can exercise a substantial amount of influence over the general population. One must understand that the type of person who joins a cult does so to fill a void in their life. Most are isolated from society and have a need to belong to something. They satisfy this need by sacrificing their beliefs, which have been unrewarding up to that point, and accepting the teachings of the group. Dr. Robert B. Cialdini, a psychology professor at Arizona State University, attributes cults’ effectiveness to a phenomenon called social proof. An individual who observes other people engaged in questionable activity will interpret the observation as validation to engage in the same questionable activity. As evidence of this, Cialdini points to civil disobedience that frequently occurs after the winning of a major sports contest. A rational human being would not overturn a car and set it on fire but might consider doing so if that individual saw another person or, better yet, several people acting that way. Phrasing a message to imply that “everyone is doing it” is referred to as the bandwagon effect, one of the seven propaganda techniques identified by the Institute for Propaganda Analysis. The bandwagon message itself may have some effect on a mass audience but would obviously be more effective if individuals were able to witness “everyone doing it” rather than simply hearing the message. Two highly publicized scientific experiments suggest that social proof may be just as influential, if not more influential, as actual propaganda messages. In the 1960s, Yale professor Dr. Stanley Milgram recruited volunteers for a memory experiment. Participants were paired and randomly assigned the role of teacher or learner. The teacher was asked to help the learner remember a series of word pairs and then test the learner’s memory by recalling the words from the list. If the learner, who sat in an adjacent room, failed to give the correct response, the teacher was required to administer an electric shock to the learner. Starting with a shock of 15 volts, the shocks increased by 15 volts for each wrong answer. A third person, the experimenter, oversaw the study. He told the teacher and learner about the rules and gave the teacher a sample shock to provide a sense of what the learner would experience. The teacher did not know that the experimenter and learner were confederates. The study did not test memory but rather how far the teacher would go in inflicting harm on another human being. The learner was out of sight of the teacher and experienced no pain but acted as if the shocks were real by screaming, pounding on the common wall that divided the teacher and learner, and begging for mercy: “Experimenter, get me out of here! I won’t be in the exper-

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iment any more! I refuse to go on!”16 The teacher would usually turn to the experimenter, who sat in the same room and wore a white lab coat, and ask if the study should continue. The experimenter would encourage the teacher to resume, claiming it was necessary to complete the study, which was usually enough to get the teacher to continue. Eventually the learner would not respond at all, implying that the person was either dead or unconscious. The experimenter acknowledged this as an incorrect response that warranted an increase in the shock level. The Milgram experiment is still replicated under many different conditions and, in most cases, the teacher continues to administer the shocks until the maximum level of 450 volts. In his book Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View, Milgram noted the following : “Many subjects will obey the experimenter no matter how vehement the pleading of the person being shocked, no matter how painful the shocks seem to be, and no matter how much the victim pleads to be let out. This was seen time and again in our studies and has been observed in several universities where the experiment was repeated.”17 Ten years after the first application of the Milgram experiment, Stanford psychology professor Dr. Philip Zimbardo created a mock prison for what would become known as the Stanford Prison Experiment. Rooms in the basement of the school’s Psychology Department building became cells. Zimbardo recruited 18 volunteers, all male, and randomly assigned each to be either a prisoner or a guard.18 He assumed the role of prison warden. The otherwise normal guards became malicious, berating the prisoners on a regular basis and waking them in the middle of the night for no justifiable reason. Prisoners rioted and demanded to be released. When the guards learned of an escape plot, they turned the other prisoners against the plot organizer by having them say that the inmate “did a bad thing.”19 They also acted more aggressively toward the prisoners, forcing them to clean toilets and do pushups. The prisoners proceeded to experience serious anxiety problems. One was so bad that he had to be released. Some of the experiment’s most bizarre events occurred when parents came on “visiting day” and listened to their boys tell about the horrors of their experience. The parents acted as if their sons really were incarcerated. Most encouraged their children to become model prisoners and complete their sentences without disruption. The Stanford Prison Experiment was scheduled to last two weeks but ended after just six days. One of Zimbardo’s graduate students, who later became his wife, saw what was developing and insisted that the experiment be stopped. Zimbardo himself had become so immersed in what was going on that even he did not realize that the situation was escalating out of control.20 The Milgram Experiment and the Stanford Prison Experiment show the

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darker side of the human psyche. In the former, rational human beings were convinced to inflict serious harm on another human being simply because they were told to do so by a perceived authority figure in a white lab coat. In the latter, the guards, prisoners, parents, and clergy involved all assumed roles that had been designated by society. In both cases, the social cues prompted the participants to act as they did, not the message. The experiments also support the theory that people are products of their environment. A child consistently told by parents, siblings or other authority figures that the child is a loser will grow up believing it is true. This produces a self-fulfilling prophecy in which the child, as an adult, fails simply because he lacks confidence. The media can have this same effect on an individual. According to Cultivation Theory, first proposed by George Gerbner and Larry Gross at the University of Pennsylvania, the media provide a mild form of brainwashing by creating a false sense of reality. For example, the abundance of violence presented in the media, as part of the evening news and in entertainment dramas, has created the common belief that we live in a dangerous society. As a result, most people believe that they are likely to be a victim of a violent crime, an effect known as the “Mean World Syndrome.” In reality, the opposite is true. According to FBI statistics, there are 454.5 violent crimes for every 100,000 people in the United States. 21 This means that the average person has less than one-half of 1 percent chance of being involved in a violent crime. This statistic has gradually decreased over the last 20 years.22 The person who absorbs violent media content would be likely to disagree with the statistics simply because they contradict the image portrayed in the media. We feel threatened by other hazards, not because they are dangerous but because the media have led us to believe that they are dangerous. Table 4.1 shows the likelihood of dying by various means. A person is more likely to die in a fall or auto accident yet many people are more fearful of air travel.23 Plane crashes are highly publicized media events while falls and auto accidents are not, leaving us with the impression that we should be more concerned about the former than the latter. What is not highly publicized is the fact that, on an average day, more than 28,000 commercial flights reach their destination safely.24 That amounts to more than 10 million safe flights a year. Table 4.1 Causes of Death Cause of Death Motor Vehicle Accidents Falls Assault by Firearm Accidental Drowning and Submersion

2006 Deaths

One Year Odds

Lifetime Odds

48,412 20,823 12,791

1 in 6,163 1 in 14,329 1 in 23,326

1 in 79 1 in 184 1 in 300

3,579

1 in 83,365

1 in 1,073

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An Air War with Cuba Cause of Death Accidental Suffocation and Strangulation in Bed Air and Space Transport Accidents

2006 Deaths

One Year Odds

Lifetime Odds

661

1 in 451,381

1 in 5,803

655

1 in 455,516

1 in 5,862

The statistics also show that dying from accidental suffocation or strangulation in bed is just as likely as dying in a plane crash yet we do not fear going to sleep at night. In addition to the lack of news coverage, and therefore lack of cultivation, cognitive dissonance is also in effect. Most people do not fear accidental suffocation because they choose not to. Doing so would mean that they should fear falling asleep every night. Cultivation Theory and the Mean World Syndrome are consistent with the hypothesis that “people choose what they want to believe.” Listeners in Guatemala were taken in by la Voz de la Liberación because the station’s threats of a U.S. invasion were consistent with the United States’ policy in Latin America. The audience believed that the United States would invade. Radio Rebelde did not need to convince the Cuban people that Batista was bad because most people already believed it. By presenting Castro as an alternative to Batista, Radio Rebelde facilitated his rise to power. Radio Swan failed because the Cuban people viewed it as a return to the days of Batista and a subservient relationship with the United States. Despite the evidence that shows propaganda cannot make people believe something they do not want to believe, the United States spends more than $700 million annually on international broadcasting. A substantial portion of this money goes to fund Voice of America, created after World War II as a way to present the United States in a favorable light to the rest of the world.25 In 2010, VOA broadcasted in 44 languages to about 125 million people around the world.26 Radio Free Europe (RFE) also hoped to reach audiences in countries hostile to the United States. It was different from VOA in that the Free Europe Committee (FEC) and not the United States government operated it. The FEC was formed in New York City in 1949 to meet three objectives: employ exiles from Eastern Europe, use exile leaders as announcers to connect with people in their homelands, and expose exile leaders to the democratic process.27 A year later, Radio Free Europe was broadcasting to Czechoslovakia, Romania, Hungary, Poland, and Bulgaria (but not East Germany or the Soviet Union) on several transmitters.28 Exiles were responsible for delivering most of the station’s news and content. On Labor Day weekend in 1950, the Free Europe Committee launched the Crusade for Freedom, a fund-raising campaign for Radio Free Europe. The Crusade for Freedom had General Dwight Eisenhower pitch RFE as a way to combat the “tirade against America” in hostile foreign countries. Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Barbara Stanwyck, and Ronald Reagan also spoke on behalf of the cause, asking the public to contribute “truth dollars” to keep Radio Free Europe on the air.29

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Radio Free Europe’s most embarrassing moment occurred during the fall of 1956 when Hungarians launched a coup against their government. The Hungarians were inspired by RFE broadcasts that provided “detailed instructions as to how partisan and Hungarian armed forces should fight.” The station was also blamed for implying that the United States or NATO would intervene: “[A] practical manifestation of Western sympathy is expected at any hour.”30 Russian tanks rolled in and put down the uprising in less than three weeks, leaving thousands of Hungarians dead. The lack of a response from the United States may have hindered the credibility of Radio Swan five years later during the Bay of Pigs invasion. Receiving less attention was the American Committee for Liberation from Bolshevism, which was born in 1951. Two years later, the organization launched Radio Liberation from Bolshevism, referred to as Radio Liberation and renamed Radio Liberty (RL) in 1959.31 The station targeted listeners in the Soviet Union and used the ticking sound of a metronome to symbolize Joseph Stalin’s pending expiration: “The era of Stalin is coming to an end. The era of Stalin is coming to an end.”32 The prediction turned out to be true. Stalin died four days after Radio Liberty signed on. Both the Free Europe Committee and American Committee for Liberation from Bolshevism were scams. The stations were actually funded by the CIA and their parent organizations were fronts. In the late 1960s, domestic media began telling of a relationship between the agency and broadcastss, allegations that government officials denied until 1971.33 Congress debated the stations’ fate for the next two years and ultimately compromised by creating a new entity, the five-member Board for International Broadcasting (BIB). The BIB would work with the board of directors of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty. In 1976, the stations merged their operations under one entity, RFE/RL, but maintained separate broadcasts. Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty were more distanced from Congressional oversight than VOA, a divide that drastically increased under Reagan. Before Radio Martí had even been proposed, Senator Claiborne Pell, a Democrat from Rhode Island, submitted an amendment to an appropriations bill that would have would have expanded the BIB and eliminated the board of directors, “leaving an ‘oversight’ board, in effect, to oversee itself.”34 The appropriations bill passed in August of 1982 without hearings on the Pell amendment, allowing Radio Martí, if placed under the BIB, to be as aggressive as the oversight board, appointed by the White House, desired. This is what the Reagan administration wanted. Immediately after Pell submitted his amendment, North Carolina senator Jesse Helms, a hard-line Republican, submitted an amendment to the same bill mandating that any broadcast from the United States to Cuba be called “Radio Free Cuba,” implying that the station would operate similar to Radio Free Europe.35 President Carter believed that international broadcasts should be used to

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facilitate cultural understanding and changed the name of the United States Information Agency to the International Communication Agency (ICA) to emphasize the two-way dialogue he hoped to achieve.36 Reagan felt that broadcasting should be used as an offensive weapon and called for more than a billion dollars be set aside for improvements to VOA.37 Two-thirds of VOA’s budget went to renovating or building new transmitters that would saturate communist countries. The administration increased one-way communication via broadcasting while it minimized cultural exchanges and other vehicles for dialogue. Reagan also decreased the amount of funds devoted to broadcasting research during this time.38 These actions created a divide among veteran ICA and VOA employees who objected to Reagan’s vision, believing it would threaten the integrity of the operations. Reagan-appointed officials spent a good portion of their first two years purging the agency of those that resisted the changes.39 Older employees employees were offered early retirement or reassigned to less desirable positions. Some simply resigned. Reagan eliminated the last vestige of Carter’s dialogue approach to communication when he had the International Communications Agency revert to calling itself the United States Information Agency.40 In 1965, Anatol Rapoport and Albert M. Chammah published The Prisoner’s Dilemma, a book that proposed a scenario in which two partners in crime are arrested. Both are taken to separate jail cells and interrogated by police who tells each prisoner that there is enough evidence for a conviction. The authorities tell each person that they are willing to be lenient to that individual if the suspect cooperates and provides information about the other prisoner. Each prisoner is aware that the other suspect has the same opportunity to confess in exchange for a reduced sentence. There are four possible outcomes based on how the two prisoners respond. If neither talks to the police, the authorities will have only enough information to sentence the two captives for a short time, resulting in a light sentence for both. If each provides details about the other, the authorities will have enough information to convict both to long sentences, but they will not impose the maximum sentence because of their cooperation. If one prisoner talks to the police and the other does not, the one who talks will receive a very light sentence (in some versions of the story the person goes free) while the one who did not talk will experience a very long sentence. An overview of the outcomes shows that the only way both sides can win in equal proportion (receive light sentences) is if neither talks to the authorities (see Figure 4.1). The dilemma rests in the fact that not talking to the police may also produce the least desirable outcome. Neither prisoner is in complete control of their destiny and each needs the cooperation of the other to produce the best possible outcome.41 The only way in which a prisoner can ensure equity is to betray the accomplice and talk to the authorities. Although this may result in a long sentence,

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Figure 4.1 The Prisoner’s Dilemma Prisoner A Don’t Talk

Talk

Prisoner A Gets Light Sentence

Prisoner A Gets Very Light Sentence

Prisoner B Gets Light Sentence

Prisoner B Gets Harsh Sentence

Prisoner A Gets Harsh Sentence

Prisoner A Gets Harsh Sentence

Prisoner B Gets Very Light Sentence

Prisoner B Gets Harsh Sentence

Don’t Talk

Prisoner B

Talk

it also ensures that the other prisoner will not have a more desirable outcome. The safe bet is to assume that the other party will always betray you. The Prisoner’s Dilemma is a metaphor for the Cold War. After World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union remained as the two dominant powers but did not trust each other. Neither side wanted the other to gain an advantage so each built an arsenal of weapons to counter an attack from the other. The relationship each superpower had with every state in the world was defined by which ideology the country supported. Any state that defected to the other side threatened to upset the delicate balance of power between the two superpowers. It was this desire to maintain balance and prevent the other side from gaining an advantage that pitted the two sides against each other in Korea, Guatemala, Vietnam, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Grenada and, of course, Cuba. The game of “chicken” is much easier to understand. It is a contest of fortitude in which two opponents in cars race toward each other in what will ultimately result in a head-on collision. The first driver to “chicken out” and ditch his car before the collision loses. Both lose if they ditch at the same time. If neither driver ditches before the collision, both win yet both will most likely be killed in the crash. In a Cold War environment, chicken is known as Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD), referring to the outcome of a military conflict if carried to its logical end. The prospect for catastrophe kept the United States and Soviet Union in check throughout the Cold War, with neither gaining an advantage over the other. Similar to chicken, every country in the world has the option to broadcast (not chicken out) or not broadcast (chicken out). Just as in the original game, the only way a state can lose is if it allows its opponent to get the upper hand. Even though most evidence shows that propaganda cannot turn people against

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their governments, a country may feel compelled to broadcast to an enemy state just to ensure that the other side does not gain an advantage. One can easily criticize the Prisoner’s Dilemma for oversimplifying foreign policy. Few situations in real life are limited to just two options and end once each side makes one decision. The Prisoner’s Dilemma is just one of many scenarios associated with Game Theory, a rational thought process in which each party acts based on how it thinks the other party will act. Game theorists plan not only for the outcome of the immediate exchange, but how that exchange might open or limit opportunities later in the game. After considering all possible combinations and scenarios, the game theorist typically chooses the path that will generate the most beneficial outcome. Consider a game of blackjack using a standard 52-card deck with just one player against a dealer. After observing what the two sides are showing and recalling what cards may have already been played, a game theorist would identify the remaining cards in the deck and predict every possible combination each side could have. From this, the player could estimate odds and bet accordingly. The number of possible and likely scenarios changes as cards are revealed, which also reduces the number of choices. The process is known as counting cards and is grounds for being asked to leave a casino. A good illustration of Game Theory in a geopolitical environment is the 1983 motion picture WarGames in which a military supercomputer named Joshua is programmed to win World War III. Joshua plays several simulations (games) in which he, acting as the Soviet Union, attacks the United States and then has the United States retaliate in a way that will advance its goal of winning the game. Joshua is an intelligent computer in that he learns from his mistakes, allowing him to improve his chance of winning in the next simulation. He learns at an accelerated rate, rapidly executing thousands of moves and countermoves, with each scenario producing the same outcome: “WINNER NONE.” The computer eventually quits and tells its programmer, “A strange game. The only winning move is not to play.” The computer learned what the humans could not. A conflict that does not produce a clear winner makes no logical sense. How would game theory play out when applied to Radio Martí? Would the Cubans welcome a radio station affiliated with the United States government? John Spicer Nichols of Penn State University, the leading scholar on Cuban media, predicted they would not. At the time Radio Martí was proposed, Nichols was in the final stages of a five-year study that looked at “communication to, from, and within the island of Cuba.” He found that the Cubans were not susceptible to U.S. propaganda. On the contrary, Cubans were “highly nationalistic and, regardless of their level of support for the Castro Government, intensely dislike[d] the U.S. Government.”42 Negative information about the regime was routinely rejected as Cubans defended their leader. As a U.S. government analysis said in 1976, it was not uncommon for Cubans

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to respond to negative criticism with the phrase “if only Fidel knew about this.”43 Nichols thought the Cubans might listen to sports and entertainment programs, content he called facilitative communication. The purpose of these programs was to attract listeners in hopes that they would continue listening to the station when the information of substance was aired. Nichols predicted that the audience would “physically or mentally tune out” the educational information the way television viewers tune out commercials.44 This would be easy to do considering that, contrary to the claims made by the White House, Cuba was not media deprived. This is validated by a copy of a 1940 letter, featured on the Website thesmokinggun.com, written by 12-year-old Fidel Castro to Franklin Roosevelt in which the future Cuban leader says he listens to the president on the radio.45 Castro did not make a serious attempt to jam the signals of foreign broadcasts, which, according to Cuban officials, allowed 210 Spanish language stations from 44 countries to reach the island.46 The Cubans also had access to National Public Radio, ABC, CBS, NBC, Miami television stations under ideal conditions and the CANF’s own radio station La Voz de la Fundación.47 Rock and roll music on Miami stations was popular on the island as were bootleg Hollywood movies, which were frequently shown on Cuban television.48 Instead of creating Radio Martí as a new station, Reagan could have enlisted the services of one or more of the many anti–Castro stations already broadcasting to Cuba. Several Cuban arrivals during the Mariel boatlift mentioned the pirate anti–Castro broadcaster Commander David, which happened to be Castro’s pseudonym when hiding out in the Sierra Maestra.49 When the Federal Communications Commission charged Commander David, also known as Cuban exile Jose Gonzalez, with operating an illegal radio station, Reagan’s Justice Department declined to prosecute. This occurred a month before officially proposing Radio Martí, which demonstrated that the White House was aware of the broadcasts and supported Commander David’s efforts.50 In September of 1982, the FCC shut down the two Florida transmitters in the five-transmitter network of Huber Matos, who was an MR-26-7 leader in the Sierra Maestra but turned against Castro after he saw increased communist influence in the revolution. When he resigned his position in the new government, Castro sentenced him to 20 years in prison. He was released in 1979. Matos answered the FCC by producing a copy of a personal letter from Reagan that said, “You have my best wishes and encouragement for progress in your work.”51 The three remaining stations in Matos’ network were outside the United States, making them beyond the authority of the FCC and government regulation. Reagan could have supported Matos and his organization, Cuba Independiente y Democrática (CID) but did not because Matos was not part of Miami’s inner circle of hard-liners. Most exiles had not forgiven Matos

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for his role during the revolution.52 Another disadvantage for CID was that it was multinational and not limited to Cuban Americans.53 The White House could have launched its own clandestine operation for Cuba. The CIA built Radio Swan in just two months without the consent of Congress. Reagan’s advisors knew that a Swan-like station was an option. Less than a year after Reagan announced a need for Radio Martí, the CIA station Radio Impacto was sending anti–Sandinista messages to Nicaragua. Reagan may have opted for the more visible Radio Martí specifically because it could not be ignored. Governments typically respond to enemy broadcast propaganda by jamming the signal. All one needs to jam a radio signal is to broadcast on the same or adjacent frequency as the incoming message. Any radio tuned to the frequency would pick up both sources in a hodgepodge of incoherent noise. The jamming signal often emits a tone or some other irritating sound, not loud enough to obliterate the other source but irritating enough to make the listening so unpleasant that audiences would avoid the station. John Spicer Nichols described it as an environment in which “there are no superpowers. The transmitters of a small, poor country can be equally disruptive as those of a neighboring giant.”54 Broadcasters can try to confound jammers by putting its stations on more than one frequency, requiring the opposing government to dedicate even more of its resources to eliminating the signal. Most international radio broadcasts used shortwave frequencies. This is partially because, unlike AM signals, which are easy to block, it is difficult to completely jam a shortwave signal. Another advantage for shortwave signals is that they are capable of traveling long distances, even to the other side of the world. Radio Martí on shortwave could reach beyond Cuba to Grenada, El Salvador, Nicaragua or other countries in the region which, according to Reagan, were also under Castro’s influence. Despite the advantages of operating on shortwave, Reagan wanted Radio Martí to operate on shortwave frequencies and an AM signal emanating from a transmitter in the Florida Keys. If one applies game theory and considers how all the possibilities could play out, a jammed Radio Martí signal could be more beneficial for the Reagan administration than if the station were allowed to reach Cuba unmolested. Jamming the signal would generate positive interference, creating a forbidden fruit mystique about the content that would only increase its appeal.55 An analogy illustrating positive interference is alcohol. For an underage kid, the appeal of an alcoholic beverage is not its taste or intoxicating effects but the fact that it is prohibited. How many kids lose interest in alcohol once they reach the legal drinking age? In his book The Psychology of Persuasion, Dr. Robert Cialdini illustrates this same concept with the example of the popular yet often unavailable toy at Christmas. Parents become obsessed about a relatively insignificant item only because other people want it. Cialdini also mentions the “outlaw

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boyfriend” a teenage girl may want to date only because her parents disapprove.56 The Radio Free Europe rock and roll program Teenager Party became a hit among Hungary’s younger generation only because such music had been prohibited on the other side of the Iron Curtain.57 Devotees of the music became devotees of the network, opening the door for VOA content to reach its target audience. In the Soviet Union, neighbors would gather to discuss how to improve reception of VOA broadcasts.58 Russian journalist Vladimir Posner said that jamming Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty broadcasts increased public interest in “something that is not all that interesting.”59 In the 1960s, British pirate radio stations capitalized on the idea of positive interference to build audiences for their broadcasts. The BBC was more eclectic than broadcasters in the United States, airing a mixture of educational programs, news, orchestra music, sports, and everything else. Rock and roll was limited to a “pop music hour,” not nearly enough for the Brits, who turned to pirate radio stations operating from ships in international waters.60 Radio Caroline, the most listened to of all pirate stations, capitalized on the increasing popularity of the Beatles, the Who, the Kinks, and the Rolling Stones, who had been a part of the “British invasion” to the United States but received less airplay in their home country.61 Advertisers flocked to Radio Caroline, which charged $150 to $300 a minute to reach about 15 million listeners a week, an audience the pirates claimed was larger than that of the BBC.62 The British Parliament responded by passing a law that made it illegal for citizens to participate in a clandestine broadcasting operation. The BBC eventually neutralized the pirates’ appeal by giving in to audience demands and playing pop music and hiring some of the pirates as announcers.63 Although pirate broadcasts would not completely disappear from British airwaves, they would never recapture the appeal they had during their brief heyday in the mid– 1960s. The BBC has said that “jamming is really an admission of a bad cause.... The jammer has a bad conscience. He’s afraid of the influence of the truth.” Jamming a signal will almost always produce positive results for the sending country as long as the information being sent is truthful, desired by the audience, and available from no other source. It is nearly impossible to completely eliminate a shortwave radio signal, which means that a shortwave message will eventually reach someone who could disseminate the information by recording the program or simply by word of mouth. Castro would inevitably fail in his attempt to block Radio Martí, leaving the Cuban audience with the impression that the Castro regime was weak from a technology standpoint. Dr. William M. LeoGrande of American University argued that “the only real effect of Radio Martí will be to anger and annoy the Cuban government. It is possible that this is actually the main effect intended.”64 A radio war with Castro would amount to a war of resources consistent with the “we win and

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they lose” strategy Reagan discussed with Richard Allen in 1977. The resources Castro used to jam Radio Martí would hinder his ability to fund Marxist-movements throughout the region. Michael Rau, an engineer for the National Association of Broadcasters, said that the amount of power disseminated by a radio transmitter requires twice the amount of energy needed to create that output, which meant that a 50-kilowatt transmitter would require 100 kilowatts (a million watts) to operate.65 U.S. intelligence estimated that it cost the Soviets between $750 million and $1.2 billion a year to jam only Radio Liberty, about twice as much as it cost the United States to fund both Radio Liberty and Radio Free Europe.66 According to Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty officials, communist governments in Eastern Europe were using “enough power to produce 375,000 trucks or 500,000 tractors, seven million tons of fertilizer or 11 million tons of cement, the materials for nearly 9,000 three-room apartments or millions of suits and dresses, in a single year.”67 The idea that Reagan was baiting Castro is validated by the administration’s choice of frequency for Radio Martí. In September of 1981, the White House decided to place the station on 1040 kHz after consulting with the FCC and National Telecommunications Information Administration (NTIA), the government body that advises the president on telecommunications and information matters. This was a curious choice considering that Cuba had expressed interest to the United States weeks earlier about using 1040 for one of two 500kilowatt transmitters that were in the closing stages of construction. The Cubans were considering other frequencies, so 1040 was a possibility but not definite.68 The only problem with initiating such a conflict was that the proximity of the two countries allowed Cuba to implement extensive interference. One Operation Mongoose proposal, Operation True Blue, called for the CIA to interrupt radio and television broadcasts in Cuba to undermine confidence in Castro. It was never carried out.69 According to a 1981 State Department memo, Castro was in a position take the same action against the United States: If the decision is made to establish (Radio Martí), we believe Cuba will retaliate by increasing its current level of interference with U.S. AM broadcasting operations.... We are meeting at the technical level with Cuba to find solutions for the existing and potential interference problems. Announcement and certainly establishment of [Radio Martí] ... would frustrate resolution of the problems of U.S. broadcasters.70

The meetings “at the technical level” referred to secret meetings between U.S. and Cuban officials to resolve the existing interference problem between the two countries that already existed. At one of these meetings, the Cuban delegation announced that Castro was building two transmitters, one at 1040 kilohertz. Each could transmit with 500 kilowatts of power, 10 times the strength of commercial stations in the United States. A report issued by the Central Intelligence Agency during this time recognized the potential harm this posed to commercial stations:

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Havana would view the inauguration of radiobroadcasts to Cuba by a station similar to RFE or RL as an aggressive act meriting immediate countermeasures. Concern would be particularly acute if the broadcasts were on mediumwave [also known as AM], the band available on most Cuban radio receivers. The Castro regime’s response would probably involve a combination of jamming and the reassignment of Cuban broadcasting stations to frequencies on or near the frequency used by the offending station.... Cuba is reportedly preparing to put on the air two new transmitters— presumably on mediumwave — of 500 kilowatts each. The interference that Cuba’s retaliatory measures is likely to cause to mediumwave radio stations in the U.S. and Caribbean basin is considerable. In fact, Castro is aware that by deliberately increasing the incidence of interference he can create domestic pressure on Washington, and he would be almost certain to use the tactic to increase his leverage on the U.S. to terminate offending broadcasts71

It was during one of these meetings that the Cubans expressed a desire to buy U.S. transmitters that used directional antennae. Doing so would have allowed the Cuban signals to minimize the signals’ spillover into other areas, reducing the amount of interference with U.S. broadcasters by up to 95 percent. The White House announced its intention to launch Radio Martí a month later, ending the Cubans’ interest in this effort.72 There was no legal remedy to prevent the Reagan administration from launching Radio Martí or Cuba from disrupting broadcasting in the United States. The International Telecommunications Union (ITU) tries to act as a world Federal Communication Commission by resolving disputes among broadcasting countries but ultimately has no power to act. The ITU started as the International Telegraph Union in 1865 when a coalition of 20 European countries wanted to establish telegraph standards and negotiate agreements that would allow lines to move from one country to another. In the years that followed, the ITU evolved to cover all telephone and wireless communications and, in 1947, became part of the newly created United Nations.73 The ITU divides the world into different regions (the entire Western Hemisphere is in Region II) and negotiates agreements among member states that allocate the number of frequencies each is allowed to use. Each country is then allowed to determine how broadcasters operate within its borders. In the United States, the FCC serves this function. In 1950, the United States, Cuba, Canada, Mexico, the Bahamas, and Dominican Republic signed the North American Regional Broadcast Agreement (NARBA), which allocated more than 100 AM frequencies among the six countries. Cuba, Canada, and Mexico all felt that the terms of NARBA were tilted in favor of the United States. By the time Reagan announced his intention to launch Radio Martí all three were considering abrogating NARBA but continued to negotiate individual agreements with each other.74 Under Castro, Cuba never really recognized NARBA because a pre-revolution government signed it. In 1980, Cuba announced that it would withdraw from NARBA the following year, giving the United States and other signatory states the standard one-year notice.75

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The only thing that makes NARBA and other international broadcasting treaties effective is the faith that signatories have in the other countries. There is really no way to actually enforce such an agreement. Unlike the FCC, the ITU cannot revoke a station’s license, force a country to pay a fine, or use force to shut the station down (possibly escalating to a bigger conflict). The most the ITU can do is draw attention to the fact that a country is violating a treaty. Cuba and the United States were destined to clash when they and other Western Hemisphere countries met at the ITU’s Region II Broadcasting Conference held in Rio de Janeiro in November of 1981, known as the Rio Conference. Near the end of the conference, the Cuban delegation submitted a list of 48 changes to its inventory of AM stations, including the addition of its two 500-kilowatt transmitters, including the one that was expected to use 1040 kHz. Influenced partially by lobbying from the United States, ITU members rejected the proposal. The Cuban delegation withdrew from negotiations, leaving the country without a broadcasting treaty with the United States and with the expectation that it would retaliate for Radio Martí.76 Even though the effects of propaganda are limited, the very existence of Radio Martí would instigate some change in relations with Cuba. If one applied the concepts of game theory to the launch of Radio Martí and played out all of the possible moves and countermoves to their logical ends the way Joshua the computer did in the film WarGames, it appeared that Reagan could benefit (Table 4.2). Although Castro could disrupt domestic broadcasting in the United States, the affected parties could view him, not Reagan, as the aggressor. Maintaining such an assault would drain Cuban resources, possibly increasing the gap between expected need satisfaction and actual need satisfaction described in Davies’ theory of revolution. The biggest factor seemed to be the approach that Radio Martí would take. If it was professional and objective, Radio Martí had the potential to provide Reagan with a no-lose situation. Although domestic broadcasting could be hurt, it would be difficult to oppose the idea of delivering objective information to an audience living under an oppressive regime. If Radio Martí acted the way Radio Swan did during the Bay of Pigs, overly aggressive and lacking credibility, the station would be more of a liability than an asset. Any deviation from objectivity threatened the credibility of the station and would turn the Cubans against Radio Martí and validate the Castro regime. More important, it could also turn the public against Reagan. Table 4.2 oversimplifies the possibilities for Radio Martí because it does not consider other random factors that could impact relations between the two countries. A hurricane that devastated Cuba might have caused the Cuban people to rally behind Castro. A stagnant economy in the United States might have resulted in public opinion turning against Reagan, granting him less leverage on Capitol Hill when negotiating for Radio Martí. This is also limited because it does not consider extreme actions such

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Table 4.2 Decision Tree for Radio Martí and Cuban Responses U.S. Action

Cuban Response

Advantages for U.S. Disadvantages for Cuba

Advantages for Cuba Disadvantages for U.S.

Jam Radio Martí Increased Desire for Information; Confidence in Castro Undermined; Minimal Cuban Resources Drained

Radio Martí Like VOA

Radio Martí Like Radio Swan

Jam Radio Martí Interfere with Domestic

Confidence in Castro Undermined; Desire for Radio Martí Increases; Substantial Cuban Resources Drained

Interfere with Domestic

Confidence in Castro Reagan Loses Undermined; Substantial Domestic Support Cuban Resources Drained

Do Nothing

Confidence in Castro Undermined

Jam Radio Martí

Desire for Radio Martí U.S. Prestige Damaged Increases; Minimal Cuban Resources Drained

Jam Radio Martí Interfere with Domestic

Desire for Radio Martí U.S. Loses Prestige Increases; Substantial Reagan Loses Cuban Resources Drained Domestic Support

Interfere with Domestic

Substantial Cuban Resources Drained

Do Nothing

Reagan Loses Domestic Support

U.S. Loses Prestige Reagan Loses Domestic Support U.S. Loses Prestige

as a military strike by either side. Game theory works only if all potential leads have been developed. The possibility of escalating the conflict to a higher level increased the number of possible outcomes and was a legitimate concern for all parties involved. In the same week that the debate on Radio Martí advanced to Congress, the CIA issued an ominous statement to the State Department: RECENT SATELLITE PHOTGRAPHY SHOWS A NEW ANTENNA AT A RADIO STATION NEAR HAVANA THAT POSSIBLY IS INTENDED TO COUNTER U.S. BROADCASTS FROM RADIO MARTÍ.... THE ANTENNA WAS BUILT BETWEEN MID-OCTOBER AND MID–JANUARY AT THE SITE OF A TRANSMITTER ONCE AFFILIATED WITH A MAJOR CUBAN RADIO NETWORK. AN ANTIAIRCRAFT ARTILLERY EMPLACEMENT ... HAS BEEN BUILT NEAR THE SITE....77

CHAPTER FIVE

Jamming Radio Martí Why, I think that there must be someone on top of that small speck of dust! Some sort of a creature of very small size, too small to be seen by an elephant’s eyes.... — Horton, in Horton Hears a Who by Dr. Seuss

Radio Martí was preparing to sign on before Reagan even nominated members to the Presidential Commission on Broadcasting to Cuba in January of 1982. The people Reagan chose to serve on the commission only added to the intrigue. Only two had backgrounds in radio. George Jacobs was a retired technician with experience working for the U.S. Board for International Broadcasting. William Bourne Bayer was the political editor for WINZ-AM, a news/talk station in Miami who could provide insight regarding operations at the new station. Bayer was described as an “outspoken conservative political editor and news commentator,” raising some obvious questions about the role he would play on the commission.1 The remaining members of the committee were there for political reasons. Tirso del Junco, M.D., grew up in Cuba but moved to the United States in the late 1940s. He was in the narrow demographic of Cuban Americans that did not leave because of Castro, although he did serve as a medical officer during the Bay of Pigs invasion. Reagan appointed del Junco as a political favor for the doctor’s service as the chairman of the California Republican Party in 1980.2 Florida senator Richard B. Stone was a Democrat hard-liner on Cuba who “discovered” the Soviet brigade in Cuba in the summer of 1979. Although U.S. officials had known about the unit as early as 1963, the public was unaware of the situation until Stone publicized the information during a Senate Foreign Affairs hearing.3 Florida’s Democrats rejected Stone in the 1980 Democratic primary, partially because of his vote to cede control of the Panama Canal to the Panamanians.4 Herbert Schmertz served as the vice president of public affairs for Mobil Oil and coined the term “accusatory journalism,” a reference to antibusiness propaganda.5 Schmertz believed that public relations were essential to counter negative publicity and donated large sums of money to PBS specifically to reach 74

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a more sophisticated audience: “Very often, the people in this group are upscale viewers with the discretionary dollars to buy, for example, premium gasoline for all three of their cars.”6 Joseph Coors of Coors Brewing Company was known for supporting conservative causes and launching the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. In the same year that the Santa Fe Report was released, the Heritage Foundation published Mandate for Leadership, a document more than 3,000 pages long that called for drastic changes such as closing the Department of Energy and ending affirmative action in government hiring.7 Coors launched Television News, Inc. (TVN), a wire service created to provide an alternative to what he perceived as left wing bias in the mainstream media. TVN limited coverage of “Ralph Nader, Daniel Ellsberg, Native American Activists, and followers of the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.”8 Coors also supported High Frontier, an organization whose purpose was to explore the possibility of a missile defense system in space.9 The group produced a report that led to Reagan’s proposal for a Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), commonly known as Star Wars. Richard Mellon Scaife was heir to the Mellon fortune and his interests included Mellon Bank, Gulf Oil and Alcoa. He made donations of $3,000 to 330 different entities related to Richard Nixon’s 1972 campaign for reelection.10 According to Washington Post owner Katherine Graham, Nixon officials plotted to have Scaife buy the Post in 1972 to neutralize media that were hostile to the White House.11 Scaife was also linked to Forum World Features, a content provider for more than 100 newspapers around the world. The Church Committee hearings in the mid–1970s revealed that the service was “CIA controlled.”12 Public relations consultant F. Clifton White had experience in political affairs and served as the director for the 1964 Goldwater-Miller presidential campaign. White also served as an advisor for Jesse Helms’ 1972 North Carolina senate campaign and Reagan’s 1980 run for the White House. In 1972, White published Yes, We Can! The New Voter’s Call to Action and had just completed a book, Why Reagan Won: A Narrative History of the Conservative Movement 1964 –1981, prior to serving on the Commission. Cuban exile turned Florida businessman Jorge Mas Canosa coheaded the Cuban American National Foundation. His presence on the commission was notable because the other foundation leaders, Raul Masvidal and Carlos Salman, were better known and had more established political connections than Mas. Mas also seemed to be the most militant of the three. Charles Z. Wick rounded out the appointees. Wick and Reagan formed a friendship when both men lived in the same California neighborhood. Wick operated a talent agency whose clients included Benny Goodman, Eleanor Roosevelt, Sir Winston Churchill, and Ronald Reagan.13 He produced and cowrote one film, Snow White and the Three Stooges, starring 1960 figure skating gold medalist Carol Heiss as Snow White. 14 Wick served as Reagan’s primary

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fundraiser during the 1980 campaign as well as co-chair of the 1981 Presidential Inaugural Committee. Reagan rewarded Wick for his service by appointing him director of the ICA. As Richard T. Arndt said in The First Resort of Kings: American Cultural Diplomacy in the Twentieth Century, Wick had no experience in journalism, foreign affairs, or diplomacy.15 In a 1985 interview with Parade, Wick conceded these deficiencies but pointed out that he knew “how to make things happen.”16 Six months later Reagan augmented the commission’s membership by one when he nominated Earl E. T. Smith, the U.S. ambassador to Cuba at the time of Batista’s departure. In his book, The Fourth Floor, Smith gave his account of the Cuban revolution, which included a communist plot to assassinate him as a way to accelerate Batista’s downfall.17 Smith was a personal acquaintance of John F. Kennedy, as was his wife. The former Flo Pritchett was one of Kennedy’s girlfriends before he married Jackie and a mistress afterward. 18 Kennedy is said to have traveled to Havana on several occasions in the late 1950s to rendezvous with Pritchett.19 Smith himself had romanced Jacqueline Kennedy’s mother.20 The Presidential Commission on Broadcasting to Cuba is also noteworthy for who was not named. Wayne S. Smith joined the Department of State in 1957 and served as executive director of President Kennedy’s Latin American Task Force. Two years later, Smith was a junior officer in the U.S. embassy in Cuba and was in Havana for Batista’s New Year’s Eve flight.21 In the 20 years that followed, Smith had seen the United States leave its embassy in Havana and return in the form of the U.S. Interests Section, which he headed in 1981. Smith seemed to be a logical choice for the Presidential Commission on Broadcasting to Cuba but was excluded because he opposed Reagan’s hard-line strategy for the region. He felt that the United States should engage Cuba, and claimed the Cubans wanted to negotiate but were constantly rebuffed by the White House.22 Most officials in the interests section agreed with Smith. Not one was named to the commission. Also ignored was Dr. John Spicer Nichols of Penn State University, regarded as the leading authority on Cuban media. Nichols was in the process of completing a five-year study on Cuban radio during which he and associates occasionally visited the island and spoke with Cubans about how and why they used radio.23 Like Smith, Nichols felt that a new service specifically for Cuba was unnecessary. Huber Matos could have provided the commission with inside information but was left off the roster. At one point, Matos was part of Castro’s inner circle, which placed him closer to the Cuban leader than any of the members on the commission. He was in the Sierra Maestra when the rebels launched Radio Rebelde and knew how Fidel used broadcasting to undermine confidence in Batista. Matos aligned himself with Midge Decter’s Committee for the Free World, the same Midge Decter listed as a trustee for RBC Inc.24 The Presidential Commission on Broadcasting to Cuba included one per-

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son who specialized in commercial radio news (Bayer), one engineer (Jacobs), two Cuban Americans (del Junco and Mas), three philanthropists (Coors, Scaife, and Schmertz), and six people with experience in either politics or public relations (del Junco, Scaife, Schmertz, Stone, White, Wick, and Smith). Within a few years, Mas would become so adept at political lobbying that he could be added to this last category as well. These men served as the commission’s public face, while less prominent figures served in advisory roles. Executive director George W. Landau had an extensive record in foreign service, including stints as the ambassador to Paraguay and Chile.25 Yale Newman and Peter P. Lord served as deputy executive directors. Newman had a solid history in broadcasting that included service as director of VOA’s service to Latin America. Lord’s name appeared in James Mader’s 1968 book, Who’s Who in CIA, an unofficial and unauthorized listing of CIA operatives around the world.26 Consultants for the commission included Kenneth R. Giddens, VOA director from 1969 to 1977, and James Duncan from the Department of Defense. Joshua Bolten, Myles Frechette, and Timothy Brown, all from the Bureau of Inter-American Affairs, also served as consultants.27 William Jahn of the State Department and Wilson LaFollette of the FCC would attend some commission meetings. The events in Washington were closely observed by workers at WHO-AM in Des Moines, Iowa, which had the unfortunate circumstance to use 1040 kHz, the same frequency that had been proposed for Radio Martí.28 WHO was a clear channel station, which meant that it was the only station using 1040 kHz during evening broadcasting hours. Some stations used 1040 kHz during the day but powered down at sundown when radio signals traveled greater distances. Clear channel stations like WHO were authorized to increase their power at night to extend their coverage areas. WHO would be in the direct line of fire should Castro decide to carry out his threat to jam Radio Martí’s AM frequency. Ironically, Ronald Reagan worked at WHO from 1933 to 1937 as an announcer and sports director. Shortly after the Commission’s second meeting, WHO’s lawyers filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the commission and the National Telecommunications Information Agency to “fish” for information that would help them build a case against the government’s use of 1040 kHz.29 They asked for transcripts of minutes as well as all Radio Martí feasibility studies, documents related to interference in Cuba and the United States, technical information, and information regarding previous anti–Cuba broadcasting operations.30 The fishing expedition failed to produce any useful information. The government denied access to most of the documents, citing national security and exemption by deliberative process, protecting the secret methods the government used in secret to reach decisions. WHO’s lawyers argued these exemptions were not valid due to the fact that many of the documents had been released prior to the commission’s creation; they filed a lawsuit.31

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Radio Martí needed legislation to operate. On February 2, 1982, Clement Zablocki, a Wisconsin Democrat and chair of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, introduced the Radio Broadcasting to Cuba Act. One of the six cosponsors was John Bingham, a Democrat from New York who had visited Cuba on a fact-finding mission and met with Fidel Castro five years earlier.32 Bingham’s report documenting the trip had Zablocki’s name on it as chair of the committee and noted that “Cubans ... can get a considerable amount of news by listening to U.S. radio broadcasts with which the government makes no effort to intervene.”33 No Florida representatives cosponsored the Radio Broadcasting to Cuba Act. A month later, Zablocki’s Committee on Foreign Affairs held the first hearings on the Radio Broadcasting to Cuba Act, during which the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB), WHO, and the congressional delegation from Iowa emerged as the primary coalition against Radio Martí. The group found some ammunition from an unlikely source, Reagan’s own International Communications Association. Four months before the White House announced its intention to launch Radio Martí, the ICA completed a feasibility study on creating Radio Free Cuba in which the NTIA and FCC both stated that such a station might cause Cuba to interfere with domestic broadcasters in the United States.34 According to the NAB, the Cubans could disrupt more than 200 stations in 32 states and the District of Columbia.35 The White House’s point person during hearings on the Radio Broadcasting to Cuba Act was Thomas Enders, the assistant secretary of state for InterAmerican Affairs. Enders served in the U.S. embassy in Cambodia when the Nixon administration expanded the Vietnam War. He was later named ambassador to Canada but had little experience with Latin America.36 In hearings on the Radio Broadcasting to Cuba Act, Enders pointed out that the interference problem with Cuba predated the administration’s proposal for Radio Martí and cited Castro’s two new 500-kilowatt transmitters as evidence of his intention to initiate a radio war with the United States. Florida representative Andy Ireland suggested that the United States go on the offensive by disrupting Cuba’s broadcasting operations to show Castro “what he can expect” in a radio war —“Why do we not zing him one time?”37 The Florida Association of Broadcasters (FAB) supported Radio Martí and passed a resolution expressing its support for the creation of facilities to carry out Ireland’s proposed “zing” of Castro. FAB vice president Harold Frank lamented the fact that the conflict had escalated to this level but felt the United States needed some response “to stimulate the Castro government’s desire to resolve this continuing problem.”38 Frank was also president and general manager of WINZ-AM, the same station that employed Presidential Commission member William Bourne Bayer. The FAB claimed that 24 other associations of broadcasters supported the resolution as well as three others that supported “immediate government action.”39

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Florida representative Dante Fascell played both sides of the Cuban debate. He pulled strings with the State Department to facilitate the Committee of 75 meetings headed by Bernardo Benes, who described the Florida representative as “no bullshit.”40 Fascell also served as an advisor for the hard-liners, many of whom went on to organize the Cuban American National Foundation.41 He called for the revival of radio broadcasts to the island during the Carter administration to draw attention to Cuba’s role in Angola: “The Cuban people don’t really know the extent of their damage.”42 When the House Committee on Foreign Affairs moved to the markup session for the Radio Broadcasting to Cuba Act, Fascell amended the bill to allow broadcasters to file claims against Cuba for damage to their property (broadcasting signals). Under Fascell’s amendment, the broadcasters’ complaints would be added to the more than two billion dollars worth of claims against the Republic of Cuba filed by U.S. companies that lost property to the Castro regime after the revolution. It was unlikely that the Cuban assets frozen in the United States would be enough to compensate broadcasters who would have to compete with other claimants. As an interim solution to this problem, the Fascell amendment called for the Board for International Broadcasting (BIB), the entity that oversaw RFE/RL, to provide monetary compensation for broadcasters who would be forced to adjust their signals to overcome Cuban interference. The BIB and FCC would work together to determine the legitimacy of broadcasters’ assertions and the amount of money each station would need to overcome the interference. With the Fascell amendment, the House Committee voted 24 to five in favor of the Radio Broadcasting to Cuba Act and reported it favorably. Even with the Fascell amendment, the anti–Martí coalition still opposed the Radio Broadcasting to Cuba Act. The National Association of Broadcasters was “vitally concerned about intensifying levels of Cuban interference to AM stations in the United States.”43 Iowa governor Robert D. Ray argued that the diminished range of WHO would limit the station’s ability to function during an emergency.44 Patrick Breheny, the regional director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), validated the argument by pointing out that WHO served as the primary station for Iowa’s Emergency Broadcast System.45 The Iowa Department of Agriculture and several other agricultural organizations from the state expressed their concern about WHO losing its signal.46 In spite of the possible loss of information for farmers across the Midwest, WHO received little support from agricultural organizations outside the state of Iowa. Radio Martí opponents proposed a compromise — expand Voice of America broadcasts to serve Cuba. John Spicer Nichols, Wayne Smith, and William LeoGrande, the three nongovernment and non-exile authorities on the subject, all agreed.47 According to Nichols, “Cubans listen to VOA without penalty and openly discuss programming.” Even Cuban government officials listened to VOA to stay updated on what allegations need to be refuted.48 Smith said VOA

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was “heard clearly all over Cuba and has a wide listenership.”49 Although Cubans were discouraged from listening to foreign broadcasts, they were not penalized for doing so.50 LeoGrande, the American University professor who said that Radio Martí could be a plot to lure Castro into a radio war, said, “VOA could serve the stated objectives of Radio Martí, and do so with greater credibility and fewer costs.”51 VOA already had an AM facility capable of broadcasting to the island. In 1962, the Kennedy administration set up two mobile transmitters to communicate with the island during the Cuban Missile Crisis.52 One station on Sugar Loaf Key used the 1040 frequency, which created problems for WHO at the time. The other operated from Marathon Key on 1180 kHz, which happened to be the same frequency used by WHAM-AM in Rochester, New York. A 1963 memo from USIA Director Donald Wilson acknowledged pressure from WHO and WHAM to take the stations off the air but argued that both were “in the national interest.” Wilson downplayed the argument that they infringed on the signals of domestic broadcasters: [T]he two Government stations in Florida are using highly directional antennas and are providing protection to the United States commercial stations which are operating on those frequencies, namely WHO Des Moines, Iowa on 1040 kcs and WHAM Rochester but this has now been eliminated. There is, nevertheless, latent feeling in some broadcasting circles against our presence on these frequencies.53

The Sugar Loaf transmitter operating on 1040 continued to broadcast until September 1965, when winds from Hurricane Betsy knocked it off the air.54 The Marathon transmitter operating on 1180 was still on the air as part of VOA’s service to the Caribbean in 1982 when the Radio Broadcasting to Cuba Act was under debate. According to NAB estimates, WHAM stood to lose 99 percent of its coverage area if Cuba launched a radio war with the United States.55 In a hearing before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, members of the Iowa team submitted a letter from William F. Rust, owner of Rust Communications Group, Inc., and WHAM, to Sol Taishoff, editor of Broadcasting Publications, Inc.: Dear Sol: There seems to be nothing new under the sun, and the same political boondoggles are rediscovered again and again. Why must we spend millions to build “Radio Martí” to propagandize [to] Cuba, when we have had a “Radio Martí” operating at Marathon on the Florida Keys since 1962? This is a high powered AM station with a directional antenna aimed at Cuba and operated by the Voice of America. It has been broadcasting the “truth” to Cuba on WHAM’s formerly Clear Channel of 1180 kHz ever since the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. The operation has been in violation of FCC allocations and international treaties. After many years of effort, WHAM gave up the struggle to get the Marathon station closed down.... Although the VOA station is directional and protects WHAM somewhat, Castro has used jammers operating on 1180 kHz which interfere in all directions. Several stations were built during the Cuban Missile Crisis that were like the Marathon operation. One was operated by the Navy on 1040 kHz (WHO’s fre-

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quency), but was later abandoned after severe hurricane damage. There were one or two more similar stations, but all were soon abandoned except the one on 1180 kHz at Marathon. It has been costing the taxpayers money and interfering with WHAM illegally for 19 years. President Reagan’s budget balancers could save the taxpayers some money by either using the Marathon installation for “Radio Martí” or closing it down. WHAM worked hard from 1962 to 1966 to get this albatross off of 1180 kHz but we got nowhere.... We raised serious questions but got no answers or action to help the situation.56

In an April 1982 article in Broadcasting, WHO’s Robert Engelhardt justified the decision on the premise that there would be considerably less damage to WHAM than to WHO. The Rochester station had an “urban service” that covered a smaller area as compared to the Iowa broadcasts that reached several states.57 Station proponents rejected the proposal to use the Marathon transmitter for different reasons. • It would be difficult to distinguish Radio Martí broadcasts from Voice of America broadcasts, leaving listeners confused.58 • Placing Radio Martí on the VOA frequency would force the Voice of America service off the air.59 • Voice of America was created to tell the world about the United States, not a specific country, and using it in that manner would violate the VOA Charter.60 The last argument was particularly weak. Voice of America did not draft a charter until 1960, twelve years after the law passed that authorized the broadcasts on an annual basis. VOA did not adopt the charter until 1976.61 In effect for just six years, the VOA charter could hardly be considered sacred and could have easily been revised to accommodate Radio Martí. The hearings on the Radio Broadcasting to Cuba Act devoted so much discussion to interference that other consequences received little attention. American University’s Dr. William LeoGrande warned of a boomerang effect that would foster Cuban nationalism and support for Castro.62 He also pointed out that Castro could release a wave of refugees as he did just two years earlier in the Mariel boatlift. The Cuban American National Foundation testified before the three committees that held hearings on the Radio Broadcasting to Cuba Act but did little more than repeat many of the White House’s arguments. It also issued its first publication, U.S. Radio Broadcasting to Cuba: Policy Implications; which assessed the Cuban media but failed to acknowledge Nichols’ work. It also said that the Presidential Commission on Broadcasting to Cuba should include “a former cabinet member or a well-known ambassador or both,” a role that could have been filled by Wayne Smith, and “an academician preferably with a background in Latin American affairs or international communications,” a role that Nichols could have filled.63 The document made the unique contribution of saying that

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Radio Martí should not encourage defections, an issue that had not been discussed thoroughly: “Programs on defectors living in the West will carefully avoid any suggestion that others should follow their example.”64 The Radio Broadcasting to Cuba Act had enough support in the House to advance. Iowa representatives James Leach, Thomas Tauke, Neal Smith, and Tom Harkin, Washington’s Al Swift, Pennsylvania’s Robert Walker, and New York’s Chuck Schumer proposed amendments to the bill, each with five minutes of debate, for the sole purpose of hindering its progress (see Table 5.1). Harkin took the lead, submitting 10, including one that would have changed the name of the bill to the “John Foster Dulles Cold War Mentality Memorial Radio Broadcasting to Cuba Act.” He had “some 30 or 40” others but ended his crusade after realizing that “the skids are greased on this bill” and he could not delay the inevitable.65 Just a few minutes later, the House passed the Radio Broadcasting to Cuba Act by a vote of 250 to 134.66 All six Iowa representatives voted against Radio Martí. Table 5.1 Amendments Submitted to the Radio Broadcasting to Cuba Act to Hinder Its Progress in the House Amendment

Rep.

H. Amdt. 715

James Leach H. Amdt. 716 Neal Smith H. Amdt. 756 Tom Harkin

State

Description

IA

Would have required Radio Martí to use the Marathon facility. Would have had the FCC determine the frequency or band. Would have allowed the Board for International Broadcasting to prepare material for commercial stations broadcasting to Cuba. Also would have required the government to use a non–AM frequency and modify the Marathon facility to accommodate that frequency. Would have prohibited assigning Radio Martí a frequency that was already in use by a nongovernmental broadcaster or was within 10 kHz of such a frequency. Would have prohibited Radio Martí from using a frequency between 535 and 1605 kHz. Would have required Radio Martí to use a single AM frequency. Would have prohibited the use of funds that violated PL 95 –435 requiring a balanced budget.

IA IA

H. Amdt. 757 Thomas Tauke

IA

H. Amdt. 758

WA

Al Swift

H. Amdt. 759 Harkin

IA

H. Amdt. 762

PA

Robert Walker

H. Amdt. 765 Charles Schumer

NY

Result Defeated 109 –271 Defeated 136 –244 Defeated 78 –284

Defeated 109 –277

Defeated by voice vote

Defeated by voice vote Point of order sustained against amendment Would have required funding for Radio Defeated by Martí to be provided by private voice vote

Five. Jamming Radio Martí Amendment

H. Amdt. 766

Rep.

State

Leach

IA

H. Amdt. 769 Harkin

IA

H. Amdt. 770 Harkin

IA

H. Amdt. 771 Harkin

IA

H. Amdt. 772 Harkin

IA

H. Amdt. 773 Harkin

IA

H. Amdt. 774 Harkin

IA

H. Amdt. 775 Harkin

IA

H. Amdt. 776 Harkin

IA

Description sources and would have prohibited appropriations for funding broadcasting to Cuba. Would have required Radio Martí to “serve as a consistently reliable and authoritative source of accurate, objective, and comprehensive news, in the same manner as the Voice of America is required to function under its charter.” Would have required the General Accounting Office to investigate the improper use of funds for building a facility for broadcasting to Cuba. Would have prohibited the hiring of additional federal employees for Radio Martí and would also stipulate that only federal employees run it. Would have changed the title of the bill to the “John Foster Dulles Cold War Mentality Memorial Radio Broadcasting to Cuba Act.” Would have changed the title of the bill to the “Radio Broadcasting to Dictatorships in the Caribbean Basin Act” and would have require broadcasting to other dictatorships in the region. Would have changed the title of the bill to the “Throwing Money at the Castro Problem through Radio Broadcasting to Cuba Act.” Would have changed the title of the bill to the “Refugee Recruitment through Radio Broadcasting to Cuba Act.” Would have prohibited Radio Martí programs from being used for military or paramilitary operations supported by the United States. Would have changed the title of the bill to the “School Lunch Fund Memorial Radio Broadcasting to Cuba Act.”

83 Result

Defeated by voice vote

Defeated by voice vote Defeated by voice vote Defeated by voice vote

Point of order sustained against amendment Defeated by voice vote Withdrawn Defeated by voice vote Defeated by voice vote

Nancy Reagan visited Des Moines two days later to promote her antidrug and anti-alcohol campaign. When the first lady appeared on one of WHO’s afternoon shows and answered calls, the announcers made it clear that the only topic to be discussed was drug abuse. President Reagan ventured to the state earlier in the week to speak to farmers but did not stop by his old station.67 In August, the New York Times reported that a Reagan official informally told Iowa senators Charles Grassley and Roger Jepsen that Radio Martí would

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“probably not” use 1040 kHz.68 It may not have mattered which frequency Radio Martí used. The Cubans could still disrupt more than 200 radio stations in the United States, which is exactly what they did a week later. On August 31, 1982, Castro interfered with five frequencies for four hours, affecting stations as far away as Salt Lake City. WHO experienced heavy interference. Abe Barron, the station’s general manager, described the event as “the first firing in a radio war that the State Department has taken so lightly.”69 Commission member Richard Stone viewed the conflict as positive interference: “All of this is creating a lot of interest in Radio Martí in Cuba. It’s like putting a big sign in front of a theater: ‘This is a phenomenal show, but you can’t come in.’”70 When the Senate Foreign Relations Committee met in September, Radio Martí opponents did not have the numbers to stop the Radio Broadcasting to Cuba Act in committee. Amendments proposed to put Radio Martí on another frequency and specify the procedure for compensating broadcasters were proposed but defeated. The only victory was passage of an amendment that required planners to consider the changes made at the 1981 Rio conference and select a frequency that should decrease the amount of interference.71 The Committee then proceeded to vote 11–5 to report the bill favorably. When the Radio Broadcasting to Cuba Act finally reached the Senate floor on December 6, 1982, the anti–Martí coalition blocked it on a technicality. It violated Section 402(a) of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974.72 Simply put, the Radio Broadcasting to Cuba Act did not provide a specific amount of money that was to be used to compensate broadcasters who experienced Cuban interference. As Senator Grassley said, “We would be approving a waiver for untold millions of dollars.”73 When Radio Martí supporters attempted to submit a waiver of Section 402(a) they met substantial resistance. Nebraska Senator James Exon was very blunt: I think the leadership should understand, I think the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, my good friend and colleague from Illinois, and all in the Senate should understand, that starting now we are filibustering this Radio Martí measure. There are those of us who will stand on this floor as long as it is necessary to see that this matter does not pass the Senate in this Special Session.... This bill is a dead duck and the quicker we recognize it as a dead duck the better off we are going to be as far as addressing the supposedly key matters that we were called back here for after the election to address.74

For more than a week, the anti–Martí coalition delayed the process by reading from the Presidential Commission on Broadcasting to Cuba’s Final Report, letters from Wayne Smith, the NAB and Nebraska Broadcasters Association, and some anti–U.S. writings of Jose Martí, all the while avoiding a vote on the bill. The Senate failed to pass the Radio Broadcasting to Cuba Act before the 97th session of Congress expired. Reagan would have to wait until the next

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year, a task that might be difficult as support for his policy was beginning to wane. At the same time the Senate was filibustering to stop the Radio Broadcasting to Cuba Act, the House of Representatives voted 411–0 to pass the Boland Amendment, which prohibited the United States from assisting the Nicaraguan Contras.75 On February 24, 1983, Florida senator Paula Hawkins introduced an improved version of the Radio Broadcasting to Cuba Act.76 The key difference was that it required Radio Martí to use the VOA facility at Marathon Key and its 1180 kHz frequency instead of 1040 kHz. Having already thoroughly discussed radio broadcasting to Cuba the previous year, Congress held only one hearing on the new version of the Radio Broadcasting to Cuba Act and it lasted just under three hours. The Senate Committee on Foreign Relations amended the bill to create a five million dollar fund that would be used to compensate broadcasters until the money was expended. Although this was an improvement, five million dollars would provide assistance for only a few of the 200 broadcasters that stood to suffer from Cuban interference. In a statement on the first Radio Broadcasting to Cuba Act, Iowa senator Charles Grassley said that damage just to WHO could amount to $1,350,000.77 In spite of this, the committee agreed to report the bill with the amendment and a waiver of Section 402(a) of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 just in case other funds were needed.78 Even with the changes to the Radio Broadcasting to Cuba Act there was still resistance to Radio Martí. Reagan’s Radio Martí team met with WHO officials in the spring of 1983 and said that the government was considering 40 options for dealing with Cuban interference, including the “surgical removal” of Cuba’s jamming transmitters. This choice of words stunned the Iowa team, who left the meeting wondering what “surgical removal” meant. One of members of the coalition drew a parallel to how the Nazis used anti–German broadcasts from a Polish radio station as justification for invading the country and launching World War II. The New York Times found out about the “surgical removal” statement and questioned the White House, which responded, “It is not the policy of the Reagan Administration to bomb Cuba.”79 Hawkins’ bill reached the Senate floor in June but failed to progress. On September 1, 1983, Korean Air Lines Flight 007 strayed into Soviet airspace. The Soviets argued that the plane was on a spy mission and shot it down, killing all 269 passengers.80 Reagan felt that validated the need for Radio Martí and, in his weekly radio address of September 10, he urged Congress to move on the Radio Broadcasting to Cuba Act: We’ve repeatedly urged the Congress to support our long-term modernization program and our proposal for a new radio station, Radio Martí, for broadcasting to Cuba. The sums involved are modest, but for whatever reason this critical program has not been enacted. Today I’m appealing to the Congress: Help us get the truth through. Help us

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An Air War with Cuba strengthen our international broadcasting effort by supporting increased funding for the Voice of America, Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty, and by authorizing the establishment of Radio Martí.81

After one day of unsuccessful debate, Hawkins compromised by submitting “a complete substitute” for the Radio Broadcasting to Cuba Act, which made three key changes. First, it placed Radio Martí under the authority of the Voice of America, mandating that the station’s content abide by VOA standards. It also created a nine-member Advisory Board for Cuba Broadcasting to “review the effectiveness” of broadcasting operations and “make recommendations to the President and Broadcasting Board of Governors, the oversight entity within USIA as it may consider necessary,” similar to the way the BIB oversaw RFE/RL. Board members would be appointed by the president and approved by the Senate to serve three-year terms. The president would designate one member to be chairperson. Finally, the substitute amendment included an entirely new paragraph that called for annual evaluations of Radio Martí content by an outside and independent source for its first three years of operation. This quelled fears that the station would be used to disseminate propaganda or become an anti–Castro mouthpiece for the exile community. Resistance to Radio Martí evaporated in the Senate. Senator Grassley and others who had approved Radio Martí not only supported the change but also cosponsored Hawkins’ amendment.82 The bill passed by voice vote with no debate. When the Radio Broadcasting to Cuba Act reached the House of Representatives, Maryland’s Parren Mitchell challenged the need for the service because the Cubans “hear all of our good stuff here in America anyway.”83 Representative Peter Kostmayer of Pennsylvania admitted that placing Radio Martí under the authority of VOA improved the situation but only from an F to a Dminus.84 Still, the Radio Broadcasting to Cuba Act passed 302 to 109, an even greater margin than for the previous version.85 Among the converts from the first version to the second were Iowa’s three Republicans in the House, Thomas Evans, James Leach, and Thomas Tauke. Democrats Tom Harkin, Neal Smith, and Berkley Bedell voted against it a second time. On October 4, 1983, President Reagan signed the Radio Broadcasting to Cuba Act, making it Public Law 98 –111. The station would not be what he had envisioned. Under VOA oversight, Radio Martí would face restrictions that would make it difficult to advance a White House only agenda on Cuba. “I would have preferred to place Radio Martí under the Board for International Broadcasting instead of the Voice of America, because the distinct nature of its mission is akin to that of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty,” Reagan said.86 Three weeks after the Radio Broadcasting to Cuba Act was signed into law, Grenadian prime minister Maurice Bishop was captured and killed by separatists within the New Jewel Movement. Reagan launched Operation Urgent Fury, an invasion of Grenada, to purge the island of Cuban and Soviet elements. The action gave the United States its first military victory in the post–Vietnam

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era, advancing Reagan’s goal of restoring prestige to the U.S. and its armed forces. It also liberated the first of the three countries in the Western Hemisphere that had been lost to communism. Fighting continued in Nicaragua and El Salvador. Radio Caiman (Radio Alligator) signed on in 1985, two years after Reagan signed the Radio Broadcasting to Cuba Act. The station, operated by the CIA, aired mostly music to Cuba. Radio Caiman never really generated that much interest on or off the island. The United States government has never publicly acknowledged its relationship with Radio Caiman. There have been no congressional hearings about the station. There is almost no relevant literature and there is no known archive of Radio Caiman broadcasts. Its presence as a covert operation seemed to confirm that Reagan wanted Radio Martí to be an overt operation.

CHAPTER SIX

Let’s Get It On In terms of the game theory, we might say the universe is so constituted to maximize play. The best games are not those in which all goes smoothly and steadily toward a certain conclusion, but those in which the outcome is always in doubt.1 — George Leonard

Radio Martí became a liability as soon Reagan signed the Radio Broadcasting to Cuba Act. It was a long-term commitment that required the United States to broadcast and to do so objectively, a standard few people thought was realistic. It also baited Castro to retaliate, forcing commercial broadcasters to brace for the fallout from a broadcasting war. Reagan taunted Castro the following January in a speech over VOA’s Caribbean service to mark the 25th anniversary of the takeover of Cuba: Twenty-five years ago, during these early January days, you were celebrating what all of us hoped was the dawn of a new era of freedom. Most Cubans welcomed the prospects for democracy and liberty which the leaders of the Cuban revolution had promised. But tragically, the promises made to you have not been kept. Since 1959 you’ve been called upon to make one sacrifice after another. And for what? Doing without has not brought you a more abundant life. It has not brought you peace. And most important, it has not won freedom for your people —freedom to speak your opinions, to travel where and when you wish, to work in independent unions, and to openly proclaim your faith in God and to enjoy all these basic liberties without having to be afraid.... The Congress of the United States has authorized the startup soon of a new radio service on the Voice of America named for your great Cuban patriot, Jose Martí.”2

Reagan then added a preview of what Radio Martí might be like, a source of information that corrected “misperceptions” in Cuba: We want you to know what you haven’t been told, for example, about the situation in Grenada. When Grenada’s Prime Minister Bishop was killed, the Governor General, as well as the majority of the English-speaking Caribbean, asked for our assistance in protecting them. Why didn’t they ask for Cuba’s assistance? Well, the sad truth is, they wanted to be protected from the Cuban Government. The United States and other Caribbean forces were welcomed by Grenadians as liberators. The rest of the world has seen the evidence of the popular outpouring of

88

Six. Let’s Get It On

89

support for our action. Cuban lives could have been saved if your government had respected the will of the Grenadian people and not ordered your soldiers to fight to the death. Fortunately, the great majority of your personnel in Grenada did not obey those orders.”3

Behind this façade White House officials lacked a strategy for dealing with widespread Cuban interference to domestic broadcasting in the United States. The two-year struggle to pass the Radio Broadcasting to Cuba Act turned out to be the easy part. Initiating a broadcasting war with Cuba in an election year could have been disastrous for Reagan and the Republican Party. When the National Association of Broadcasters advised the White House to postpone Martí’s launch until after the November 1984 election, Reagan obliged.4 As the hype surrounding Radio Martí subsided, a tentative calm between the United States and Cuba set in. When Cuba joined the Soviet boycott of the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, the White House allowed games organizer Peter Ueberroth to travel to Cuba and try to sell Castro on the idea of at least sending a team to participate in baseball, a demonstration sport in 1984.5 The United States scored a small victory when communist states Romania, Yugoslavia and the People’s Republic of China snubbed the boycott and decided to participate. Accompanying Ueberroth was a letter from Reagan to Cuban officials that said “the United States would comply with the Olympic charter,” a reference to the legend that warring states in ancient Greece would permit safe passage for athletes traveling to the games.6 Castro considered the idea but sided with the Soviets out of loyalty.7 In the first years of the revolution, the Eastern Bloc countries were the only states that allowed Cuban athletes to participate. Castro did agree to use his influence with African governments to persuade them to attend.8 Many were considering their own boycott to protest the participation of Great Britain, which had a rugby team with ties to South Africa and a South African runner, Zola Budd, who became a British citizen only to be eligible to participate.9 The African boycott movement ended after Castro’s meeting with Ueberroth. Angola, Libya, and Ethiopia were the only African countries to boycott the games.10 Civil rights leader and 1984 presidential candidate Jesse Jackson visited Cuba just a few weeks later. Jackson’s campaign was sagging and needed a boost. Castro invited Jackson to Cuba as a way to smooth things over with the United States without directly negotiating with Washington. As a gesture of goodwill, he agreed to allow 26 political prisoners to return with Jackson.11 The most significant development occurred in December 1984 when Castro agreed to allow up to 20,000 Cubans to immigrate to the United States each year and release more than 3,000 political prisoners. Cuba would also take back 2,746 Mariel excludables, the criminals and mental patients Castro sent to the United States during the 1980 boatlift who had been languishing in U.S. prisons for years. The “Mariel Detainees” as they have also been known, were not U.S.

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citizens and therefore could not be formally charged for the crimes they had committed in Cuba. Immigration officials argued that they still posed a threat to the general population and could not be released. Only a few Marielitos had been incarcerated since their arrival in 1980. Most had assimilated at some point but were arrested for minor crimes and had served enough time to be released had they been citizens. Returning them to Cuba seemed to be the most logical solution. Reagan would benefit by having the excludables removed from U.S. soil. Castro would get a valve to alleviate the anti–Castro sentiment that regularly built up on the island. South Florida community leaders were not enthusiastic about the deal because it would bring more Cubans to the area. Cuban Americans had mixed feelings. In the Washington Post, Frank Calzon of the Cuban American National Foundation described the deal as “perverse logic” and added, “I hope the agreement is the inception of a more-enlightened U.S. policy toward Castro.”12 Other exiles believed that the deal signaled the first step toward normalization. The improvement in relations between the two countries was aided by the fact that Radio Martí was not on the air. Placing the station under the authority of the Voice of America added several levels of bureaucracy to its hiring procedures, leaving it without the minimum number of people to operate the station. Florida senators Paula Hawkins and Lawton Chiles pressed Reagan for a start date. Hawkins proposed January 28, 1985, Jose Martí’s birthday, but Radio Martí still lacked the personnel to go on.13 She complained to the media: “It only takes two people to run a radio station. One to flip the switch and another to talk.”14 Hawkins proposed having a limited schedule, an idea that one station official cautioned against after observing test broadcasts using the limited staff: “If we force the issue beyond four hours of daily programming right now, I’m afraid this could be the Bay of Pigs of international radio.”15 The Wall Street Journal characterized Radio Martí as a potential “Star Wars of international broadcasting — researched but never deployed, pending further investigation.”16 The personnel vacancies included the station’s director. In December 1983, USIA officials offered the position to Emilio Milian, the WQBA radio announcer who lost both his legs to inter-exile violence in 1976. Milian was a moderate exile who would have enhanced the station’s credibility, but he withdrew his name from consideration, citing a desire to stay in Miami rather than move to Radio Martí’s base in Washington, D.C. In 1995, Milian told the Miami New Times that the real reason he declined was because he did not want to work with exile leaders who had been given a considerable amount of control over operations.17 A year later, RKO Radio executive and programming consultant Paul Drew was named as Radio Martí’s director.18 Drew was an outsider to Cuban affairs who spoke no Spanish but had served as a consultant for Radio Martí. A month after accepting the position, Drew resigned, claiming that “there was an inordinate [amount of ] time spent on things not for radio.... It was screwy. I said

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to myself, ‘This is ridiculous. I can’t make it work.’”19 Drew told Broadcasting magazine that he wondered if the staff, 60 percent of whom were of Cuban origin, understood “the language about accuracy and objectivity,” and doubted that the station would maintain VOA standards.20 Desperate to have someone in a leadership role, USIA director Charles Wick named Kenneth Giddens as “acting director” of Radio Martí. Giddens was director of VOA during the Nixon administration and happened to be an old friend of Wick.21 He also served as a consultant for Radio Martí, during which time he criticized WHO for a “lack of patriotism” and said that jamming was “a gamble we all take.... Any solider who goes to war might be shot.”22 Just a few weeks after he accepted the position as director, the Wall Street Journal asked Giddens about the problem of Cuban interference. He responded, “Maybe that’s the time to blow up a few of Castro’s transmitters. He’d know we mean business then.”23 The most serious problem continued to be a possible jamming war with Cuba. An excerpt from Reagan’s personal diary from December 14, 1984 shows that the White House still had no strategy to counter Cuban interference: We had a most unsatisfactory N.S.P.G. [National Security Planning Group] meeting with Charley Wick present. He’s not the reason it’s unsatisfactory. We’re ready to go with “Radio Martí” our station broadcasting truth to Cuba — part of our Information Program. Cuba, however, threatens retaliation; not just jamming our program but jamming Am. radio stations all the way to the Mid-west. They are actually completing the transmitters to do this. We can join all of theirs but at great cost & only after several months. It will take time to set up a system. If we retreat we lose face which can hurt us in all of Latin Am. If we go forward we could knock many of our commercial stations off the air. What to do? Right now I don’t know.24

Reagan’s diary entry a month later indicates the issue was still unresolved but several options were under consideration: N.S.C. briefing — I made a decision to equip several planes with equipment capable of joining Cuban radio & T.V. We may never use them — I hope not. But we intend to start Radio Martí— broadcasting truth to Cuba. We intend to offer Castro a channel upon which he is free to broadcast to our people. But we’ll also tell him that if he jams our radio & (as he has threatened) interfere with our commercial stations we’ll black out Cuban TV & radio. We must be prepared to carry that out instantly.25

The two sides discussed allowing Cuba to use 520 and 1610 kHz for counterbroadcasting but the idea never progressed. At the time, most radios only went as low as 530 and as high as 1600 kHz. U.S. officials also wanted to use 1610 as a backup if Cuba jammed Radio Martí’s primary signal.26 The gravity of the situation became even more apparent in March of 1985 when the FCC determined that St. Petersburg’s WSUN-AM was eligible for monetary compensation under the Radio Broadcasting to Cuba Act. The station had invested more than $12,000 on modifications to the station’s transmitter more than a year earlier.27

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The Reagan administration publicly sided with Cuban American hardliners but privately worked with moderate exiles. In his book Secret Missions to Cuba, Robert M. Levine recounts the travels of Bernardo Benes, the exile coordinator of the Committee of 75 meetings with Castro in 1978 that coincided with the release of more than three thousand Cuban prisoners. In the seven years that followed, Benes had become an outcast in Miami and found himself at the end of the Cuban spectrum opposite the CANF. In spite of this, the Reagan administration called on him to negotiate with Castro once again for Project Cuba, a new secret plan to bring the two countries closer. After several months of background communication, Benes was granted a meeting with Fidel Castro in Castro’s office on May 15, 1985, during which he conveyed a message on behalf of President Reagan: “Mr. President, I would like to name an ambassador to Cuba, normalize relations, and end the economic embargo. I will approve a sugar quota for Cuba. All I ask is that you stop your country’s effort to export revolution abroad.”28 Such an agreement was unfathomable — a Latin American equivalent of the Berlin Wall collapsing but in the United States’ own hemisphere. It might have even initiated the demise of communism years before it swept through Europe. No one realized the potential impact more than Castro himself, who requested three days to consider the proposal. After just two, he contacted Benes: “Tell your president that I accept this olive branch without reservation.”29 He lamented the diminished influence he would have over Third World countries but felt it was necessary “for the sake of peace in the region.”30 Benes and Alonso-Pujol were back in Miami at 6:00 P.M. on May 18, believing that the Cuban theater of the Cold War was drawing to a close.31 The meetings were a diversion. The next morning’s edition of the Miami Herald included a front-page headline that read, “Radio Martí Will Start Beaming to Cuba Monday, Senators Say.”32 The White House sent Benes back to Havana a few days later with details about further negotiations. Cuban officials refused to talk.33 Benes had presented Castro with a carrot on behalf of the White House while Radio Martí served as the stick. Kenneth Skoug Jr., coordinator of Cuban Affairs in the State Department, omitted details about the Benes negotiations from his book, The United States and Cuba Under Reagan and Schultz. He did write that the White House had engaged in a strategy of “preemptive negotiations ... based on the assumption that Cuba badly needed a dialogue and with one in progress or about to start would not overreact to Radio Martí.”34 In PsyWar on Cuba: Declassified History of U.S. Anti-Castro Propaganda, Jon Elliston includes an e-mail from national security advisor Robert McFarlane to deputy national security advisor John Poindexter that confirms this: We would start broadcasting soft content right away but at the same time we would send the signal ... which would have us express willingness to talk to Castro about

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some fairly routine issues. But the point to him would be that he had succeeded in getting a dialogue going — jhowever [sic] trivial — and would perhaps make him less likely to screw it up by starting his own broadcasting interference.35

The evidence suggests that the Benes meetings with Castro were done only to make the Cuban leader think that there was some chance that the two countries could have a more cordial relationship. It is not clear if they were intended to actually produce a specific goal. Normalizing relations with Castro would have contradicted everything Reagan had done and would have alienated some of his most loyal supporters, the CANF. It was Reagan’s commitment to the CANF that helped get Radio Martí on the air. Jorge Mas Canosa pleaded the case for getting Radio Martí on the air as seen as possible to Charles Wick, the one person who had enough pull with Reagan to make this possible. Wick pressed the issue with Reagan at a time when Secretary of State George Schultz, who opposed Radio Martí, was away from Washington. Schultz returned to find that Radio Martí was scheduled to begin on May 20, Cuban Independence Day, and the State Department had been tasked to develop a countermeasure strategy posthaste.36 The State Department created the Radio Martí Task Force to develop strategies for dealing with Cuban retaliation. The State Department also asked that the launch date be pushed back to July 4th. As Wick said in a 2003 interview for the Ronald Reagan Oral History Project, the National Security Council met in the situation room before the station was to sign on. Schultz expressed his belief that the station should delay startup, as did many of the others in the room. Wick presented his case in support of Radio Martí but failed to convince the others to end their opposition. The meeting concluded when Reagan got up from the table, headed toward the door, stopped and remarked, “Now you guys, I want you to know my decision is, Charlie, you go ahead. And next week I don’t want to hear any other changes or delays that we’re going to encounter. That’s it.”37 The May 20, 1985, issue of the New York Times included a 13-line article on page nine in which Florida senators Hawkins and Chiles said that Radio Martí would sign on that morning. On the following page, the paper had a seemingly unrelated story titled “Return of Cubans from U.S. Is ‘Going Well’” that made no mention of Radio Martí or broadcasting. By the time most readers received the paper, the latter article had become an anachronism due to the information in the first article. Castro terminated the 167-day old immigration agreement with the United States at 2:00 A.M.38 Radio Martí signed on for the first time at 5:30 A.M. on May 20, 1985: “Buenos Dias, Cuba. You are listening to Radio Martí. On-the-air today, now, Radio Martí. Radio Martí stands for the right of every man to be free, to receive and disseminate information, to seek the truth and make it known among other men who respect it.”39 Radio Rebelde announced the end of the immigration agreement 30 minutes later: “If the price we have to pay to defend our dignity

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and sovereignty is to make our relations with the United States more difficult for many years and impede all possibilities of bettering them, the United States will be the only one responsible for this option.”40 Only 201 of the 2,746 Mariel excludables had been sent back to Cuba and 11 political prisoners in Cuba had come to the United States.41 It also added the following: “The government of Cuba also reserves the right to make any radio transmissions to the United States.”42 Early reviews of Radio Martí suggested that the station did not live up to the three-and-a-half years of hype that preceded its launch. Programs were just a bit dated, including one that featured a comedian who had been dead for 10 years.43 One listener said, “It sounds as if the programs were taped 25 years ago.”44 Less than three weeks after signing on, both the New York Times and the Washington Post had articles noting that the station had failed to connect with the Cuban audience.45 Acting program director Richard H. Araujo attributed the problem to the fact that the station had fewer than 130 of its 187 positions filled, which make it difficult to create original programs.46 Castro jammed Radio Martí initially but reduced his efforts after hearing the content. Radio Martí was clearly a disappointment but so was Castro’s response. For reasons no one could understand, Castro failed to act on his threat to annihilate domestic broadcasting in the United States. As one State Department official said, “We spent many quarrelsome hours developing no answer to a question they did not pose.”47 The Radio Martí Task Force, created specifically to address Cuban radio interference, disbanded on May 28, having never developed a response.48 There was occasional interference, as there had always been, but not the devastating scenario that had been predicted. In September, four months after Radio Martí signed on, interim director Ernesto Betancourt was named to the position permanently. During Castro’s struggle against Batista, Betancourt served as the MR-26-7 representative in Washington, acting as an ambassador to the United States. Less than a year after Batista’s departure, Betancourt realized that Castro intended to take Cuba in a different direction and broke with the regime. After defecting to the United States, Betancourt was named as head of budgeting at the Organization of American States, where he coined the phrase “Alliance for Progress,” the label that President Kennedy attached to his Marshall Plan-type aid program for Latin America.49 He was also one of the few Cuban exiles to oppose exile collaboration with the CIA to overthrow Castro.50 Betancourt had no journalism experience.51 He was not a CANF leader but had coauthored Spanish and English works published by the organization and was a member of its speakers’ bureau.52 He would later write Revolutionary Strategy: A Handbook for Practitioners. In the first paragraph of the introduction Betancourt mentions the importance of radio and providing the people with information. Another respected member of the Radio Martí team was news director Jay

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Mallin Sr., a journalist who was raised in Cuba and covered the MR-26-7 campaign against Batista for Life. In the week that followed Batista’s flight, Mallin traveled with Castro’s entourage as they advanced to Havana.53 Mallin got to know CANF leader Jorge Mas Canosa fairly well when he (Mallin) covered the anti–Castro movement as a correspondent for Time. He also covered conflicts in the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, Grenada, Angola, and the Mariel boatlift. By the time Mallin started at Radio Martí he had authored or edited books on guerrilla warfare, Vietnam, the Dominican Republic, Fulgencio Batista, Che Guevara, and Soviet influence in Cuba. Mallin was a professional journalist and ran Radio Martí’s news department in accordance with professional standards. Every news item on Radio Martí required a minimum of two sources unless approved by Mallin himself. The station avoided name calling, even something as basic as calling Castro a dictator. It aired all news, both favorable and unfavorable to the United States, believing that doing so would enhance Radio Martí’s credibility and win the respect of the Cuban people just as Radio Rebelde had done in the 1950s. In his book Adventures in Journalism, Mallin cites a report by the Advisory Board for Radio Broadcasting to Cuba that claimed Castro’s government did not challenge any of Radio Martí’s first 50,000 news stories.54 Just four months after Radio Martí’s less than impressive start, Programa Especial [Special Program] said that heterosexual intercourse and blood transfusions were common methods to transmit AIDS. These were significant revelations for the audience at a time when Cuban soldiers returning from Africa unknowingly brought the disease with them. Cuban officials had consistently denied that there were any AIDS cases on the island. According to them, it was a Yanqui disease, as evidenced by the United States having more cases than any other country. Radio Martí aired several programs on AIDS in its first years on the air, which are regarded as the best content it ever produced. By then end of the year Cuba had acknowledged its first AIDS case.55 A year after Radio Martí signed on, Cuba began testing every person on the island.56 The following year, Cuba was one of 30 Latin American countries that participated in the first AIDS conference for the region.57 Cuban health officials launched an AIDS prevention campaign, which included public service announcements on Cuban broadcasting stations. They developed a process to screen for AIDS and HIV and began testing the most vulnerable segments of the population: Soldiers who served in Africa, those in contact with non– Cubans, and pregnant mothers. By 1989, more than 75 percent of the population over 15 years old had been tested.58 Two years later, Cuba announced that it had covered practically the entire country.59 The impact of Radio Martí’s coverage of AIDS is evident when looking at the prevalence of the disease decades later. According to 2007 estimates listed in the 2010 CIA Factbook, there are about 6,200 people in Cuba living with HIV/AIDS. This gives it an adult prevalence rate of 0.10, placing it 138th out of

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170 states listed.60 It also says that there have been fewer than 100 deaths in Cuba attributed to the disease, placing it 129 out of 156 states listed.61 Although information about Cuba, particularly that provided by the Cuban government, is unreliable and often reflects underestimation, CIA intelligence has historically exaggerated conditions in Cuba to make them seem worse than they actually are, which means that the actual AIDS numbers in Cuba may be even lower. By comparison, the same publication listed the United States as having 1.2 million people living with HIV/AIDS, giving it a prevalence rate of .06 percent (70 out of 170 states). There have been 22,000 deaths in the United States due to HIV/AIDS.62 Although Radio Martí advocates claim to be the impetus for Cuba’s stance on AIDS, other evidence suggests it was not. In 1982, Cuba passed Decree-Law 54, which called for “isolation of individuals suspected of suffering from a communicable disease, and of possible carriers of the causal germ.”63 Cuba created the National AIDS commission the following year, two years before Radio Martí signed on.64 Even if Radio Martí did not cause Cuban officials to act on AIDS, the station informed Cubans about the disease prior to Cuban media. Radio Martí also drew attention to the way the Cuban health care system treated AIDS patients. In 1986, Cuba opened its first sanatorium, a stateimposed hospice that quarantined HIV–positive patients to minimize their interaction with the rest of the population.65 Cuban officials have portrayed the average sanatorium as a resort “on several acres of land with modern one- and two-story apartment duplexes that are surrounded by lush vegetation and a small garden.”66 One member of the Cuban military who left Cuba told Radio Martí “in actuality it is a jail.”67 Some even had barbed wire to discourage escape.68 Another big story on Radio Martí was the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. In the 1970s, Cuba and the Soviet Union agreed to build the Juragua nuclear power facility, the first ever on the island. Engineers hoped to have it functional by 1985 but “geological irregularities” forced engineers to abandon the original location and move to Cienfuegos (which translates to “100 fires”) on Cuba’s southern coast. Construction did not begin until 1983 and the facility was not expected to be operational until about eight years later.69 Radio Martí’s coverage of the accident made the Cubans, and perhaps even Castro himself, more aware of the potential hazards of nuclear power. The design for the two Juragua reactors was different than those used at Chernobyl but still concerned Cuban and Soviet officials so much that they accepted assistance from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. In 1988, the NRC allowed Cuban engineers to tour a Duke Power nuclear facility outside Charlotte, North Carolina.70 Duke Power officials visited the facility in Cienfuegos a year later.71 Construction at Cienfuegos dragged on until it was officially halted in the 1990s due to the collapse of the Soviet Union. At the time of this writing, the two reactors still stand in a state of half-completion and deterioration.72

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Radio Martí covered the conflicts in Central America and Angola from neighboring countries. Jay Mallin went to Africa and personally recruited Spanish-speaking stringers in Ivory Coast, Kenya, Cameroon, and Zaire (now known as the Democratic Republic of the Congo), which border Angola on the north and east. Radio Martí would eventually have 80 stringers in the United States and 45 other countries.73 The station’s professional approach to news won the respect of VOA, which began collaborating with Radio Martí on some stories.74 One of Mallin’s “personal favorite” events was Radio Martí’s simultaneous translation of a speech delivered by Mikhail Gorbachev during his visit to Washington. “I thought it would particularly rankle the Cuban government to have a speech by the leader of the Soviet Union–Cuba’s primary ally-broadcast by Radio Martí,” he said.75 The station aired a four-part interview with Rafael del Pino, a Cuban pilot who shot down two Brigade 2506 planes at the Bay of Pigs but defected to the United States with his wife and three children in 1987.76 The day he arrived, two pilots from Brigade 2506 went on Radio Martí and “praised” del Pino and acknowledged “a state of honor and uprightness” for the Cuban military.77 On Radio Martí, Del Pino described Angola as “Cuba’s Vietnam” and added that morale within the military was decreasing: “If there is anybody at all who has any faith in victory, it’s only Fidel and Raul Castro.”78 The transcripts of programs about defectors were some of the most requested at the U.S. Interests Section in Havana.79 Radio Martí also covered the 1987 visit of Pope John Paul II to the United States, which included a stop in Miami. When an electrical storm interrupted a mass in Tamiami Park causing audience members to flee for their safety, Radio Martí’s translator continued his coverage from under a picnic table.80 Nonnews programs also attracted listeners. When asked to name a program on Radio Martí, Cuban arrivals in the United States consistently cited Esmeralda, a radio novella about a blind girl who falls in love. Cuban women working in offices would secretly listen to the program on headphones and “rush to the ladies’ room to talk about it” afterward.81 Family Bridge allowed exiles to call an 800 number and leave brief messages to relatives still in Cuba. Radio Martí got hundreds of calls during the week, far more than it needed, and replayed recordings every Sunday evening from seven to eight. One listener said, “I found out I was a grandfather.”82 Even the simple act of reading names of political prisoners incarcerated by Castro won favor with the Cubans. In Remembering Cuba: Legacy of Diaspora by Andrea O’Reilly Herrera, Ernesto Betancourt recalled a phone call from a man who secretly listened to the station while incarcerated. After hearing his name, the prisoner said he “had the hope and strength to continue enduring my situation.” Betancourt remarked, “Nobody can ask for a better reward for his efforts.”83 Castro’s radio stations responded by airing a more diverse selection of programs. Shows included call-in segments where people could express their opin-

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ions.84 For the first time in decades, Cuban stations played music by Frank Sinatra, a frequent performer at Havana clubs before the revolution.85 Radio Rebelde began broadcasting 24 hours every day. Cuban television switched to all color pictures and acquired more soap operas from other countries.86 The University of Havana even added journalism as a major.87 Most of the people that initially criticized Radio Martí were surprised, perhaps even disappointed, when the gloom and doom that had been prophesized failed to develop. Ten months after the station signed on, the New York Times published “Cruel and Unusual Banishment,” an editorial that criticized Radio Martí for ending the immigration deal with Cuba.88 The paper reversed its position 10 days later with another editorial, “Second Thoughts on Radio Martí,” that seemed apologetic: “Contrary to our fears last year, it has avoided propaganda and supplemented, not duplicated, commercial Spanish-language broadcasts from Florida.”89 John Spicer Nichols wrote his own letter to the paper that criticized it for flip-flopping and reminded everyone that everything Radio Martí had done could have been accomplished by expanding Voice of America broadcasts to the region. Nichols challenged the Times’ claim that “tangible evidence of a growing audience” existed. According to him, the station’s audience research consisted of information gathered from interviewing only 26 individuals who had recently left the island.90 Radio Martí’s research department estimated that 64 percent of Cubans listened daily, 20 percent listened several times a week, and 14 percent once in a while.91 The Advisory Board for Radio Broadcasting to Cuba admitted that listener numbers might be inaccurate due to “the nature of Cuban totalitarianism,” which meant that it was impossible to sample people in Cuba.92 Audience numbers were based on interviews with recent émigrés, an invalid sample of people because they opposed Castro and would be more likely to listen. Even if the numbers were grossly exaggerated, it was obvious that Radio Martí had found some semblance of an audience. Independent evaluations of Radio Martí seemed to validate claims that the station was producing valuable content. One reviewer specifically noted that the station followed VOA guidelines and people on the island could receive the station in spite of some jamming.93 In his book To Die in Cuba: Suicide and Society, Louis A. Perez explored the custom of taking one’s own life in Cuba. Cubans, including those living in exile, have had one of the highest suicide rates in the world, dating to colonial times. Perez acknowledged tirarse al mar (to throw oneself into the sea), strictly a Cuban phenomenon that refers to an individual’s decision to leave Cuba on a balsa (raft) for the United States and the possibility of a better life. Any balsero (rafter) who chose tirarse al mar would have to cross the Straits of Florida, more than 90 miles of sharks, sun exposure, isolation, and swells large enough to capsize any balsa. Balseros did not actually have to reach land. Ships and planes that spotted rafters often picked them up or contacted the Coast Guard, which brought them to the United States. Even with that advantage, the odds

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were against the balseros. Most balsas broke apart once they reached the harsh open waters. Statistics for the number of Cubans who have perished in the Straits of Florida lack precision. The Coast Guard is left to estimate a survival rate based on evidence left on vacated balsas whose passengers were taken by the sea. It is estimated that less than half the balseros that leave the island on a raft actually reach the United States.94 According to Perez, this is a chance many Cubans were willing to take: Balseros did not throw themselves into the sea purposely with the intent of suicide, of course, but rather as an act undertaken after a rational calculation of costs and benefits, as a decision made with the conviction that life in the United States was better than life in Cuba, and that, in any case, death was better than life in Cuba. Many responded to the choice of Patria o muerte and Socialismo o muerte in favor of [muerte] death.95

Radio Martí aired stories about successful balseros and gave detailed weather information that included tide times. About a year after Radio Martí’s launch, the number of balseros arriving in south Florida began to increase and many cited Radio Martí as their inspiration for leaving the island: “We knew others had made it, so you say to yourself, ‘Why not us?’ ... Martí encouraged us to try.”96 Radio Martí director Ernesto Betancourt rejected the idea that the station glorified tirarse al mar and encouraged balseros to risk their lives. He admitted that the station reported arrivals but added that Radio Martí also warned Cubans about the dangers associated with making the attempt.97 Jay Mallin conceded that the number of balseros increased after Radio Martí went on the air but argued that they represented a legitimate news story.98 Castro’s decision to terminate the immigration deal and the increased number of balseros were the most serious negative consequences attributable to Radio Martí. A minor transgression occurred when Radio Martí “interviewed” President Reagan about Nicaragua. When station officials submitted a series of questions to the White House for approval, the national security staff modified the questions and provided the script for the answers. The “interview” consisted of Reagan beginning to answer the question in English (the only part he read) followed by another voice dubbing the rest of the “response” in Spanish.99 Ernesto Betancourt defended the manner in which the material was presented by saying it was originally intended to be a policy statement.100 During a November 1986 press conference, a Radio Martí reporter asked Reagan a question about Nicaragua, a violation of White House policy. Reporters from VOA, Radio Free Europe, Radio Martí and all other state-sponsored media operations are allowed to attend presidential press conferences but are prohibited from asking questions. This is to prevent the stations from asking a softball question that could provide a safe haven the president could go to end a barrage of unfavorable inquiries.

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Lacking any of the anticipated arguments against Radio Martí, station opponents were left to complain about peripheral aspects of the station. Iowa representative Thomas Tauke submitted a letter from the Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs that objected to taxpayer funds being used for Radio Martí’s broadcast of Catholic masses.101 Colorado representative Timothy Wirth claimed that the station was grossly inefficient when compared to commercial stations: “The issue in front of us is how thick are we going to plate the gold on the microphones of Radio Martí. How thick is this Congress going to make the gold?”102 Radio Martí actually turned out to be a lot cheaper than it could have been, considering that Castro had not carried out his threat to disrupt domestic broadcasting in the United States. There were $1,492,616 worth of claims from broadcasters, far less than the $5 million that had been allocated in the Radio Broadcasting to Cuba Act.103 When the USIA requested the remainder of these funds to compensate the broadcasters, it was presented as “a one-time expense” that “will not recur in 1988.”104 By the time Reagan left office on January 20, 1989, leftist influence in the region had weakened considerably. Grenada was an early and quick victory. Unlike the conflicts in Central America, there was no residual rebel movement on the island to continue the fight. Fighting in El Salvador decelerated in 1986 after an earthquake near San Salvador killed about 1,400 people. To make matters worse, the price of coffee, El Salvador’s primary export, dropped sharply and devastated the country’s economy. Although neither side seemed to be gaining an advantage, a war of attrition favored the government. Seven years of fighting, disease, and starvation had driven Nicaragua to a state of despair. In October of 1988, Hurricane Joan traversed the country, killing more than 100 people and causing around a billion dollars worth of damage.105 The Sandinistas had few resources on which to survive, let alone use to fight.106 Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega criticized the Reagan administration for encouraging unaffected Contra forces in Honduras to capitalize on the diversion created by the storm to reenter Nicaragua. “The best help they can give us is to stop the aggression,” he said.107 Ortega had little choice but to negotiate. In 1987, Costa Rican president Oscar Arias negotiated the Esquipulas II Accord (named after the town in Guatemala where negotiations took place), a document signed by the presidents of Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, and Costa Rica. Included among the provisions were cease-fire agreements in Nicaragua and El Salvador, free elections to “take place simultaneously in all the countries throughout Central America in the first half of 1988,” and the end of assistance to “irregular forces,” which included the United States’ support of the Contras.108 The United States rejected the agreement because it felt that the document legitimized the Sandinista government. With Reagan promising continued support for the Contras, fighting continued. Still, Esquipulas II showed that Central American leaders wanted a resolution. The

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Sandinistas lost control in 1990 when war weary Nicaraguans elected Violeta Chamorro as president over Daniel Ortega. Cuba’s involvement in Angola was never a primary concern for Reagan simply because Africa was a safe distance from the Western Hemisphere. The White House got a nice concession shortly after George Bush’s election when Castro agreed to a United Nations resolution that called for Cuba to withdraw its troops over the next two years. A United Nations peacekeeping force arrived in Angola in January of 1989. During Reagan’s eight years in the White House, the momentum had clearly shifted in favor of the United States. Despite Reagan’s agenda on communism, the divide between Cuba and the United States was not as vast as one might expect. In 1987, representatives from the two countries held secret meetings in Mexico in which they agreed to reinstate the immigration deal that had ended when Radio Martí signed on. As a concession, Reagan officials agreed to reconsider granting the Cubans permission to use an AM frequency to make their own broadcasts to the United States.109 A year later, the administration allowed AT&T to install a new communications cable between the two countries. According Kenneth Skoug, a member of the Cuban team, “Cuba was a less influential force in regional politics, well on its way to becoming a nuisance and an anachronism rather than a threat to U.S. security.”110 Nonetheless, Cuban officials claim that the Reagan years were victorious for them. They have a caricature of Reagan in Havana’s Museum of the Revolution as a way to show the country’s gratitude to the 40th president for galvanizing anti–Yanqui sentiment. As Republicans gathered in New Orleans to nominate George H. W. Bush for the White House, the Council for Inter-American Security, the authors of the Santa Fe Report, set up camp three blocks from the convention and issued Santa Fe II: A Strategy for Latin America in the 1990s, an update to the original Santa Fe Report. The four authors, all of whom had ties to the Reagan administration, predicted that Castro’s revolution would experience a downturn and recommended a strategy for post–Castro Cuba that included engaging rather than isolating the country, reversing the approach that Reagan had implemented and Bush was expected to continue.111 At the end of 1988, more than 170 activists signed “an Open Letter to Fidel Castro,” a call for the Cuban leader to adopt more democratic policies: “We request by this letter a plebiscite so that Cubans, by free and secret ballot, could assert simply with a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’ their agreement or rejection to your staying in power.” The letter appeared as a large advertisement in 18 leading newspapers around the world. The 170 signatories included 80 Cubans, among them Raul Chibas, a leader in Castro’s Rebel Army, Carlos Franqui, a former director of Radio Rebelde, and Tirso del Junco, the former member of the Presidential Commission of Broadcasting to Cuba. None of the signatories identified themselves as being affiliated with the CANF or Radio Martí.

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Radio Martí’s research department, with help from the Voice of America and U.S. Information Agency, acknowledged the potential for improved relations with Cuba but only under ideal conditions. It added that a primary threat to this progress was the hard-line exiles: “One point which Cuba may be ignoring is the influence exerted by groups within the Cuban-American community and the U.S. political establishment. Although Cuba tends to underestimate their influence, these groups are adamantly opposed to rapprochement.... [S]ome of them have close links with the White House.”112 One of the primary safeguards put in place to prevent hard-line influence at Radio Martí expired as Reagan left. The 1983 Radio Broadcasting to Cuba Act mandated the station undergo independent evaluations but only until 1988. After that there would be no external mechanism to keep its content close to VOA standards.

CHAPTER SEVEN

As the World Turns The CANF suffered a minor setback in 1986 when Paula Hawkins, the sponsor of the Radio Broadcasting to Cuba Act, lost her bid for reelection to Florida governor Bob Graham. The hard-liners vigorously opposed Graham during the campaign but formed an alliance with the new senator from Florida after both sides realized they needed each other. The Foundation, as the CANF had become known in Washington, was building a coalition on Capitol Hill by targeting incumbents who did not support a hard-line strategy for Cuba. One of the Foundation’s prime targets was Connecticut senator Lowell Weicker, who was a Republican in name only. Weicker visited Cuba in 1980 and 1983 as a personal guest of Castro. After learning that Weicker was an avid scuba diver, Castro took him to some of the island’s best diving locations. The senator returned from the 1983 trip with a $100 box of cigars.1 As the thirdranking Republican on the Senate Appropriations Committee, the body that determines which projects will receive money from the federal budget and how much, Weicker had some control over Radio Martí funding. When Weicker was up for reelection in 1988, the CANF backed Connecticut attorney general Joe Lieberman, a Democrat who leaned farther right than Weicker. 2 By taking on an incumbent, Lieberman faced an uphill battle complicated by the fact that he had no experience with national politics and did not fully understand how political action committees (PACs) worked. In his book, In Praise of Public Life, Lieberman portrayed himself as an underdog who was constantly turned down by PACs because they expected Weicker to win and did not want to lose favor with him: “Even the pro–Israel PACs shunned me.”3 CANF leaders approached a financially desperate Lieberman and, in exchange for a pledge to support hard-line anti–Castro legislation, provided Lieberman with money and a fundraiser organized by Foundation leader Jorge Mas Canosa. Lieberman defeated Lowell Weicker by less than 1 percent of the vote.4 The United States’ policy toward Cuba was not a prominent issue during the campaign. Lieberman did not even mention the Cubans in the pages of In Praise of Public Life. 103

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Although the exiles’ money amounted to a small amount of all money Lieberman acquired during the 1987–1988 cycle, he stayed true to his promise to the hard-liners. Over the next 20 years, Lieberman sponsored or voted in favor of hard-line legislation approximately 30 times and opposed such measures zero times, giving him a perfect record.5 As CANF director Joe Garcia said years later, “We have no questions where Joe Lieberman stands. He’s a friend and the Foundation stands with its friends.” 6 The CANF and its leaders rewarded Lieberman for his service by contributing to his 1994 reelection campaign. By itself, the CANF had minimal impact because campaign finance laws limited the amount an organization could give to any one candidate. The Foundation’s real power rested in its endorsement of a candidate, which cued the organization’s individual directors. Each gave $10,000 for a position on the CANF board and was expected to give comparable amounts to presidential candidates willing to support a hard-line strategy against Cuba.7 Following the success of Radio Martí, the number of CANF directors and the amount of hardline lobbying money increased exponentially. A study by the Center for Responsive Politics found that, from 1979 to 2000, Cuban American PACs (not only the CANF) gave more than a million dollars to candidates, but Cuban American individuals gave more than three times as much.8 Less than two months after signing the Radio Broadcasting to Cuba Act, President Reagan authorized the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a bipartisan entity (still in existence) that issues grants to support pro-democracy organizations around the world. NED acts as a middleman. It receives funds from Congress and then redistributes that money to different organizations. A group of Russian émigrés in New York received NED funding to conduct intelligence work.9 A Polish organization got $25,000 to take copies of American films with anticommunist themes like Red Dawn and White Nights into the Soviet Union so that the people could have “access to the cultural and social pluralism of our democratic system.”10 NED even backed groups in France that opposed François Mitterrand, demonstrating that Reagan’s crusade was not limited to communist states.11 As Allen Weinstein, the first acting NED president said, “A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA.”12 According to a 1988 article in The Nation magazine by John Spicer Nichols, CANF–affiliated organizations received $390,000 in NED grants from 1984 to 1988, more than any other organization. During this same period, Free Cuba PAC, the lobbying arm of the CANF, contributed almost the same amount, $385,400, to public officials. 13 Jorge Mas Canosa acknowledged that NED money “passed through” the CANF but insisted that the organization itself never kept any of it.14 Doing so would have been illegal because NED–funded organizations were prohibited from lobbying the United States government in

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an effort to influence policy. The organizations that received the NED grants and Free Cuba PAC were independent of the CANF, the main organization, making the arrangement completely legal. This arrangement gave the Foundation a great deal of leverage. As Nichols said, “With the continuation of federal grants that subsidize its anti–Castro propaganda and lobbying, the Foundation is well-positioned to affect the foreign policy process long after the Reagan administration has passed into history.”15 At 14, Jorge Mas Canosa spent a few months in jail for criticizing Fulgencio Batista on the radio.16 Years later, Mas’ parents sent him to Presbyterian College in Maxton, North Carolina, for his own safety. It was there that an English professor told him “Jorge, you are so emotionally involved in your problems that you lack the objectivity to make a fair presentation. You are either exaggerating or you are obsessed with your fears about communism.”17 Mas returned to Cuba just days after Batista left the island and, like most Cubans, he initially supported Castro and then turned against him. Years later, Mas would tell a story about being arrested for anti–Castro activity. He was interrogated, and handcuffed to another Castro opponent. When the other man refused to talk, the arresting officers shot him. Mas was released after a few hours.18 He left for Miami, a few months later, where he volunteered for Brigade 2506. Mas’ unit was to make a diversionary landing at Oriente Province during the Bay of Pigs invasion but his commander called it off at the last minute. Believing that the United States would eventually remove Fidel Castro, Mas joined a special anti–Castro unit in the U.S. Army. When the Bay of Pigs failed to dispose of Cuban exiles, President Kennedy called for a special Cuban military unit consisting of 4,000 exiles: 3,000 army units, 500 navy, and 500 air force.19 The goal was to redirect these resources out of Miami and off U.S. soil.20 Cuban exiles served the CIA as operatives in the Congo, Vietnam, Central America, Jamaica, and South America.21 In 1967, one team of CIA–supported exiles hunted down and killed Che Guevara in Bolivia. Mas trained at Fort Benning, Georgia. He reached the rank of second lieutenant but left the army after realizing that the United States had no intention of invading Cuba. Mas returned to Miami and worked odd jobs while he “helped raise money, obtain weapons and scout possible sites in the Caribbean and Central America from which Cuba could be attacked or invaded.”22 He worked as an announcer for Radio Swan and joined Representación Cubana en Exilo (RECE), an anti–Castro organization that launched attacks on Cuba. According to Ricardo Mas Canosa, Jorge’s brother, there was one incident when Jorge and paramilitary leader Tony Cuesta had to ditch a boat after a raid.23 Mas’ enemies say he exaggerated claims about his paramilitary actions against Cuba, calling him a “prize bullshitter.”24 Mas’ participation in RECE put him in contact with Ignacio Iglesias and Hector Torres, two Cuban Americans who owned a communications contract-

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ing business in Puerto Rico. In 1968, they hired Mas to open a branch of Iglesias y Torres in Miami. When the business began to flounder a few years later, Mas bought out his friends for $50,000 and translated the company’s name to English, Church and Tower. The business turned around shortly after that. Mas won a contract with Southern Bell to install telephone poles and cables throughout South Florida. Church and Tower made Jorge Mas Canosa a millionaire. Jorge Mas Canosa remained active in the anti–Castro movement. In 1974, he discussed Cuba with New York Times writer and Castro biographer Tad Szulc on the PBS public affairs program Firing Line. A year later he testified before a House subcommittee against easing trade sanctions against Cuba. When a Miami Herald reporter asked Mas if he opposed violence he responded, “No, I am pro-violence. I think Castro should be overthrown by a revolution.”25 When South Dakota senator George McGovern revealed in 1975 that there were at least 24 CIA–assassination attempts on Castro, Mas stood with other hardliners at a Miami press conference and proudly declared his involvement in more than one of the attempts.26 Mas supported Richard Stone in his 1974 campaign to represent Florida in the U.S. Senate. He pressed Stone to build a coalition of officials on Capitol Hill to resist any effort to normalize relations with Cuba.27 When Stone failed to earn the nomination of his party six years later, Mas backed Republican Paula Hawkins for the seat and, according to one Foundation leader, “parked himself ” in her office shortly after her victory.28 Jorge Mas Canosa did not officially become a U.S. citizen until he learned that it was required for him in order to chair the Advisory Board for Radio Broadcasting to Cuba.29 The board was included in the Radio Broadcasting to Cuba Act to created to give the impression that there would be some oversight of Radio Martí. With Mas as the chair, the group was an entity that oversaw itself. In spite of his work with the CANF, Mas was still just a semi-prominent Cuban American in the early 1980s. In 1983, when the Miami Herald’s Tropic magazine asked South Floridians who they thought were the most influential Cuban Americans, Mas came in sixth among Cuban respondents and 21st according to non–Cubans. CANF co-founder Raul Masvidal placed first in both categories, with Carlos Salman, the organization’s other leader, ranking 14th and 19th respectively.30 Salman left the Foundation in 1983 after learning that the group would support both Republican and Democratic candidates. Masvidal left a few years later because of differences with Mas: “It was pretty much that he was the ruler, and no one could disagree with him.”31 The CANF’s power had been consolidated under one man, Jorge Mas Canosa, who wanted to steer the Foundation to the extreme right. In 1985, he approached Florida representative Claude Pepper about repealing the Clark Amendment, a 1976 law that prohibited the United States from directly sup-

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porting anticommunist forces in Angola’s Civil War. Mas cared little about the Angolans’ well-being but saw the conflict as a potential front against Castro, who supported the Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA). Once Congress repealed the Clark Amendment, Reagan approved $15 million for the anticommunist National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) forces. UNITA thanked Mas with a replica, a piece of ivory carved to resemble an AK–47.32 There is evidence that suggests Mas helped the Regan administration supply the Contras with weapons. In Cuba Confidential: Love and Vengeance in Miami and Havana, Ann Louise Bardach cites Ricardo Mas Canosa as saying that checks made out to the CANF found their way to the Contras. There were three cryptic entries in Oliver North’s diary that specifically mentioned Mas and his secretary and listed her phone number: Jan. 24, 1985: Mtg. w/ Felix Rodriguez. Call Jorge Mas ... (Ines). Jan. 25, 1985: Felix Rodriguez — Expedite 80k for IR.— Domingo for Jorge Mas— Jose Martí birthday speeches. Feb. 4, 1985: Felix Rodriguez, still have not gotten dollars from Jorge Mas. Felix Rodriguez was a Cuban exile and CIA operative who had been linked to the Iran-Contra scandal. The public became aware of the Iran-Contra scandal after a Contra supply plane was shot down over Nicaragua and the pilot disclosed the entire operation. This included revealing the participation of Luis Posada Carriles and Felix Rodriguez, two exiles who had ties to Mas. Posada Carriles served several years in a Venezuelan prison for helping to take down Cubana flight 455 in 1976, an act that killed 73 people. He escaped from prison in 1985, an escape believed to have been facilitated by the Foundation, and began to help supply the Contras.33 Rodriguez was with Mas in the anti–Castro group RECE and later helped the CIA track Che Guevara through Bolivia. Once Guevara had been captured, it was Rodriguez who had the honor of carrying out his execution.34 In 1984, Free Cuba PAC, the CANF’s political funding organization, sponsored a radiothon with the help of three Spanish language radio stations. Announcements promoting the event capitalized on Ronald Reagan’s popularity among exiles by asking Cuban Americans to support the president and others who passed the Radio Broadcasting to Cuba Act. Many donors believed that they were supporting only Reagan rather than the Foundation.35 The radiothon raised more than $200,000, only $5,000 of which could go to Reagan due to campaign contribution limitations. The Reagan campaign eventually returned the $5,000 contribution from the Foundation. The 1984 radiothon served as a harbinger of how the United States’ Cuba policy would be determined toward Cuba into the next decade. In just a short time the CANF mobilized Little Havana resources to generate $200,000 in the

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name of La Causa, driving home the fact that the Foundation was La Causa. Cuban Americans who did not belong to, and may have even disagreed with, the CANF were still likely to hate Castro and support the candidates the organization endorsed. As Frank Calzon, the CANF’s former representative in Washington said, “If the Bishop of Miami is going on TV to support a candidate, it’s very difficult for people to say this is the bishop, and not the Catholic Church.”36 Many exiles may not have understood exactly what the Foundation did, but they knew the group did something. As one elderly woman said, “I give Mas Canosa about ten dollars every year. It takes some saving, but we need to get Castro out of there. I trust la Fundación.”37 Cuban scholar Carlos Perez rejected the idea that the Foundation represented all Cuban Americans: “The Cuban community is large enough to support a constituency for anything, from old Communists to neo–Nazis and everything in between.”38 In 1987, the Foundation placed a full-page advertisement in the Miami Herald, signed by all 49 of its directors, that criticized the newspaper for its coverage of Cuban Americans and for not being sufficiently anticommunist: “The Miami Herald may as well close its doors if it believes it can take advantage of us economically while it belittles our ideals and misrepresents our people and our purposes.”39 Over the next few days, the Herald printed nine letters from readers that supported the paper and noted that it had received no response siding with the Foundation. Several prominent Cuban Americans, including CANF cofounder Raul Masvidal, defended the Herald’s right to publish as it chose: “More than anybody, we the Cubans have to show respect for diversity of opinion.”40 Even without a consensus, the CANF was the dominant influence in Little Havana because there was no viable moderate exile organization to oppose it. The Cuban-American Committee was a moderate group with some influence in the 1970s but it failed to establish a base in Miami. The Cuban-American Committee opposed the Radio Broadcasting to Cuba Act but folded after exiles began donating to the Foundation. The organization would later be resurrected but never reached the amount of influence it once had.41 Public opinion in Miami supported a hard-line strategy, making it impossible for the CAC or any moderate organization to gain momentum. Anyone who did not fully support a hard-line strategy for Cuba was subject to social ostracism, economic boycott, and possibly death. Miami’s Cuban Museum of Arts and Culture became a target when it auctioned paintings by artists who still lived in Cuba and had not explicitly opposed Fidel Castro.42 The Cuban dominated Miami City Commission tried to evict the museum from the property but had no legal basis to do so. After about half of the museum’s board of directors, some of whom were affiliated with the CANF, resigned, their replacements refused to take their seats, “citing economic and other forms of pressure.”43 The building was bombed and vandalized with paint. Remaining board members were called “whore” or “communist.” Some found

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their tires slashed. There was a bomb under the tire of one board member.44 The auction did take place, during which a Bay of Pigs veteran paid $500 for a work of art only to burn it in the street immediately afterward.45 Even Special Olympians were fair game. In 1987, Cuba’s Special Olympics team planned to spend two nights in Miami before proceeding to the International Special Olympics Summer Games in South Bend, Indiana. After learning which hotel was housing the delegation, Miami broadcasters issued a call to arms to Little Havana. Within hours, a crowd of about 25 hard-line exiles stood outside the hotel and encouraged the Special Olympians to defect. Jorge Mas Canosa was there. “I came to make sure that if any one of the Cuban citizens wants to defect, that their rights are protected and that they can be heard,” he said.46 At 4:00 A.M., State Department officials staged a departure in front of the hotel as a diversion while the Cubans sneaked out the back.47 A few weeks later, the CANF opened a branch office in Indianapolis, host city for the 1987 Pan American Games. Jorge Mas Canosa said that the group hoped “to educate the American people about Cuba.”48 The Foundation arranged for a plane to fly over the opening ceremony and other venues trailing a banner with a phone number Cuban athletes could call if they wanted to defect. Exile spectators wore T-shirts with the phone number. A fistfight broke out at a Cuban baseball game between island Cubans and exiles. After more than two weeks the event closed with not one Cuban defection.49 On November 20, 1987, the United States and Cuba agreed to resume the 1984 immigration agreement that ended when Radio Martí signed on. The day after the announcement, Marielitos incarcerated at a federal facility in Oakdale, Louisiana, took hostages and demanded to remain in the United States. Marielitos at a facility in Atlanta did the same thing two days later. They disseminated their demands over the facility’s public address system, connected to a loudspeaker on the roof, which they referred to as Radio Mariel.50 On Thanksgiving Day, Jorge Mas Canosa led a delegation that met with rioters in Atlanta.51 In the seven years that followed Mariel, Mas and the Foundation had ignored their incarcerated Cuban brothers and sisters. “We were concerned about other issues,” Mas said, the biggest being Radio Martí.52 “You know where I was: fighting for a free Cuba, for the freedom of 10 million people, not just a few thousands [sic] here.”53 Mas criticized the Marielitos for going mad with power and promised to help them with their image problem if they released some hostages.54 Leo Ochoa, the Marielitos’ lawyer, criticized the hardliners: “A week ago their reaction would have been to send them all back. They’re using it totally opportunistically for political gain.”55 Mas and the other negotiators in Atlanta left after a few days. “They and government officials agreed that they could no longer play a useful role.”56 The inmates were more receptive of Carla Dudeck, a 29-year-old law student and

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co-organizer of the Coalition to Support Cuban Detainees. The coalition began in 1984 when Marielito supporters held candlelight vigils. A few days after Mas and the others left, rioters in Atlanta serenaded Dudeck with “Happy Birthday” from the prison roof and gave her a gift, the release of one prisoner. The normally shy Dudeck walked to the prison entrance and said, “I have come for my hostage.”57 The standoffs in Atlanta and Oakdale ended after more than a week when immigration officials agreed to a moratorium on deportations. The riots showed that the goals of Mas and the CANF were not congruent with all Cubans. Dudeck was of Czech ancestry and had no family ties to the island. She said, “I am astonished that it’s me and not a Cuban American doing this.”58 She invited others to join the movement but found no interested parties. “Latin American groups I called said they didn’t want to rock the boat. Leftist groups weren’t sympathetic because these guys had left Cuba and were strongly anticommunist.”59 Dudeck and the Coalition were the only representatives the Marielitos had. According to the Miami Herald, “For many of them, she’s the only person who has ever written them a letter.”60 As the wealthy members of the CANF built a war chest for lobbying, Dudeck contributed to the Coalition to Support Cuban Detainees by baking pies in her kitchen and selling them to Thumbs Up, a restaurant in Decatur, Georgia. It wasn’t enough. The Coalition to Support Cuban Detainees folded a few years later due to lack of funds. Even though the Marielitos connected with Dudeck, Mas was the face of Cuban Americans in the United States, a position that made him a target and caused him to be paranoid: “You just can’t make a mistake. You’ve only got one life.”61 Mas drove a bulletproof Mercedes and had a license to carry a .357 Magnum.62 In March of 1987, authorities destroyed a suspicious package that had been sent to Mas’ office and caused a bomb-sniffing dog to react in an unusual manner.63 When Miami-Dade commissioner Joe Carollo opposed a $130 million real estate deal Mas had with U.S. representative Jeanne Kirkpatrick, Mas challenged Carollo to a duel and taunted him on Miami’s radio stations: “I am going to prove to the Cubans that you are a clown and a coward.... Your bullying in Miami has ended because you have met a man with a capital M, a very big M.”64 As a way “to cool him off,” Carollo suggested using water pistols.65 Carollo eventually lost his reelection campaign to a candidate endorsed by the CANF.66 Mas even considered his own brother, Ricardo Mas Canosa, to be an enemy for leaving Church and Tower and starting a competing company. Jorge sent two letters to prospective clients that portrayed his brother in a negative way. Ricardo filed a libel suit against Jorge and won $1.2 million.67 During the trial, Ricardo testified that his brother used cash to win political favors from public officials.68 Claude Pepper appealed to all of Miami’s different ethnic groups. As a U.S. senator in the 1930s, Pepper established good relations with black voters by

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rejecting the Jim Crow mentality that still characterized much of south Florida. He refused to denounce First Lady Lou Henry Hoover for inviting the wife of an African American representative to the White House. Pepper opposed the poll tax that would have restricted African American voting rights. After losing his Senate seat in 1950, Pepper returned to Washington as a representative in 1963 and became an advocate for La Causa, sponsoring or cosponsoring more than 40 anti–Castro legislative items over the next three decades. He also earned a reputation as a champion of the elderly, protecting Social Security and chairing the Committee on Aging. Pepper served as the area’s representative for more than 25 of Miami’s most divisive years. Unopposed in three of the elections from 1964 to 1988, Pepper won the others by an average of around 70 percent of the vote. Raul Martinez always believed he would succeed Pepper as the representative for the 18th district. Martinez left Cuba for the United States in 1960 at 11 years of age and went on to earn degrees from Miami-Dade College and Florida International University. After serving on Hialeah’s city council, Martinez became the city’s first Cuban-born mayor in 1981. A year later, Martinez was thinking about replacing Pepper and asked the octogenarian representative to include his house in the 18th district when Democrats redrew Florida’s congressional districts. Pepper did.69 Even though Martinez broke exile tradition by aligning himself with the Democratic Party, Hialeah voters kept him in office for 24 years.70 In 1985 the Miami Herald touted Martinez as the person most likely to become the first Cuban member of Congress.71 Martinez already had far greater name recognition than any other exile politician in South Florida. In The Herald’s 1983 “Cuban Power Rankings,” Martinez ranked fourth among Cubans and fifth among non–Cubans, leading all other politicians on the list.72 In the spring of 1989, Claude Pepper’s health began to deteriorate rapidly due to terminal cancer. At about this same time, Dexter Lehtinen, U.S. attorney for South Florida, indicted Martinez on embezzling and racketeering charges, most of which occurred between 1981 and 1984.73 Lehtinen happened to be married to Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Cuban Republican serving in the Florida senate and a rival for Pepper’s seat. In the Herald’s 1983 list of prominent Cuban Americans Ros-Lehtinen was not mentioned at all. There were no women on the list. During one of the trials against Martinez months later, three witnesses testified that Lehtinen’s office “intensified the corruption investigation” in February of 1989 only after learning that Claude Pepper was sick.74 Lehtinen denied the charge: “I rescued myself, based on no actual conflict, but based on the desire to avoid any appearance of conflict.”75 The public was more aware of Ileana Ros-Lehtinen after Lehtinen’s office raided the home of Ramon Cernuda, an exile dialoguero who happened to be vice president of the Cuban Museum of Arts and Culture. They found more than 200 works by Cuban artists and claimed that the items were illegal con-

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traband and violated the embargo against Cuba. 76 According to Cernuda, “the agents looked into the nail polish bottles of my daughter, apparently to see if she was a drug user.”77 Also implicated in the raid was Jerry W. Scott, a USIA employee who worked at the U.S. Interests Section in Havana. On one of his return trips to the United States, Scott brought 40 paintings, which he did not declare before turning them over to Cernuda. 78 Jorge Mas Canosa went on a Miami radio station shortly after the raid: “In effect, we [the CANF] are responsible for this and other investigations that I hope will materialize. I’m going to continue to get an investigation of Cernuda and 20 other Cernudas”79 After Pepper died on May 30, 1989, Republicans reacted quickly to get his seat, which Democrats had held dating to a time before Miami even existed as an incorporated city. Managing Ros-Lehtinen’s campaign was Jeb Bush, the president’s son, who happened to live in the same neighborhood as Jorge Mas Canosa. Mas’ family lived near Ros-Lehtinen’s family when she was a little girl in Santiago de Cuba.80 Raul Martinez, also from Santiago de Cuba, chose not to participate: “I just didn’t want to get involved in a primary that was all fragmented, to end up in a runoff with another candidate and then only have 15 days to win the seat. Everyone would have gotten bloodied up.”81 Over the next several years, Martinez would be convicted, win re-election as a convicted felon, appeal the conviction, and experience aquittals for some charges and dead-locked juries for others. Ros-Lehtinen was investigated for his conduct but nothing developed from it. Ros-Lehtinen’s connections to the executive branch gave her a considerable advantage. Jeb Bush arranged for her to visit the White House, meet with President Bush, and then return to Miami on Air Force One. The president appeared at a Ros-Lehtinen fund-raiser and pushed the hard-liners’ hot button: “Until I see demonstrable change, there will be no improvement in relations with Cuba.”82 Ros-Lehtinen won the Republican nomination easily, taking more than 80 percent of the vote in the race against fellow exile Carlos Perez.83 The Democratic primary had a more diverse selection of candidates. Democratic challenger Gerald Richman exacerbated ethnic tension by saying that it was “an American seat, one for all of the people as opposed to one just for a specific ethnic group,” an irreverent appeal to non–Cubans’ resentment of the exiles that controlled the city.84 This rhetoric set the tone for the Democratic primary, where blacks divided their support among three black candidates, neutralizing the impact of a bloc vote. Elderly and Jewish voters chose Richman, while Hispanics voted for Cuban American city commissioner Rosario Kennedy. Richman resumed his “American seat” rhetoric and won the runoff against Kennedy two weeks later. He failed to gain her endorsement because she felt his comments were divisive and inappropriate.85 Richman continued using the ethnic division strategy in the campaign against Ros-Lehtinen, who refused to debate him, saying that she disapproved

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of his use of ethnic tactics: “His underlying message is there are two kinds of Americans: native-born and naturalized.”86 The day before the election Radio Mambi, Miami’s leading Cuban station, said that voting for Richman would be the same as voting for Castro.87 This rhetoric diverted attention from the issues, leaving the voting public with very little on which to base its decision other than the ethnicity of the candidates. Richman succeeded in gaining the support of Anglos and blacks, taking an astounding 90 and 96 percent of the respective groups, but still lost to RosLehtinen, who captured more than 90 percent of Hispanic voters. Voter turnout for the different ethnic groups was the deciding factor. Of all the eligible Hispanic voters, 58 percent went to the polls compared to just 42 percent of Anglos and 33 percent of blacks. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen became the first Hispanic woman and the first Cubanborn member of Congress in its 200 –year history. Even more important, Jorge Mas Canosa had a direct conduit into the policy-making process. When the CANF held a reception for Ros-Lehtinen, she announced that “the goals of the Foundation are mine.”88 Shortly after taking her seat, Mas was indirectly involved in the legislative process by feeding information to Ros-Lehtinen during a hearing on a bill dealing with the United States’ policy toward Cuba. She responded by denouncing the legislation: “Fidel Castro would sponsor this amendment if he were on this committee.”89 Political events a continent away would push the anti–Castro movement even further to the right. In June 1989, Poland held its first democratic elections in 40 years and rejected the Communist Party in favor of the Solidarity Party. In October, Hungary’s parliament voted to modify its constitution by permitting democratic elections, ending the influence of its Communist Party. East and West Germany began their reunification on November 9 with the fall of the Berlin Wall. The following day, leadership in Bulgaria changed after a power struggle. On Christmas Day, Romanians tried President Nicolae Ceau£escu and his wife, Elena, for genocide and other crimes. Within 24 hours, a Bucharest radio announcer went on the air and gave the news that he had been executed: “Oh, what wonderful news. The anti–Christ died on Christmas.”90 Just before the end of the year, Czechoslovakians chose dissident Vaclav Havel to lead the country’s Federal Assembly, initiating changes that would ultimately divide the country into the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Communist China, although not part of the Soviet Bloc, had its own dissident movement until government forces crushed it at Tiananmen Square. By the end of 1989, Cuba stood as one of the only Soviet satellites left in the world, surviving but just barely. Soviet premier Mikhail Gorbachev exacerbated the Cubans’ despair by decreasing shipments of grain and other goods to the island, leading Castro to openly criticize his tactics. Anticipating the fall of Cuba, Miami officials planned to deal with the possibility of overzealous revelers by planning a “Castro is dead” party in the Orange Bowl to contain most of the raucous activities to one area. The CANF prompted Florida gov-

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ernor Bob Martinez to create a 14-member transition team for Cuba after Castro. Martinez, a Cuban American born in Tampa before Castro’s revolution, chose Jorge Mas Canosa as the chair. The Foundation assumed the role of government-in-exile ready to move in once Castro fell. The prospect of Castro’s demise enthralled Jorge Mas Canosa, who hoped to become president of Cuba. Mas repeatedly denied that he wanted the job: “How can you be running for president of a country that do [sic] not exist?”91 In an interview with CBS’ Steve Kroft on 60 Minutes, Mas admitted that he was not opposed to the idea: “If the best way to serve the Cuban people is to become president of Cuba, then I can tell you, Steve, that I will seriously consider that possibility.”92 If the election were held in Washington, Mas would have won easily. Voters in Cuba were less likely to support Mas but Radio Martí provided him with an opportunity to change that. It was during this time that a simmering conflict between Jorge Mas Canosa and Radio Martí director Ernesto Betancourt exploded. According to Bruce Boyd, Radio Martí’s personnel director, Mas had been critical of Betancourt because the station had not covered him enough. “I know Betancourt was concerned about the security of his job at that time because he talked to me about what possible protections he had regarding his appointment,” Boyd said.93 Jay Mallin said the news department covered Mas but only if the information had news value and argued that Mas’ involvement in so many activities qualified the actions as legitimate information.94 Mallin also said that Mas wanted to fire Betancourt but did not believe he had enough influence to do so during Reagan’s tenure.95 Mas approached Mallin and told him that he was the choice to lead Radio Martí once Betancourt was gone: “When it explodes I want you to take over. Don’t do anything that would make him [Betancourt] fire you. Don’t fight with him.”96 The conflict reached a breaking point when Betancourt opposed Jorge Mas Canosa’s proposal to start a television version of Radio Martí. Engineers doubted that it could be done, leading Betancourt to perceive the effort as foolish and detrimental to Radio Martí. Betancourt did not, however, try to keep the station off the air, because he believed his position, as director of Radio Martí would give him authority over the television operation as well. On March 13, 1990, USIA Director Bruce Gelb reassigned Ernesto Betancourt to a position as USIA’s director of research. Betancourt resigned instead. Authority over Radio Martí was given to a triumvirate consisting of Mallin, Orlando Rodriguez, the station’s deputy director, and Rolando Bonachea, the station’s director of research.97 Antonio Navarro, director of TV Martí, would be named head of the office of Cuban Broadcasting (OCB), which was to oversee Radio Martí and TV Martí. Betancourt claimed that Mas told Foundation directors that he, Mas, had “lost control” of Radio Martí and needed to fire Betancourt, which was interesting considering that Mas was never really supposed to be in control of station

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operations.98 He chaired the Advisory Board for Cuba Broadcasting, the group created to make recommendations to the president regarding Radio Martí. It technically had no authority over personnel matters or operations at Radio Martí. Mas was not even supposed to be on the board in 1990. Term lengths for board members were limited to no more than three years. Mas had served from the board’s inception in 1985 and had never been renominated.99 Removing Betancourt eliminated the last obstacle that prevented Mas from using the station to advance an agenda. The independent evaluations of Radio Martí mandated for the stations’ first few years were no longer required. His connections with executive branch insiders had created a network of friends that were willing to protect him if anyone questioned his motives or uncovered past discretions. The CANF’s influence over Congress was growing steadily and had been aided by the election of Ileana Ros-Lehtinen. The only obstacle that remained for Mas was Castro himself who refused to go away, as did his revolution.

CHAPTER EIGHT

I Want My TV Martí! In August 1985, just three months after Radio Martí signed on, the CANF issued a statement to Florida’s two senators and 19 representatives. Included among 20 recommendations for the United States’ policy toward Cuba was a television version of Radio Martí. By the end of the year, the Florida delegation began pressing President Reagan to move forward with Tele Martí or TV Martí, as it would later be known.1 On May 20, 1986, the one-year anniversary of Radio Martí’s first broadcast, Florida senator Lawton Chiles wrote a letter to USIA director Charles Wick proposing TV Martí: “If viable, Radio Martí’s success could be taken a step further to include the transmission of television broadcasts to Cuba.”2 In the weeks that followed, informal research by the Federal Communications Commission determined that “a low-level television signal coming in from [the United States] more than a hundred miles away would be weak and easy to jam.”3 Unlike radio signals that arc to follow the curvature of the Earth, television signals travel in straight lines and must have a clear line of sight to the targeted receiver (See Figure 8.1). A television broadcast to Cuba could overcome this barrier by elevating its transmitter, allowing the signal to cover a broader area. In 1954, five years before Castro came to power, a plane hovering over the island in a figure eight pattern picked up a television signal from a Florida station airing the World Series. The plane relayed the signal to Cuban station CMQ-TV, which then retransmitted it to viewers, the first television broadcast from the United States to Cuba.4 A year later, engineers reversed the process to allow NBC’s Wide Wide World to air five minutes from Havana in the first transmission from Cuba to the United States.5 U.S. officials considered using television broadcasts to complement Radio Swan prior to the Bay of Pigs invasion. USIA director George Allen rejected the idea, warning that it “would give Castro a platform from which to denounce the U.S. for television aggression.”6 In 1962, the USIA again considered sending a television signal to Cuba but rejected it due to the technical obstacles that needed to be overcome, as expressed in a memo to Air Force brigadier general Edward Lansdale, who oversaw many elements of Operation Mongoose: 116

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Figure 8.1 Comparison of Radio and Television Signals

These figures have been exaggerated to show a difference between the two. C. TV Transmission TV signals from Miami are occasionally visible in Havana, but no regular transmission is possible due to the distances involved. CIA has the capability for intruding on the dormant audio channels of Havana TV, utilizing small vessels but this is temporarily suspended due to technical difficulties. Stratovision (beaming a TV signal from an airplane in flight) offers definite possibilities for short-term purely tactical utilization of TV. Preliminary studies indicate that air-borne TV transmitters operating over U.S. territory and territorial waters could beam a strong signal into the Havana area, using presently vacant channels. Our estimates indicate that it would probably take the Cubans from 15 to 21 days to engineer and put into operation an effective jamming system. This operation would cost approximately $250,000, assuming that aircraft and crews would be made available by DOD and programming and technical staff would come from USIA.7

Television broadcasting from the United States to Cuba faced the same barrier when Chiles proposed TV Martí three decades later. A television tower would have to be 2,000 feet high, taller than a 200-story building, to have a clear line of sight to the island.8 The structure would require guy wires covering about one square mile. Although technically feasible, a 2,000-foot tower would be vulnerable to hurricanes that frequently strike Florida. To overcome this obstacle, the Floridians’ appeal to Reagan included a design in which a transmitter would be mounted to a balloon tethered to the ground, and then elevating the balloon and transmitter high enough to deliver the signal to Cuba.9 More than a year after first proposing TV Martí, five Florida representatives introduced a nonbinding resolution titled, “TV Martí, an Open Window of Liberty,” which urged the USIA to investigate the possibility of TV Martí.10 Resolution cosponsor Dante Fascell said that the TV Martí advocates had “no idea on the technical problems involved and therefore this study is necessary,” a contradictory statement considering that they had already proposed the “barrage balloon” system to deliver the signal.11 The resolution received scant publicity and died in committee. The resolution having failed in the House, South Carolina senator Ernest “Fritz” Hollings took a different approach. Cuban Americans gave Hollings $94,100 from 1979 to 2000 and regarded him as a hard-line ally.12 As the chair

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of the Appropriations Subcommittee on the Departments of Commerce, Justice, State, and Judiciary, which oversaw funding for USIA, Hollings had some control over funding for broadcasts to Cuba. He sneaked into another bill that allocated funds for a feasibility study on TV Martí.13 His effort died when the two chambers failed to resolve inconsistencies in different versions of the proposed legislation. Senator Chiles, who served on the somewhat less influential Budget Committee, inserted similar language into a much larger omnibus-funding bill, H.J. Res. 395.14 It read: “...$12,759,000 to remain available until expended, of which not to exceed $100,000 shall be available for the Advisory Board on Radio Broadcasting to Cuba for a feasibility study on television broadcasting to Cuba.”15 These 33 words were barely noticed in the 1,194-page Conference Report on H.J. Res. 395. Legislators had little opportunity to read the resolution itself, more than 2,300 pages long, when it reached Congress on the last day before the 1987 Christmas break. With members scrambling to complete other work, both chambers approved H.J. Res. 395. Many legislators were unaware that it appropriated funds to study the possibility of sending a television signal to Cuba. The $100,000 feasibility study had four different engineering firms explore tower, ship, plane, and aerostat-oriented delivery systems. All four firms rejected the tower-based system because of its vulnerability to jamming and agreed that broadcasting from a ship or plane violated international law.16 This left delivery via aerostat, a blimp-shaped tethered helium balloon that would lift TV Martí’s transmitter, housed in its underbelly, to an altitude well in excess of the 2,000 feet needed to get a signal to Cuba. Three of the firms said that an aerostat could work but the fourth said it “was found not to be an effective transmission system.”17 The Advisory Board for Cuban Broadcasting omitted this detail by releasing only the executive summary of the report to the public and denied requests to release the complete report on grounds of national security.18 The feasibility study also downplayed the reality that the lighter-than-air balloons had a miserable track record. From 1981 to 1986 there were at least four mishaps with aerostats, including one that operated just 20 days.19 Two incidents occurred at an air force site on Cudjoe Key, the same facility that had been proposed to serve as the base for TV Martí.20 The first of these occurred in August of 1981 when lightning struck the tether to an Air Force surveillance balloon. The aerostat drifted west where a group of fishermen managed to secure the broken tether to their boat. They soon found themselves swimming for their lives after the balloon lifted their vessel out of the water and carried it away. After rescuing the men and detaching the boat, the Coast Guard lost the rogue balloon until a freighter in the Gulf of Mexico saw it the next day. It had reached 25,000 feet, much too high to be captured. To prevent it from becoming a hazard to commercial planes, an F–4 jet took down the craft with

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an air-to air missile.21 The accident cost the Air Force $600,000 for the balloon and $3.5 million worth of surveillance equipment.22 The other incidents were less dramatic, just ordinary weather related crashes, although they did expose a fatal flaw. It took 30 minutes to reel in an aerostat’s tether, a significant vulnerability considering the frequency of turbulent storms in south Florida. TV Martí planners acknowledged that the station would be able to operate only about 34 percent of the time from June to September, the most active months of hurricane season.23 Government officials overlooked the disadvantages of aerostats because of their economic advantages. One aerostat cost the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), which used them for surveillance along borders, about $400 an hour to operate compared to a plane at $2,000 an hour.24 As an added bonus, TV Martí was to share the Cudjoe facility with the DEA, limiting initial overhead. TV Martí programs were to originate in Washington, D.C., where officials would uplink them to a satellite. The Cudjoe site would then downlink the signal and send it via microwave to the aerostat, nicknamed Fat Albert, hovering 10,000 feet above sea level. Fat Albert would then convert the microwave to a television signal and send it to Cuba (see Figure 8.2 below). Although this elaborate delivery system could send television programs to Cuba, it did not guarantee that anyone would see TV Martí. Television signals are much easier to jam completely than radio signals. FCC officials conveyed this to Wick, who conceded that “some very moderate jammers in the local Figure 8.2 TV Martí Aerostat-Based Broadcast System

Advisory Board for Cuba Broadcasting, 1991. (Text “MICROWAVE ,” and “VHF SIGNAL” added by the author.)

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area could effectively frustrate the signal.”25 To complicate the matter, the two 500-kilowatt transmitters Castro planned to use to retaliate for Radio Martí were still in place and still capable of interfering with more than 200 radio stations in the United States. The antiaircraft weapons installed near the transmitters prior to Radio Martí’s sign on were also in place.26 The National Association of Broadcasters opposed TV Martí, citing the possibility of retaliatory jamming from Cuba. The 300-member Florida Association of Broadcasters, which had endorsed Radio Martí just a few years earlier, agreed with the NAB. Four other Cuban American groups, the National Council on U.S.–Cuban Relations, the Cuban-American Committee, the Cuban-American Coalition and the Cuban-American Committee for Family Rights, sought normal relations with Cuba and believed that TV Martí hindered that endeavor.27 The Caribbean Broadcasting Union sent a letter to the NAB that said the station “may ultimately prove counterproductive to otherwise helpful efforts on the part of the United States to promote greater exchange of information within the Caribbean region.”28 The Mexican Association of Broadcasters saw TV Martí as “a substantial threat to radio and TV services in North and Central America.”29 Radio Martí director Ernesto Betancourt opposed TV Martí because he thought it would motivate Castro to resume jamming Radio Martí’s signal. Even the Central Intelligence Agency said TV Martí would be a waste of money.30 A month after the advisory board completed its feasibility study, State Department officials met with CANF representatives to discuss an unrelated immigration agreement. Assistant Secretary for Inter-American Affairs Elliott Abrams tried to avoid the subject of TV Martí by saying that the State Department had not spoken with Cuban officials and were not likely to do so in the future. Foundation members cheered as they interpreted this to mean that the White House supported the idea and refused to negotiate with Cuba about TV Martí. Vice President Bush reinforced the exiles’ hopes when he entered the room shortly afterward and expressed his support for the station. Realizing that TV Martí presented an easy way to win favor with the CANF, the White House ignored the inherent technical problems that made it difficult to send a television signal to Cuba. Within days, the Department of State fully endorsed TV Martí: “No excuses; full speed ahead.”31 In June of 1988, the House approved H.R. 4782, an appropriations bill for the Departments of Commerce, Justice, State and Judiciary. When the bill reached the Senate, South Carolina senator Ernest Hollings, who still chaired the appropriations subcommittee, added text that authorized $7.5 million for a 90-day TV Martí test period. The subcommittee approved H.R. 4782 without having a real discussion about TV Martí. The $7.5 million allocated for television broadcasting to Cuba represented just five one-hundredths of 1 percent of the $15 billion in the bill, which also funded obscure and unrelated projects such as the Bureau of the Census and the Christopher Columbus Quincentenary

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Jubilee Commission. No one spoke against the test period when H.R. 4782 reached the floor. The Senate passed it by a vote of 80 to 16.32 Michigan representative George Crockett chaired the House Subcommittee on International Operations and Western Hemisphere Affairs, which would have held hearings on TV Martí had it gone through a normal legislative process instead of being covertly slipped into another bill. The way TV Martí was “moving its way through Congress on a very fast track” bothered Crocket, who arranged for a hearing on television broadcasting to Cuba and noted the significance of it: “This hearing may well be the only discussion in the House of this controversial and unprecedented proposal.”33 It was. Lasting two hours and 20 minutes, the meeting included no representatives from the broadcasting industry even though most of the discussion focused on Cuba’s ability to harm domestic stations in the United States. John Spicer Nichols pointed out that TV Martí would violate the 1982 International Telecommunications Convention, a document that renewed already established standards for international broadcasting. It acknowledged “the sovereign right of each country to regulate its telecommunication,” and recognized that states could use communication for “peace and social and economic development of all countries.”34 It also limited broadcasting among countries to shortwave and high frequencies, leaving FM, AM, and television channels for states to use for domestic communication. The convention also prohibited “broadcast stations on ships, planes or other airborne objects outside national territory” and asked governments to minimize signals “which are capable of causing harmful interference to radio services of other countries.”35 The USIA ignored these discrepuncies and argued that the “peace and social and economic development of all countries” provision justified Radio Martí’s operation and set a precedent for TV Martí.36 In that month’s issue of Broadcasting, Nichols said the consequences of Cuban jamming were far greater that they had been prior to launching Radio Martí because the world had become more dependent on satellite communication: “There is no technological impediment to Cuba overriding U.S. satellite circuits with its own television programming in the same way that ... Captain Midnight briefly wiped out Home Box Office off U.S. television screens using only basic transmitting equipment.”37 Captain Midnight was 25-year-old John R. MacDougall, a satellite dish merchant who moonlighted at an uplink facility sending programs to satellites to be downlinked by television stations in the eastern half of the United States. MacDougall’s satellite dish business began losing money after premium movie channels decided to scramble their signals, making them unavailable to dish owners who did not subscribe to the services. The frustrated MacDougall decided to take a playful jab at HBO. At 12:32 A.M. on April 27, 1986, Home Box Office viewers in the eastern half of North America watching the movie The Falcon and the Snowman saw the picture change to color bars for about four and a half minutes with a message that read:

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The FCC eventually traced the message to MacDougall. He confessed and was fined $5,000 and given one year of probation.38 A year later, religious messages mysteriously appeared on the Playboy channel: “Thus sayeth the Lord thy God. Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy. Repent, the kingdom of God is at hand!” It took the FBI and FCC three years to act against Thomas Haynie, a technician at the Christian Broadcasting Network.39 Two months after that incident, someone wearing a Max Headroom mask interrupted a newscast on Chicago’s WGN for 25 seconds. Within two hours the same person interrupted the science fiction program Dr. Who on PBS station WTTW. The prankster stayed on for about a minute and a half, long enough to lower his pants and be spanked by someone off camera. Engineers and FCC officials believe the outlaw signal overrode the studio to transmitter microwave link of each station.40 The perpetrators have never been identified. Although most satellite signals are now protected by encryption that inhibits such interference, many were vulnerable at the time Congress was considering TV Martí. When asked about interference, the FCC’s satellite specialist, Charles Magin, conceded that there was “really no way to stop it.” Using about $50 worth of electronics, a satellite receiver could be modified to become an effective uplink site.41 If one hacker could do this, a government like Cuba, with more resources, would certainly have no problem eliminating TV Martí’s satellite signal to the Cudjoe site as well as commercial programs distributed throughout North America.42 Unlike the Radio Broadcasting to Cuba Act, the legislation authorizing TV Martí’s test period did not include language that allowed compensation to commercial broadcasters or satellite operators whose signals had been affected by Cuban interference.43 Three days after the hearing on TV Martí before the Committee on Foreign Affairs, House and Senate conferees filed House Report 100 –979. With just one full day to review the proposed legislation, the House and Senate passed the conference report of H.R. 4782, the bill that called for the 90-day test period, by votes of 269 to 141 and 77 to 13 respectively.44 President Reagan signed it four days later. In order for TV Martí to continue beyond the test period, Congress would have to authorize ongoing operations by passing another law. A few months after the test period had been approved, Dante Fascell, who chaired the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, added the Television Broadcasting to Cuba Act to H.R. 1487, another appropriations bill.45 Michigan’s George Crockett saw what Fascell had done and tried to remove it during the committee’s markup

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session. Others on the committee, who had received substantial sums of CANF money, defeated Crocket’s proposal 17 to 3.46 The full House passed H.R. 1487 by a vote of 338 to 87 just a few weeks later. The biggest obstacle for H.R. 1487 was Rhode Island senator Claiborne Pell, who happened to chair the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Pell had a history of opposing a hard-line strategy for Cuba. He visited the island four months before the Bay of Pigs operation and was convinced that an invasion of Cuba would fail because “those who might have supported an invasion ... had either fled Cuba, were dead, or were in prison.”47 Pell returned to Cuba in 1974, prompting the National Cuban Liberation Front (a hard-line anti–Castro group) to target the senator for assassination.48 In 1982, Pell was part of the filibuster that stopped the first Radio Broadcasting to Cuba Act. Six years later he visited Cuba again, met with Fidel Castro, and returned to the United States urging officials to “reconsider the TV Martí project.”49 Pell argued that “the entire authorization process [for TV Martí] is being bypassed.”50 He tried to keep the station off the air by prohibiting the USIA from asking any domestic broadcaster to change its license to accommodate the new service. In traditional analog (before digital) television broadcasting, the preferred positions on the dial were VHF frequencies (channels 2 through 13). They were more likely to deliver a clear picture and less susceptible to disruption from atmospheric changes than UHF channels (14 through 69). Receiving a good UHF signal usually required an additional antenna, not an option for the average Cuban. As a result, TV Martí had only 12 viable choices, six of which (channels 2, 4, 6, 7, 9, and 10) were already being used by South Florida stations.51 Florida senator Connie Mack labeled Pell’s effort a “killer amendment” but claimed he had enough votes, 11 out of 20, on the committee to defeat it.52 To improve TV Martí’s chances, Jorge Mas Canosa invited the Rhode Islander to Miami. Pell faced a difficult reelection in the fall, which made him a potential target for the CANF. 53 Mas persuaded him to withdraw the provision in exchange for language that called for TV Martí to suspend operations if the signal interfered with domestic stations. The committee also agreed to require TV Martí to “operate in a manner that is consistent with international law and does not supersede U.S. obligations under international law.”54 House and Senate conferees killed the Television Broadcasting to Cuba Act when they agreed to amend H.R. 1487. New York senator Daniel Moynihan added an amendment that prohibited the government from soliciting money from foreign states to conduct activities that were illegal for the United States to do on its own. The purpose was to neutralize the type of environment that facilitated Iran-Contra, during which the Reagan administration called on other governments to fund mercenaries in Nicaragua, knowing that Congress had voted against the United States providing such aid. Not surprisingly, President Bush vetoed H.R. 1487.55 Hoping to pass the Television Broadcasting to Cuba

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Act before the Christmas break, Fascell introduced a nearly identical version of the bill, H.R. 3792, minus the Moynihan amendment, just hours after Bush’s veto.56 Although the House passed H.R. 3792 by voice vote that evening, the Senate did not vote before the recess. Legislation authorizing permanent broadcasting status for TV Martí had been placed on hold until the following year. In the interim, John Spicer Nichols recruited broadcasting executives for a trip to Cuba during which they would discuss TV Martí and interference with the Castro government.57 Knowing that the trip could jeopardize TV Martí’s chances of getting on the air, officials from the Bush administration’s Treasury Department threatened to prosecute Nichols for violating the embargo against Cuba. One violation could have resulted in a fine of $10,000 and 10 years in prison. Academics like Nichols conducting research in Cuba were exempt from travel restrictions, a point he argued to the Treasury Department. Broadcasting magazine reported that officials intimidated some broadcasting executives into staying home. Nichols ignored the threats and went anyway.58 He was never charged. Florida broadcasters dominated the group. Al Swift, a Democrat representing Washington’s Second District, was the most prominent government official. Prior to his election to the House in 1978, Swift served as public affairs director of KVOS-TV in Bellingham, Washington, and won a regional Emmy. In 1990, Swift was the senior member of the House Telecommunications Subcommittee, another congressional body that should have had hearings on TV Martí. He voted against the Radio Broadcasting to Cuba Act twice and opposed TV Martí, saying that it provided “clear proof that Rube Goldberg still lives.”59 At one point during the trip, the Cubans demonstrated how they could neutralize TV Martí. As Nichols said, “They told us to go back to our hotel rooms because they were going to knock one of their own TV stations off the air.... Sure enough, at the appointed hour, they jammed their own station.” The demonstration “scared the hell out of the American broadcasters.”60 It obviously did not frighten the Senate, which passed H.R. 3792 by a vote of 98 to 0. In his statement on signing the bill, President Bush did not mention TV Martí or Cuba.61 TV Martí could remain on the air only if the test period demonstrated that television broadcasting to Cuba was “feasible” and the signal did not interfere “with incumbent domestic licensees.”62 Swift urged the White House not to move forward with TV Martí, believing that allowing the station to sign on, even for the test period, represented a “point of no return” for the United States.63 As the State Department had said earlier, “once a nation jams,” as Cuba was expected to do, “we must continue to send the signal” in order to save face in the international community.64 The FCC created a new problem for TV Martí by assigning it to channel 13, the same channel it had allocated for WETV, a religious station owned by Palmetto Broadcasters. Having signed on only in September 1989, WETV did

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not operate when the feasibility study was underway but was broadcasting from 5:00 A.M. to 8:00 P.M. just as TV Martí was preparing to launch its test period. USIA officials resolved the conflict by paying Palmetto $240,000 a year to lease channel 13 from 8:00 P.M. to noon.65 The issue of interfering with incumbent domestic licensees had been averted. TV Martí had to broadcast in the early morning to avoid interfering with Cuban television. In June 1989, the International Frequency Registration Board (IFRB) “recorded and registered” the Cubans’ request for 24-hour use of channel 13 in Alamar, a Havana suburb.66 The USIA ignored the Cubans’ request for channel 13 when TV Martí began nine months later. In fact, USIA officials did not inform the IFRB of its intention to use the channel until the day TV Martí signed on.67 TV Martí began broadcasting shortly after 3:30 A.M. on March 27, 1990. Cuban jammers neutralized the signal.68 It also jammed Radio Martí. When Cuban officials filed a protest weeks later, the ITU denounced TV Martí. U.S. officials responded by citing Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which says that all people have a right to information “regardless of frontiers” and referred to the precedent established by other “cross-frontier” broadcasting operations like the BBC, Radio Vatican, and RIAS-TV (Radio and Television in the Americas Sector, Berlin).69 U.S. officials argued that TV Martí did not interfere with Cuban signals because it operated from 3:30 P.M. to 6:00 A.M., a time that Cuba’s channel 13 did not broadcast.70 Despite this claim, the ITU ruled that any use of channel 13 at any time without the consent of the Cuban government violated international law: “The Board has examined your notice for Cudjoe Key and has formulated an unfavorable finding.... The Board requests your prompt action in eliminating the harmful interference to the Cuban station.”71 U.S. officials simply ignored the ITU and continued to broadcast. To determine if television broadcasting to Cuba was “feasible,” the USIA commissioned two studies that looked at the technical and audience aspects of the test period. One analysis interviewed 1,018 Cuban arrivals at the Miami International Airport from March 28 to April 18. The results claimed that TV Martí could reach 7.3 million people in Cuba, about 65 percent of the population, “in practically all of the Cuban territory with acceptable quality.”72 Another USIA study claimed that, of 424 arrivals who tried to watch TV Martí, 112 (26 percent) could see the station for at least five minutes. Based on these results, researchers estimated that 273,000 households on the island, about a million Cubans, could receive TV Martí. This contrasted sharply with officials at the U.S. Interests Section in Havana, whose informal research found that less than 1 percent of Cubans who visited the office had seen the station “without disruption.”73 The General Accounting Office questioned the validity of the second USIA study because 24 people claimed to watch TV Martí on four days when the station did not operate due to bad weather or technical problems.74 The State Department’s own Report to Congress on TV

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Martí admitted, “the Government of Cuba has consistently and effectively jammed the TV Martí signal since broadcasts began.”75 President Bush acknowledged that few people in Cuba had seen TV Martí but attributed it to Castro jamming the signal, not the manner in which the signal was delivered.76 Television broadcasting to Cuba was technically possible, but became muddled among Castro’s competing signals. The White House issued a statement that ignored this obvious obstacle: “Television broadcasting to Cuba is feasible and will not cause objectionable interference with the broadcasts of domestic television licensees. Our international telecommunications commitments have been observed throughout the test period.”77 With the test period declared a success, TV Martí was allowed to continue. Radio and TV Martí operations were placed under the authority of a new entity, the Office of Cuba Broadcasting (OCB). TV Martí director Antonio Navarro became head of OCB. Jorge Mas Canosa’s title expanded to chair of the Advisory Board on Broadcasting to Cuba. He and the CANF controlled two media broadcasting to Cuba. Unlike Radio Martí, whose initial success managed to deflect some criticism, TV Martí never had a “Golden Age.” The Cubans continued to jam it, claiming it took about one one-thousandth of what it cost the United States to keep TV Martí on the air, or a total of about $7,500 during the 90day test period.78 In hearings two years earlier, John Spicer Nichols predicted this figure could be less than five one-thousandths, or around $37,500 for the test period.79 FCC officials said that a transmitter mounted on a telephone pole in Havana could jam the signal for up to eight blocks.80 Additional audience research confirmed that TV Martí did not reach a significant number of listeners. TV Martí opponents found additional ammunition in the station’s lackluster programming. Prior to TV Martí signing on, Joe Lieberman said the station “could prove to be an inspiration,” by showing images such as the collapse of the Berlin Wall or “the single Chinese dissident stopping a column of tanks in Tiananmen Square.”81 New Jersey senator Frank Lautenberg said, “A picture is worth a thousand words; and a television picture just might be worth a million.”82 Instead of these inspirational images, the majority of TV Martí’s content consisted of old U.S. television programs. As one congressman who happened to be a staunch TV Martí supporter but did not want to be identified said, “I can understand why people are pissed at Castro for screwing up their country ... but you’re not hurting them with ‘Lassie’ and ‘Star Trek’ reruns at four o’clock in the morning.”83 About a month before TV Martí signed on, the New York Times published a story about a New Mexican radio announcer who would mention in his broadcasts that “the yo-yo is up” or “the yo-yo is down,” referring to the status of a nearby aerostat with surveillance equipment.84 TV Martí eliminated the need for this type of person at the Straits of Florida. The Fat Albert facility on

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Cudjoe Key also served the Drug Enforcement Agency, whose surveillance equipment could not operate at the same timeas TV Martí. As a result, any time TV Martí was operating, drug traffickers knew that the DEA was not monitoring the area and could move into the United States more easily.85 On January 16, 1991, workers at the Cudjoe site failed to secure the aerostat during a storm. High winds broke the tether, allowing Fat Albert to drift away and crash in the Everglades about 70 miles to the north. 86 It took more than a week to recover the equipment and two more months before the station got back on the air. On March 27, 1991, the one-year anniversary of the station signing on, TV Martí was testing to see if it could even get back on the air.87 Not long after TV Martí’s one-year anniversary, a House Appropriations subcommittee cut funding for the station only to have Florida’s Larry Smith restore it in the larger committee. The entire House voted 338 –80 to approve the larger bill that included funding for TV Martí. There were too many other things included in the bill that needed funding. Impeding appropriations for more than $20 billion to get TV Martí off the air and save less than $20 million did not seem worth it. Even if the House version of the bill did not include funding for TV Martí, South Carolina’s Ernest Hollings, who still chaired the Senate Appropriations subcommittee, was poised to restore funding for the station if necessary.88 The year 1991 brought TV Martí more bad publicity, much of it coming from the executive branch. In May, the U.S. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy, a bipartisan oversight entity whose members are appointed by the President, said TV Martí was “not cost effective” and called for it to cease operations.89 Cuban stations continued to denounce TV Martí and back up their claims by citing the international community’s declaration that the broadcasts were illegal.90 In December, the President’s Task Force on U.S. Government International Broadcasting said that TV Martí should improve its hours to reach a larger audience or sign off.91 Even officials at the Office of Cuba Broadcasting viewed TV Martí as a joke, making it a “Siberia” where insubordinate employees were sentenced as a form of punishment.92 Perhaps the worst publicity of all came in July of 1991 when Cuban spy Jose Rafael Fernandez Brenes appeared on Cuban television and claimed to have infiltrated the CIA, FBI, and TV Martí. After defecting to Canada in 1988, Fernandez Brenes found his way to Arlington, Virginia, where he was contracted by TV Martí to write scripts. He was there during TV Martí’s test period and may have provided the Cubans with intelligence that enhanced their jamming capabilities. Even more troubling was Brenes’ claim that the CIA contacted him through another Radio Martí worker.93 This demonstrated how difficult it was to kill TV Martí. The station got on the air only because CANF allies Chiles, Hollings, and Fascell all chaired powerful committees or subcommittees and used these positions to pass the

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necessary legislation. TV Martí opponents did not control any powerful committees. Instead of sneaking language into legislation the way Martí advocates got the station on the air, terminating funding for TV Martí had to be in the form of a bill or amendment submitted before the entire chamber. Every member had to vote for or against TV Martí and any official that voted to end funding risked being targeted by the CANF the way Lowell Weicker had been in 1988. As former USIA official Alvin Snyder said in his book Warriors of Disinformation, “It was much safer to stay on the good side of ... the powerful Cuban exile community.”94 Arkansas representative Bill Alexander amended a USIA funding bill to reduce the money for TV Martí by eight million dollars after it had been on the air less than a month. TV Martí advocates pleaded to the other members not to pull the plug just as Castro was on the verge of collapse. The House voted against Alexander’s effort 306 to 111.95 For the next two years, the Arkansan built a strong case against TV Martí, asking the General Accounting Office to investigate station operations. The GAO report, released in 1992, maintained that TV Martí violated international law and cited the provision in the Television Broadcasting to Cuba Act that called for TV Martí to operate in accordance with Voice of America criteria for objectivity, accuracy, and balance. One show, described as a “Castro Countdown,” was deemed Castro bashing and pulled from the air.96 The three consultants in the GAO study also “expressed concern about the extent of TV Martí’s coverage of the Cuban American National Foundation.”97 Even TV Martí’s own in-house critic doubted that programs “might not meet [Voice of America] standards.”98 With the GAO study to bolster his argument, Alexander submitted an amendment in 1992 to an appropriations bill for FY 1993 that would have terminated all funding for TV Martí.99 The House passed Alexander’s amendment 206 to 194 but reconsidered after Virginia’s Thomas Bliley requested and was granted a seperate vote. Just 42 minutes later, the amendment failed 215 to 181, allowing TV Martí to stay on the air. Alexander would not get another chance to kill TV Martí. Arkansas voters did not nominate him for the 1992 election after he wrote 487 bad checks in the House banking scandal.100 In spite of the problems facing TV Martí, articles in the Washington Post and Washington Times said that Cubans could watch television programs from the United States. Shortly after TV Martí went on the air, Cubans began developing makeshift microwave dish receivers capable of intercepting satellite signals of western media, most of which were intended for Havana hotels where tourists could access the channels. The dishes were basically dinner plates with circuits attached and sold for about $100, a luxury considering that the people who made them earned less than three dollars a month.101 About 100,000 people in Havana used the receivers, many users surrounding the mounted items with barbed wire to deter thieves. The dishes provided access to the English feeds

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from HBO, CNN, TNT, ESPN, and the Disney Channel, as well as a Spanish language station in Miami and a Mexican news station. Notably absent from the selection was TV Martí. The abundance of other options led one to question the need for the broadcasts. As one Cuban said, “I have HBO and CNN. Why do I need TV Martí?”102

CHAPTER NINE

Clinton Puts the Hammer Down There’s just no such thing as truth when it comes to him. He just says whatever sounds good and worries about it after the election.1 — Candidate Bill Clinton speaking about President George H.W. Bush

Five months before the 1988 election, The Nation magazine published a story that said then–Vice President George H.W. Bush “started working for the [Central Intelligence] agency in 1960 or 1961, using his oil business as a cover for clandestine activities.”2 The article referenced a November 29, 1963, memo from FBI director J. Edgar Hoover that mentioned a “Mr. George Bush of the Central Intelligence Agency” who was briefed on Cuban Americans’ reaction to President Kennedy’s assassination. When asked about the memo, Bush spokesperson Stephen Hart said, “Must be another George Bush.”3 According to Michael Benson’s book Who’s Who in the JFK Assassination, there is “no evidence that Bush was involved in the Bay of Pigs.” Benson does draw attention to several “thought provoking coincidences,” specifically the names of two ships involved, the Barbara J. (Bush married Barbara Pierce) and Houston (his base of business operations).4 There was also the name of the Bay of Pigs operation itself, Zapata, the same name of Bush’s oil company, which according to at least one source, had served as a cover for CIA operations.5 He also owned a boat, Fidelity II, named after a successful investment. During his failed 1964 run for the U.S. Senate, Bush “wished to arm Cuban exiles to go after Fidel Castro,” an alliance that made him uncomfortable.6 “I took some of the far-right positions to get elected. I hope I never do it again. I regret it.”7 President Ford named him director of Central Intelligence in 1976 not long after the Church Committee had negated most of the agency’s power. Bush held the post for only a year. As vice president, Bush worked with exiles to funnel weapons to the Contras. As president, he helped elect Ileana RosLehtinen, defended south Florida’s paramilitary actions, and said that TV Martí was feasible. 130

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After signing off on the TV Martí test period, Bush seemed to have gone soft on Cuba. A few months before the Soviet Union’s collapse, Castro suspected a coup and arrested suspected coup leaders throughout the island. Bush went on Radio Martí and announced that the United States would not invade the island and promised improved relations if Cuba allowed free elections.8 Jorge Mas Canosa claimed to have already been in contact with Cuban officials regarding a post–Castro government and thus tolerated Bush’s possible collaboration.9 Nine months later, in December 1991, Miami’s Cuban Americans were asking the president to renege on the promise not to invade. Three exiles, Eduardo Diaz Betancourt, Daniel Candelario Santovenia, and Pedro de la Caridad Alvarez Pedroso, were captured shortly after landing on the island with guns and explosives. After a Cuban court sentenced the three to be executed, hard-liners pressed Bush for action. As Santovenia’s wife asked, “Why can’t they take out Castro the same as they did with Saddam Hussein?”10 Castro commuted the sentences of Santovenia and Alvarez to 30 years in prison but carried out the execution of Diaz Betancourt on January 20. Skeptics in the exile community wondered if Diaz Betancourt actually was executed or if he was a spy who was reassigned to another operation or reintroduced into Cuban society. His objective may have been to expose operations of paramilitary troops.11 In the nine months he had been in the United States, Diaz Betancourt managed to join (or infiltrate) one of Miami’s most active paramilitary groups, yet no one in the area seemed to know anything about him or mourn his death. In their testimonies during the trial, portions of which were carried by anti– Castro stations in Miami, all three men denounced the actions of hard-line exiles.12 Santovenia turned to the most reliable scapegoat: “I now realize that the United States government has used me.”13 Miami radio stations soon lost interest in the events on the island as they shifted their attention from Havana to Little Havana. Two days before Diaz Betancourt’s execution, the Miami Herald published “Bad Strategy on Cuba,” an editorial about a bill introduced by New Jersey representative Robert Torricelli. Just a few years earlier, Torricelli, a Democrat, had opposed Reagan’s hard-line strategy for Central America, voted against funding the Contras, and called for investigations of Contra training camps.14 Desperate for money in a close reelection campaign in 1992, Torricelli formed an alliance with the CANF and became a hard-liner who wanted “to wreak havoc on that island.”15 He introduced the Cuban Democracy Act, which became known as the Torricelli Bill, in the House, while Florida senator Bob Graham introduced the Senate version. The Herald described it as “a jumble of embargo tightening measures.”16 Among other things, the bill called for sanctions against any country that assisted Cuba, prohibited any vessel that traveled to Cuba from docking in the United States for 180 days, set “strict limits on remittances” sent to Cuba from relatives for travel purposes, and penalized subsidiaries of U.S. companies in foreign countries that traded with Cuba.17

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These hard-line elements of the Cuban Democracy Act comprised what was known as the Track I strategy, characterized by the continued isolation of Castro. More humanitarian elements in the Cuban Democracy Act comprised the Track II strategy, characterized by engagement. This included establishing regular phone communication between the two countries and permitting more cultural exchanges with Cuba. The Track II elements made the bill more palatable and more likely to reach the president’s desk. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen believed that the Track II components diluted the impact of the wider campaign because they failed to “directly contribute to the downfall of Castro.” The elements bothered her so much that she walked out of a hearing on the Cuban Democracy Act chaired by Torricelli.18 The same day that the Herald published “Bad Strategy on Cuba,” the Herald’s Spanish-language sister publication, El Nuevo Herald, printed “Las Arpias” [The Harpies], an editorial that compared militant exiles who invaded the island to characters in Dante’s Inferno who launched suicide missions in a “shameful waste and disgust for life.”19 The article characterized December’s paramilitary attack on Cuba as yet another example of misguided and uncoordinated La Causa vigor: “Our culture has become a culture of the ridiculous.”20 It criticized hard-line exile leaders who advocated military action against Fidel Castro but expected others to risk their lives. Jorge Mas Canosa responded by appearing on Miami’s Spanish language radio stations and accusing the papers of having an anti-exile bias. He called for Herald president Roberto Suarez and Nuevo Herald editor Carlos Verdecia, the two most prominent Cuban American administrators at the papers, to resign.21 Part soap opera and part professional wrestling, the feud became a lively topic on Miami radio stations. The Foundation bought billboards on city busses that said “Yo No Creo En El Herald” (I Don’t Believe in the Herald). Herald offices received bomb threats. Vandals attacked Herald vending boxes, jamming the coin slots with glue, spray painting the sides with communist slurs, and smearing them with feces. The CANF denied participating in any of these actions and claimed that Castro agents in South Florida had committed them to discredit Mas and the Foundation. Former CANF leader Raul Masvidal and Radio Martí director Ernesto Betancourt defended the Herald. The paper had other supporters but most did not want to risk alienating the Cuban American community and remained silent.22 The Inter American Press Association (IAPA), an organization that investigates press freedom violations in third world dictatorships, went to South Florida to observe its media environment, the first time the organization had ever dealt with media censorship within the United States.23 It was also during this time that American University professor Philip Brenner acquired documents related to the Cuban Missile Crisis. The papers showed that President Kennedy’s language during negotiations was so vague that the terms of the agreement did not give “ironclad assurance” that invasion of Cuba would not be an option.24 Hard-liners renewed their calls for invasion

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and began to squeeze Bush. The White House tried to curb the anti–Castro fervor in Little Havana simply by saying “no,” something it had rarely done in the past. As State Department spokesperson Margaret Tutwiler said, “We condemn any efforts to use the territory of the United States to prepare or promote violence in Cuba.” She added that an exile-launched invasion from U.S. soil would have violated the Neutrality Act and “those who violate this or other statutes will be vigorously pursued and duly prosecuted.”25 Bush further alienated hard-liners in April when he announced his disapproval for the Cuban Democracy Act, believing that the Track II elements could unintentionally “weaken the embargo.”26 Castro could benefit by obtaining food and medicine and profit from increased telecommunications.27 An even greater concern for Bush was the portion of the bill that penalized foreign subsidiaries of U.S. companies that traded with Cuba.28 Three years earlier, Bush had vetoed the Mack Amendment, which called for this same type of action. By opposing the Cuban Democracy Act, Bush risked losing the hard-line exile vote. He tried to appease Little Havana by signing another bill that required ships trading with Cuba to obtain a license from the Treasury Department before entering U.S. ports.29 It was not enough. Just a few days after signing the law, Jorge Mas Canosa and the CANF turned to the Democrats, the people they had not trusted since Kennedy’s betrayal at the Bay of Pigs. With 10 words, Arkansas Governor and Democratic Presidential candidate Bill Clinton endorsed the Cuban Democracy Act. “I’ve read the Torricelli-Graham Bill and I like it.” Clinton delivered the statement at Victor’s Cafe in the heart of Little Havana and capitalized on the exiles’ diminished image of Bush: “I think this administration has missed a big opportunity to put the hammer down on Fidel Castro.” By outflanking Bush on the right, Clinton collected about $125,000 from the hard-liners in one night, money his campaign desperately needed.30 The rhetoric was consistent with one of Clinton’s campaign themes, that he was the opposite of the increasingly unpopular George Bush in every way. A week earlier, Clinton picked up a piece of broccoli in a Philadelphia supermarket, a reference to Bush’s dislike of the vegetable and used the same line: “I like it.”31 Two months after Clinton’s endorsement, Wayne Smith wrote “Carrots for Castro,” a New York Times article that questioned the need for the Cuban Democracy Act in a post–Cold War era. Smith pointed out the inconsistencies in the United States’ foreign policy that called for engagement with South Africa and China but isolation of Cuba. He also predicted that the Cuban Democracy Act would only complicate relations with Cuba and increase the divide with the United States. According to Dr. William LeoGrande of American University, a hard-line strategy for Cuba was unnecessary considering that the “principal security issues” that caused the two countries to split in the first place no longer existed.32 Castro’s relationship with the Soviet Union had changed considerably and Cuba no longer exported its ideology to other states.

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Cuba was already accelerating to a collapse. Economic sanctions combined with the withdrawal of support from the Soviet Union had drastically increased the gap between the Cubans’ expected and actual need satisfaction described in Davies’ Theory of Revolution. Castro acknowledged this by characterizing the time as a “Special Period in a Time of Peace,” similar to the “Special Period in a Time of War” prior to the Bay of Pigs invasion when Cubans were asked to be resourceful.33 He prepared Cubans for shortages of food, fuel, and other necessities. Work animals replaced tractors that could not operate due to a lack of fuel. The decreasing amount of imported animal feed exacerbated this problem and limited the production of meat, milk, and eggs. The lack of available fertilizer led to diminished sugar crops.34 Miami felt the drama had entered its final act. As a popular phrase on Miami radio stations said, “En los noventa, Fidel revienta” (In the nineties, Fidel bursts).35 Fearing the loss of Cuban American votes and the state of Florida’s 25 electoral votes, Bush reversed himself on the Cuban Democracy Act. On October 23, less than two weeks before the election, Jorge Mas Canosa stood by the president at the signing ceremony in Miami.36 Notably absent were the bill’s sponsors, Torricelli and Graham, Democrats who happened to be CANF allies. Clinton, campaigning in Las Vegas, commented, “I believe in it, and I will enforce it.”37 Four days later, Mas flew to Tampa and met with Clinton, an act that many hard-liners regarded as a betrayal of La Causa.38 As one exile said, “From this moment on, I will give no more money to the Foundation.”39 Stories that described a shouting match between Mas and Jeb Bush circulated throughout Miami.40 In the Herald, the president’s son tried to draw attention to the discrepancy in the records of the two candidates and their commitment to La Causa: “My dad’s 12 years of loyal commitment to the cause of freedom in Cuba doesn’t compare to three months during a campaign and to showing support for one bill.”41 The Foundation did not officially endorse Clinton, nor did it oppose him, as expressed in a statement issued after the October 27 meeting: Any fears that the Cuban-American community may have had about a Clinton administration with regard to Castro’s Cuba have dissipated today. We are pleased and satisfied with Gov. Clinton’s deep-seated commitment to continue exerting pressure on the Castro regime until a free and democratic Cuba becomes a reality.... Your statements on Cuba have demonstrated to us here in Miami, as well as to the entire Cuban-American community throughout the United States, that we need not fear a Bill Clinton administration.42

The next day, Mas was in Chicago presenting a CANF report from its “Blue Ribbon Commission on the Economic Development of Cuba” to the Mid-America Committee of International Business and Government Cooperation. The report was a blueprint for rebuilding Cuba after Castro’s fall. Prominent figures associated with the endeavor included Jeanne Kirkpatrick, Steve Forbes, Jr.,

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Florida senators Bob Graham and Connie Mack, and Representatives Dante Fascell and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen. Corporate sponsors included Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines, BellSouth, Bacardi Rum, and Hyatt Hotels, each giving $25,000 to get in on the ground floor of one of the biggest real estate deals in history, worth a potential $2 billion.43 The embargo had made Cuba desperate for practically everything and the CANF wanted to control every aspect of the island’s restoration. As one executive, who did not want to be identified, told the New York Times, “The way it was presented to us was that these guys were going to be the leaders of Cuba when Castro goes down and that we would be in their good graces by being part of this committee. That was the pitch, and though it was initially presented in the most patriotic of terms, it made us extremely uncomfortable.”44 By the time of the 1992 election almost everything was in place to initiate the transition from Castro’s Cuba to the improved Cuba. Fast food companies had filed requests to move in. More than 1,500 Cuban American Peace Corps– type workers waited to canvas the island.45 Planners had 10,000 Cuban American economists ready to help with the transition to more Western style policies.46 Malcolm S. Forbes Jr. recognized the Foundation’s organizational power. “These men have no intention of leaving their country’s post–Castro future to chance, he said. “They are drafting a [new Cuban] constitution.”47 Cuban exiles in Miami anticipated a mass exodus to Cuba that would cause property values in south Florida to plummet and began putting their Miami homes on the market.48 Rolando Bonachea was an academic who had been affiliated with four different schools in 10 years before taking a position as research director at Radio Martí.49 There were allegations that Bonachea was sympathetic to Castro. In 1974, the Boise State student newspaper quoted him, then a student at BSU, as saying that the Cuban revolution produced “positive and negative achievements, and the positives outweigh the negatives.”50 Bonachea coedited Revolutionary Struggle, a book that reprints many of Fidel Castro’s writings during the Batista years. The preface, written by Bonachea and co-editor Nelson Valdes, describes Fidel Castro as “a brilliant political strategist, military tactician, and psychologist who captures the moods of his people.”51 When Ernesto Betancourt left the Office of Cuba Broadcasting, Bonachea was named acting director of Radio Martí and served as a member of the triumvirate tasked with managing the OCB. According to Radio Martí news director Jay Mallin, Bonachea began using Radio Martí to promote himself as a hard-liner to neutralize his reputation as a Castro sympathizer. Mallin said many of the stories were false and some took credit for accomplishments that he, not Bonachea, had achieved. Seven months after Betancourt was ousted, Bonachea gave Mallin a poor review and fired him, an action Mallin claimed was to remove him as an obstacle to Bonachea’s self-promotion. Bonachea proceeded to gut Radio Martí’s newsroom. Employees were reas-

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signed to menial positions or “to an isolated room” for positions that did not exist.52 Orlando Rodriguez, a deputy director and programming director at Radio Martí, came to work one day to find out that he was Bonachea’s assistant. He did not understand what the responsibilities of his new position were: “I kept sending memos to Bonachea, saying since I am now your ‘special assistant,’ what am I supposed to do? ... But Bonachea never got back to me. So I have had to find my own niche within the government.”53 Bonachea began replacing the departures with his own people, most notably Augustin Alles as the station’s deputy news director. Revolutionary Struggle, the Castro book coedited by Bonachea, includes an interview that Alles, then a correspondent for Bohemia magazine, made with Castro shortly after his release from prison. Alles humanized Castro by telling of his embrace of a child whose father was killed at Moncada.54 In April 1958, Alles became the first Cuban reporter to interview Fidel Castro in the Sierra Maestra.55 After denouncing the revolution, Alles came to the United States and worked as a managing editor at Agencia de Informaciones Periodisticas (Agency of Information Reporters, or AIP), part of the CIA’s propaganda network.56 Several years later Alles applied for positions at Radio Martí but had repeatedly been turned away because he had not mastered English. This changed once Ernesto Betancourt had been removed. Radio Martí workers claimed that Alles was an accomplice of Jorge Mas Canosa and that Mas pushed Bonachea to hire him.57 Bruce Boyd, the station’s personnel director, had to complete Alles’ job application. Boyd described the exchange as “the most bizarre interview I’ve ever conducted.”58 Once hired, Alles began steering Radio Martí’s coverage toward Mas. Diana Molineaux, Radio Martí’s news director and a superior of Alles, noted a memo from him in which he called for the station to “saturate” the station’s news bulletins with details about Mas participating in events commemorating the end of the war in Angola. When Molineaux alerted Bonachea about the possible compromise in “VOA journalistic standards,” Bonachea reassigned her and promoted Alles to her position.59 Radio Martí deputy director Bruce Sherman claimed that Mas “would often call Mr. Alles directly to request news coverage of Mr. Mas’s own activities or those of the Cuban American National Foundation.”60 Jay Mallin told the New York Times, “Alles thought his job was to make sure that the station reported on Mas 10, 20, 30 times a day.”61 The actions of Augustin Alles were part of a larger strategy. Mas was using Radio Martí to advance his agenda and the agenda of the Cuban American National Foundation. On more than one occasion, he asked Cubans to instigate chaos on the island. When Castro went to an Earth Summit in Brazil, Mas addressed a crowd in Union City, New Jersey, and encouraged them to use Castro’s absence to stage a coup: “We ask that Castro be made forever a permanent exile.”62 Radio Martí aired the speech. That same month, Cuban authorities arrested a Canadian freelance journalist for distributing videotapes, including

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at least one with a call to arms specifically from Jorge Mas Canosa.63 The Canadian was released after four days. A month after Bush signed the Cuban Democracy Act, the United Nations General Assembly voted 59 to three (with 71 abstentions) for a Cuban resolution that called for the end of laws restricting “the freedom of trade and navigation.”64 Jorge Mas Canosa went on Miami radio to reassure Little Havana that a hardline approach was appropriate: “I decided to make an appearance on the radio because people have the perception that the U.N. vote rendered the Torricelli legislation ineffective. That is not true. The legislation is being implemented, and the cause of the Cuban exile community will triumph. The crisis in Cuba will be resolved in a few months. We will triumph, and we will return home.”65 The hostile rhetoric espoused by Radio and TV Martí had already turned most of the Cuban people against the Foundation and Jorge Mas Canosa by the time Castro had reached the critical stage. In his book Trading with the Enemy: A Yankee Travels Through Castro’s Cuba, Tom Miller interviewed several Cubans during this period who mentioned the change in Radio Martí, or Radio Casualidad (Accidental Radio) as some islanders called it, implying that they unintentionally tuned to the broadcast.66 One said, “Radio Martí gives a bad impression of the United States. It makes it appear everyone there hates Cuba.”67 Another said, “I tune in rarely, and only then to learn Mas Canosa’s latest invectives.”68 Former Radio Martí director Ernesto Betancourt said the calls to arms issued by Radio Martí were ineffective because Mas did not provide a desirable alternative: “If you were in Cuba and you were an army officer plotting against Castro, you would be discouraged against doing so if the alternative is that the United States was going to send a group of people who would kick you out of your job and your house and put you on trial. Because that’s the image the Foundation has.”69 Arthur Schlesinger Jr., one of JFK’s advisors during the Bay of Pigs, said, “Dread of the return of the Miami exiles represented by the Foundation is a major source of Castro’s continuing strength.”70 Dissident leader Maria Elena Cruz Varela viewed it as a continuation of Cuban history: “First we were a Spanish colony. Then, we became an American colony. Then, we became a Soviet colony. The last thing we need now is to become a colony of Miami’s Cuban exiles.”71 The extensive attention devoted to Mas and the CANF on Radio Martí minimized coverage of Elizardo Sanchez, a Cuban dissident who was incarcerated throughout the 1980s for speaking out about human rights violations on the island. After cofounding the Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation, Sanchez became the dissident “most interviewed by the international media.”72 Castro prohibited Sanchez and other dissidents from organizing within Cuba, neutralizing any attempt the groups might make to take action against the regime and leaving them relatively unknown in their own country.

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People outside Cuba were familiar with Sanchez and other dissident figures because Castro allowed them to leave the island and promote their cause overseas. Sanchez essentially lived in Florida for three and a half months in 1988 after Cuban officials allowed him to visit his wife and two children who lived there. He could have applied for asylum but declined. Miami’s Spanish language radio stations denounced Sanchez as a traitor, stifling any progress the dissident movement could have made among the exile community. Radio Martí was somewhat kinder to Sanchez. It simply ignored him for most of this period until officials at the U.S. Interests Section in Havana said something about the lack of coverage on him.73 After he willingly returned to Cuba, officials arrested and charged Sanchez for “spreading propaganda.” Sanchez further angered Miami’s hard-liners by saying that TV Martí was a foolish idea: “Why is your country spending more than $10 million a year for something that doesn’t work?”74 Sanchez also opposed the Cuban Democracy Act, describing it as “a good demonstration of the [hard-liners’] lack of imagination and intelligence.”75 When Wayne Smith traveled to Cuba and spoke with Sanchez and other dissident leaders, all agreed that the Cuban Democracy Act “was a gravely flawed instrument” and favored dialogue between the two countries.76 Foundation leaders portrayed Sanchez as a shill for Castro, saying that the Cuban government allowed him to protest within a regimented “political space.”77 It did not help that Ramon Cernuda, the target of the 1989 art raid, served as Sanchez’ representative in the United States. Instead of having a dissident like Sanchez replace Castro, Mas and the Foundation would have benefited more from a scenario in which Castro was violently overthrown. Military leaders might turn against each other for control of the island, leading to a civil war in which at least one faction would ask the United States to restore order. Once this was accomplished, the United States could oversee the rebuilding process, opening the door for the Foundation to implement its Blue Ribbon Strategy for Cuba and Jorge Mas Canosa to become president of Cuba. As Wayne Smith said, “It’s the old 1950’s school of CIA thinking about how to get rid of their guy and install our guy,” which was “the only chance for someone like Mas to come to power in Cuba.”78 According to former CANF leader Raul Masvidal, “He [Mas] has said publicly that it is not possible to have Castro overthrown without Cuba going through a period of violence.”79 A year earlier Masvidal had told the Wall Street Journal, “Jorge is desperately looking for the Marines.”80 Even though Mas may have needed the U.S. armed forces to put down post–Castro violence, he still saw the hard-liners as the only ones capable of implementing the transition. In 1994, the Spanish daily newspaper El País published an interview with Mas during which he was asked about the United States government directing Cuba after Castro. “That’s bullshit!” he said. “They haven’t been able to take over Miami. If we have kicked them out here, how can they possibly take over our country.”81

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During a debate with California governor Jerry Brown, WCBS reporter Marcia Kramer asked then presidential candidate Clinton about an experience he may have had with marijuana while attending Oxford University. The governor of Arkansas admitted to taking a puff “a time or two” but made it clear that he “didn’t like it ... didn’t inhale ... and never tried it again.”82 Years later, during his deposition during the Monica Lewinsky scandal, President Clinton would respond to a question by saying, “It depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is,’ is. If is means is and never has been, that’s one thing. If it means, there is none, that was a completely true statement.”83 Clinton applied the same what does he really mean verbal camouflage to his “hammer” statement that generated more than $150,000 from exiles who believed he would maintain a hard-line strategy with Cuba. If putting the hammer down meant taking a hard line against Castro, which the Cuban Democracy Act appeared to do, that’s one thing. If it meant putting the hammer down in the tool box not to use it again, that was a completely true statement. After winning the White House with 32 states and 370 electoral votes, Clinton queried the CIA on the likelihood of Castro falling during his first term. The agency said the odds were better than 50 –50, prompting the White House to implement changes to facilitate an easier transition The new administration began “emphasizing parts [of the Cuban Democracy Act] that improved links with Cuba, rather than the punitive portions.”84 These were the law’s Track II elements that were included to counter the negativity generated by the Track I elements. Ricardo Nuccio, an advisor on Latin America, met with Cuban moderates to discuss Track II strategies. Clinton established connections with these other Cuban Americans through Maria Arias, the wife of the first lady’s younger brother Hugh Rodham. Arias came from a wealthy family in Cuba that arrived in the United States when she was two. She opposed lifting the embargo but was not part of the core anti–Castro movement and less insistent on maintaining the status quo than the CANF was.85 The Foundation initially viewed Nuccio as an ally because he was an aide to Robert Torricelli and helped write the Cuban Democracy Act. The relationship changed after Nuccio organized the Track II discussions, which the Foundation shunned. According to Nuccio, the decision was theirs: “I wasn’t excluding them.... They were excluding themselves” from the meetings.86 Other actions suggested that Clinton was advocating a Track II strategy. The White House allowed U.S. telephone companies to improve their links to Cuba and split profits from long distance charges with the Cuban government, somewhat neutralizing the economic impact of the embargo.87 When more than 40,000 Cubans were diagnosed with a “mystery disease” that caused muscles to spasm, the administration allowed scientists from the Centers for Disease Control to visit the island and examine patients. In July, the Washington Post quoted Cuban expert Jorge Dominguez of the international policy organization

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Inter-American Dialogue as saying, “If you add all the steps together, they do amount to something.”88 In the meantime, the situation on the island was becoming more desperate. Supplies of food, fuel, paper, and all other resources decreased every day and were not likely to be replenished as long as the United States maintained the embargo. In May of 1993, the New York Times said that five dissident organizations in Cuba had contacted President Clinton and argued that the United States must engage Cuba to avoid a “chaotic transition.”89 Elizardo Sanchez pleaded with the United States to lift the embargo and defuse the situation in Cuba, which he described as “a volcano waiting to explode.”90 Jorge Mas Canosa continued to use Radio Martí to promote himself and the Foundation’s agenda. When Cuba held elections for the national assembly for the first time during Castro’s regime, Jorge Mas Canosa went on Radio Martí and “more than a dozen other radio stations” for two weeks and encouraged Cubans to show their disapproval for the Castro regime by submitting “spoiled” ballots. Florida governor Lawton Chiles also appeared on Radio Martí, asking voters to submit the name of a dead Miami exile leader.91 The impact was limited. According to the Cuban Election Commission, 7.2 percent of the ballots were spoiled. In May of 1993, 62 of Radio Martí’s 100 employees in Washington, D.C., sent a letter to Joseph Duffey, the new USIA Director, requesting that the Clinton administration do what the Bush administration did not, curb the hardliners’ influence.92 In a separate complaint, senior research analyst Richard Planas cited 210 specific instances of “politicization within Radio Martí.”93 It was also during this time that the inspector general for the USIA was investigating claims that Augustin Alles and other Radio Martí employees were not qualified for their positions.94 Clinton consciously avoided offending Little Havana by overtly easing sanctions or calling for changes at Radio and TV Martí. A month into the administration, the White House announced that it would reduce funding for Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty but had no plans to cut funds for Radio or TV Martí.95 The Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) replaced the Board for International Broadcasting and created a new hierarchy that consolidated broadcasting entities. Government restructuring during the Clinton administration would eventually move the OCB from under the authority of VOA. Clinton waived his right to appoint new members to the Advisory Board for Cuba Broadcasting and allowed the existing board members, carryovers from a Republican administration, to remain. This included Jorge Mas Canosa as chair even though his three-year term should have ended at the end of the Reagan administration.96 By allowing the board to remain intact, the president neglected the most obvious way to address the problems at the OCB. According to former Radio Martí news director Jay Mallin, the board had become a virtual “rubber stamp,” because the eight other members supported whatever Mas wanted.97

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Ileana Ros-Lehtinen won reelection easily in 1990, taking 60 percent of the vote against Democrat Bernard Anscher.98 The campaign was relatively calm, primarily because Ros-Lehtinen refused to debate Anscher.99 Two years later, Florida’s state officials had gerrymandered Ileana Ros-Lehtinen’s 18th district so that 51 percent of the population was Republican and 39 percent was Democrat.100 The black population had been substantially reduced, leaving the 18th district 67 percent Hispanic.101 Ros-Lehtinen’s 1992 opponent, exile lawyer Magda Montiel Davis, favored easing restrictions on travel to Cuba and exchanges of food and medicine. With appeals of “Aren’t you tired of being manipulated?” and “Have the courage to vote for a change,” Davis hoped to rally the timid dialogueros in the district.102 She was handicapped by her husband, lawyer Ira Kurzban, who defended Cuba’s central bank in U.S. courts.103 The combination of her stance on Cuba and Kurzban’s business relationship earned her bomb threats and labels as Communista or Castrista. Ros-Lehtinen refused to debate Davis in English and accused her of having ties to the Castro regime.104 She won with 66 percent of the vote, dispelling the myth that the exile community would be willing to accept a moderate approach for Cuba.105 Realizing that any attempt to unseat Ros-Lehtinen would fail, the Democrats did not even challenge her for Florida’s 18th District from 1994 through 2000. The hard-line exiles increased their representation in the House with the election of Lincoln Diaz-Balart, whose family has been described as the “Cuban Kennedys.” Lincoln’s grandfather served in the Cuban house of representatives and worked as counsel to United Fruit. His father, Rafael Diaz-Balart, served as the majority leader in Cuba’s house of representatives. As a law student at the University of Havana, Rafael Diaz-Balart roomed with Fidel Castro and introduced Fidel to his sister Mirta, who became Castro’s wife in 1948. Seven years later, when Castro was incarcerated at the Isle of Pines, Mirta filed for divorce and Rafael gave a speech in the Cuban Congress that said Fidel should not be granted amnesty. The Diaz-Balarts were out of the country on January 1, 1959, when Batista fled Cuba. Rebels burned and looted the family estate. During Castro’s first month in power, Rafael started la Rosa Blanca (the White Rose), the first organization to oppose the new regime.106 The Diaz-Balarts’ ties to Castro were undeniable yet they hated him, characteristic of the division that characterizes many Cuban families.107 Lincoln, who has the same birthday as Fidel Castro, is the second oldest of Rafael Diaz-Balart’s four children, all boys. Lincoln began as a legal-aid lawyer, served as Florida assistant state attorney, was elected to Florida’s house in 1987, and replaced Ros-Lehtinen in the Florida senate in 1989. In 1992 he won Florida’s 21st District, one of four House seats Florida gained after the 1990 census and congressional redistricting. Cubans dominated the 21st, a fact that convinced the Democrats not to challenge Diaz-Balart in 1992 and the two subsequent elections.

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Robert Menendez was born in the United States to Cuban refugees who fled Batista. At the age of 19, Menendez successfully petitioned to reform the school board for Union City, New Jersey, which has a substantial Cuban population. After holding several positions at the local and state levels, Menendez was elected to represent New Jersey’s 14th District in the U.S. House of Representatives. As a Democrat, he was somewhat distanced from Ros-Lehtinen and Diaz-Balart on many issues but agreed with them that a hard-line strategy for Cuba was necessary. The three officials formed the hard-line movement’s new nucleus in Congress, replacing Dante Fascell, who did not seek reelection in 1992. They became strong advocates for Radio and TV Martí, crucial for the stations that had become targets for budget cuts as the United States progressed through the post–Cold War era. Joining the Cubans were Torricelli, Graham and other non– Cuban officials who had been courted by the CANF and had declared their loyalty to La Causa. Since 1979, the Cuban lobby had distributed close to a million and a half dollars to political candidates, which had created a solid foundation by the 1990s.108 The hard-liners’ influence on Capitol Hill was obvious in the summer of 1993 when Colorado representative David Skaggs tired to pull the plug on TV Martí, which he described as “the propaganda equivalent of the Hindenburg.”109 Skaggs modified an appropriations bill for FY 1994 to make the stations’ funding contingent on an analysis conducted by the Advisory Panel on Radio Martí and TV Martí (not to be confused with the advisory board). The advisory panel was a temporary entity consisting of three independent consultants knowledgeable about “government information and broadcasting programs, broadcast journalism, journalistic ethics, and the technical aspects of radio and television broadcasting.”110 The panel was required to consider (a) the broadcasts’ compliance with USIA standards for objectivity and quality, (b) the cost-effectiveness of the programs, (c) the availability of other “credible sources” on the island and (d) the “technically sound” question surrounding TV Martí and whether it was “consistently being received by a sufficient Cuban audience to warrant its continuation.” Based on the panel’s evaluation, USIA director Joseph Duffey would determine if the broadcasts operated in the best interests of the United States.111 When the bill reached the House floor, Lincoln Diaz-Balart, having been on the Hill about seven months, warned Skaggs about eliminating funding for the Martís. As Skaggs said, “He [Diaz-Balart] did not intend to threaten me, but that if I followed through with my plans, he would do all he could to go after everything he could find that was important to me.... I told Mr. DiazBalart that I planned to proceed with my challenge to Radio Martí funding.”112 Diaz-Balart launched a counteroffensive by calling for the elimination of more than $61 million in funding for the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), about half of which had been designated for offices in

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Skaggs’ district. The CANF issued a press release that documented Diaz-Balart’s retribution against Skaggs and faxed it to “every major newspaper in Colorado.”113 It read as follows: Colorado Rep. David Skaggs’ opposition to peaceful U.S. radio broadcasting to Cuba has apparently cost his district $23 million in federal funds. The money was earmarked to build a National Institute of Standards and Technology facility at a Boulder-area university. During today’s House debate on the fiscal year 1994 appropriations bill, Mr. Skaggs announced his intention to eliminate $8.7 million in Federal funds for the continuation of Radio Martí.114

The Senate received the bill a few weeks later and restored funding. When House and Senate officials met in a conference committee, Skaggs compromised, allowing $9 million to be restored for Radio Martí and $7 million for TV Martí. The committee agreed to withhold $5 million and $2.5 million for each station respectively until the panel issued its report in July. Skaggs also managed to retrieve the money that had been taken from the NIST.115 Officials at the U.S. Interests Section bolstered Skaggs’ argument with their own unofficial study. For 11 days in August and September, workers with portable Watchman television receivers roamed a “sparsely populated” area about 15 miles west of Havana and found that the “window for TV Martí broadcasts is tiny.”116 The receivers picked up the station’s audio signal in some areas but only for brief periods. They noted that the video component “becomes clearer toward the center of the area but is never good.”117 Observers saw that the signal for WTVT-TV, Tampa’s CBS affiliate, on channel 13 (the same channel TV Martí was using) had “excellent reception.”118 President Clinton appointed broadcasting executive Peter Straus to head the panel that would investigate Radio and TV Martí. Straus, who had served as director of VOA from 1977 to 1980, planned to conduct some of the research in Havana to “analyze the cost benefit in light of a new post–Soviet world.”119 Straus and Clinton would cross paths again. In 1998, Straus married Marcia Lewis, mother of Monica Lewinsky.120 In a statement to the panel, Ernesto Betancourt said, “USIA has practically abdicated control of the stations to an exile group,” and, “a key foreign policy instrument is being subordinated to political considerations.”121 Richard Planas cited more than 50 instances of unprofessional conduct including the following: • A disproportionate number of favorable to unfavorable stories on the anniversary of the Cuban Democracy Act. • Implementation of a policy that prohibited Radio Martí from broadcasting any negative information about exile leaders. • Distortion of words of the president of the European parliament to make it sound as if he criticized Fidel Castro when he actually criticized the U.S. embargo.

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These strikes against Radio and TV Martí seemed to make the Advisory Panel’s evaluation a foregone conclusion and seal the fate of TV Martí. On the contrary, instead of critiquing TV Martí’s delivery, the panel collaborated with OCB officials to develop solutions to improve the station’s delivery. The panel’s report, released in March, was relatively positive for Radio Martí, allowing its funding to be fully restored but suggesting that both stations de-emphasize events in Little Havana. It also conceded that jamming presented a problem for TV Martí, resulting in about 4 percent of Cubans ever seeing the station and even then only in “fleeting glimpses.”123 In spite of this, the panel called for TV Martí to remain on the air: “Abolishing it would not only give Fidel Castro a cheap and useful propaganda victory and bolster voices claiming that the United States has lost its will, it would also send a message to the Cuban people that this country is not prepared to make every reasonable effort so that the people of this hemisphere enjoy basic human rights.”124 The report recommended that the station overcome jamming by switching to a UHF channel, actually three UHF channels, requiring Castro to have jamming transmitters for three different signals. Any attempt to dodge the jamming by switching between the three would frustrate the audience as much as Castro. There was also the stark reality that a UHF signal would be easier to jam and Cuban receivers would need antennas to pick up the signal. John Spicer Nichols knew that a UHF signal would not improve TV Martí’s prospects to reach Cuba: “They’re trying to defy the laws of physics. I don’t think they’re going to be successful.”125 More than a year after Skaggs first called for an investigation, USIA Director Joseph Duffey agreed with the panel’s recommendation and called for TV Martí to begin broadcasting on UHF. Duffey ignored the recommendation to

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rotate the chairmanship of the Advisory Board for Cuba Broadcasting. This would have minimized Mas’ role in operations at the OCB, which the Panel acknowledged as exceeding boundaries. Years later, Saul Landau of the Monthly Review would say that both Duffey and President Clinton “privately claimed to detest everything Mas stood for, but lacked the courage to confront him.”126 Skaggs said Clinton was protecting his political clout in Florida: “Joe works for Bill, and Bill said we’re going to fund this.... I think the administration is captive to its own political commitments in Florida and has to play out its commitment to its illogical conclusion.”127 Not long after Duffey signed off on TV Martí’s conversion to UHF, Montana Senator Max Baucus submitted his own amendment that would have terminated funding for TV Martí.128 He withdrew it after Florida senator Connie Mack modified it to include language that denounced Fidel Castro.129 TV Martí supporters went further by secretly augmenting the station’s budget for FY 1994 and 1995 by $1.2 million to facilitate the conversion to UHF.130 Richard Lobo’s presence at the Office of Cuba Broadcasting weakened the argument that Mas and the CANF had absolute control over Radio and TV Martí. In February of 1994, Clinton named Lobo as OCB director, a position that had been vacant since Antonio Navarro resigned at the end of the Bush administration.131 Lobo began as a reporter interviewing the likes of Malcolm X, Robert F. Kennedy, and Fidel Castro. As a reporter at Miami’s WSVN-TV, Lobo worked on Latin American issues and helped the station earn a Peabody Award. He was station manager of WNBC-TV and president of Miami’s WTVJTV, where the station earned DuPont, Edward R. Murrow, and Peabody awards for its coverage of Hurricane Andrew. As the grandson of prerevolution Cuban immigrants, Lobo had a distant connection to the island, making his La Causa passion less than that of the hard-liners in the CANF. Lobo began airing congressional hearings of Cuba-related issues, the first being a March 17 meeting on the Free Trade with Cuba Act. The broadcast prominently featured an outspoken Democrat, Chairman Charles Rangel, the New York representative who sponsored the bill and was a distinct CANF enemy. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Lincoln Diaz-Balart spoke during the hearing in favor of the embargo. 132 Mas (who also testified), Rolando Bonachea and Augustin Alles strongly opposed airing the live hearings but were overruled by Bruce Sherman, Radio Martí’s deputy director. Sherman would later claim that Mas “applied pressure on OCB management” to minimize his influence at Radio Martí because of his consistent “pointing out problems with Mr. Alles.”133 After little more than a month on the job, Lobo created an entirely new controversy by calling for the elimination of four positions in the research department. Lobo regarded the researchers as a “luxury” that no longer served a purpose. Just five years earlier, an OCB document claimed that audience research played a crucial role in broadcasting to Cuba:

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Radio Martí’s Office of Audience Research is an indispensable feedback mechanism providing independent and objective evaluation of the station’s effectiveness as an alternate source of news for the Cuban people. Since 1987, Audience Research has reported to the Director of Radio Martí, enabling the station’s managers to quickly tailor their broadcasts in a way that reflect the greatest needs of the Cuban audience. In addition, the Office of Audience Research is being used to gather data about Cuban television audience habits and tastes-information which is crucial to the success of TV Martí.134

Another section of this same 1989 document also seemed to contradict the argument that audience research was a luxury: “In the coming year this office plans to diversify its research and survey data to include input about TV Martí’s impact, signal strength and program preferences. In order to accomplish this and other goals, Audience Research hopes to increase the number of qualified personnel on its staff.”135 The fired analysts claimed that they were targeted for producing studies that showed declining audience numbers. One of the four was Ricardo Planas, the whistle-blower who complained to Joseph Puffy and gave the Advisory Board on Radio and TV Martí more than 50 instances of wrongdoing. Lobo claimed that he was merely executing a plan that had already been set in motion. Bonachea and other OCB department heads claimed that the plans to downsize originated the previous year to comply with Vice President Gore’s National Performance Review for Reinventing Government.136 They also predicted that the researchers would call the move to downsize an act of retribution.137 The conflict was a topic of discussion on other Miami radio broadcasts that included “vicious on-air attacks” against the analysts, made by none other than Alles and Bonachea.138 In the months that followed, the analysts’ claims of retribution were validated when Kristin Juffer, another researcher, was treated in a similar manner. Juffer said that research produced by Tony Rivera, a close friend of Jorge Mas Canosa, inflated TV Martí’s audience numbers during its 90-day test period. Juffer claimed that Rivera’s study was “so flawed as to render the data to be meaningless” and claimed that Rivera was an insider for Mas:139 “Rivera is generally regarded by many at Radio Martí, as Jorge Mas Canosa’s ‘Right Hand Man.’ Rivera frequently accompanies Mas Canosa, has an open telephone line to him, and although he is employed by Radio Martí to gather information and intelligence on happenings in Cuba and on Cuba émigrés, he also regularly funnels such information and intelligence to Mas Canosa.”140 Juffer collected additional data in December 1991 and April 1992 that showed a decline in ratings for Radio Martí and no audience for TV Martí. Bonachea ordered Juffer not to release these results and tasked her with conducting a “signal strength survey” to determine how strong some Miami radio stations were when they reached Cuba. Jorge Mas Canosa had a “financial interest” in two of the stations.141 Bonachea eventually reassigned Juffer to USIA Research, somewhat dis-

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tanced from the Office of Cuba Broadcasting. She said, “I believe I was removed from my position so that Rivera could once again control and ‘cook’ the audience data, and once again mislead Congress.”142 While at USIA Research, more than 100 of Juffer’s files, most of them dealing with the 1991 and 1992 surveys, were somehow lost or deleted from two of her computers. Two months later, Lobo told Juffer that her position had been eliminated.

CHAPTER TEN

Mixed Messages Between stimulus and response is our greatest power — the freedom to choose.1 — Stephen R. Covey in Chapter 1, “Be Proactive,” in The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People

On May 28, 1994, a group of Cubans entered the Belgian ambassador’s residence in Havana and demanded asylum. This was not an unusual action in Cuba. In the four years prior, similar incidents had occurred at the Belgian embassy as well as the embassies of Spain, Czech Republic, Switzerland, Canada, and Mexico. What made the May 28 event unique was the number of asylum seekers, 125, which was noticeably larger than the dozen or so in the other attempts and more likely to inspire others to take similar action. The asylum seekers issued a statement with more than 100 signatures to Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Lincoln Diaz-Balart that described the situation in Cuba as “desperate” and said their only options were “living indefinitely in chaos and poverty or risking their lives on rafts.”2 The group sent another letter to Pope John Paul II stating their intention to take their own lives if forced to leave their newfound sanctuary.3 A week later, more than 60 people hijacked a freighter from Mariel and headed for Florida. The U.S. Coast Guard found the ship about 70 miles southwest of Key West and brought it to shore. The passengers appeared on Miami radio station WCMQ-FM and described how Cuban authorities pursued them: “They kept shooting at us. We showed them the children, they still kept shooting. We shouted: ‘One of them is dead,’ and they still kept shooting. At one point they threw ropes to try to drag us in; we cut the rope to get loose again.”4 Shortly after 3:00 A.M. on July 13, seventy two people boarded the tugboat 13 de Marzo (13th of March— not to be confused with the date of the incident) and left the port of Havana.5 Averaging almost 10 miles-per-hour, the tug traveled seven miles in 45 minutes. It was then that four Cuban gunboats closed in and hit the vessel with high-pressure water cannons. As in the previous incident, women stood on the deck holding their children to show that they meant no harm. The force of the water cannons “tore the clothes off the women and knocked them down, and forced the children out of their arms.”6 The Cuban 148

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vessels proceeded to ram the 13 de Marzo, causing it to break apart. The four boats then circled the wreckage, creating a whirlpool that pulled passengers, dead and alive, below the surface. Of the 72 original passengers, 41 died. The youngest victim was six months old. Those lucky enough to survive clung to bodies devoid of life until retrieved by Cuban coast guard cutters.7 According to Michael Skol, an official in the State Department, Radio Martí’s coverage of the 13 de Marzo forced the Castro government to acknowledge the incident.8 Radio Rebelde did so the following day but downplayed the horror: At approximately 3:00 A.M. this morning, anti-social elements took the March 13th tugboat from Havana harbor’s Occidental Terminal. In an attempt to leave the country the boat capsized seven miles from the coast. State vessels and coast guard authorities managed to rescue 31 people; 20 men, 5 women, and 6 minors. But there are still an undetermined number of people missing. Our competent authorities continue to investigate this matter.9

Ten days after the incident, the Cuban newspaper Granma published a story titled “Bitter Lesson for the Irresponsible” in which 13 de Marzo survivors seemed to exonerate Cuban authorities. The story quoted the captain of the 13 de Marzo, who admitted fault: I hit him stern first, but they moved away avoiding the collision. They were moving, it seemed, as if they were taking care of us. Then I was able to head out to open sea.”10 Granma acknowledged that the Cuban vessels used water cannons, but only to “neutralize the smokestack” of the 13 de Marzo to save the passengers from sinking. According to Cuban officials, the boat was “115-years-old,” making it safe for use “only within port waters.”11 Another survivor, seemed to validate this claim in the Granma article: “It was too old and made of wood. I thought that it would not hold up, a few miles more and what happened would have happened anyway. When we were discovered we should have turned around or turned the engine off; many deaths would have been avoided.”12 Others seemed to contradict the charge that the Cuban officials failed to rescue those in the water. “They threw us lifejackets and that saved us. I do not believe that we would have reached our destination. There were children who only do as they are told by their parents. I reproach the parents for taking their children on such an adventure.”13 In a report on the incident released a year later, Amnesty International said that it believed the statements “were made under duress” and expressed “serious reasons to doubt the official version of events.”14 The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights of the Organization of American States, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Cuba, and the archbishop of Havana also condemned the actions of the Cuban government.15 Cuban officials restricted mourners’ efforts to attend memorial services or express grief. Even the simple act of “throwing flowers into the sea” was prohibited because such an act was reserved for “martyrs of the Revolution.”16

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In spite of the Cuban government’s efforts to camouflage the sinking of the 13 de Marzo, Cubans were aware that the country was on the verge of collapse. A month after the 13 de Marzo sinking, 700 Cubans boarded a Maltese tanker in Mariel only to abandon the ship a day later.17 Some exiles in Miami paid $2,000 to $6,000 for smugglers to get their relatives off the island.18 One Hialeah exile and his son took a fishing boat to Gibara on the island’s northeast coast and smuggled 15 waiting relatives off the island.19Another person was dusting crops in the central part of the island before diverting his biplane to Saga La Grande, where he picked up 13 others who had spent the night in some bushes. One of the 13 happened to be pregnant.20 Castro appeared on Cuban television and blamed the United States for creating the migration crisis and said that the Clinton administration was liable for its outcome: “Massive emigration has been taking place in planes, boats, rafts.... They have created the conditions that led to it.... Let them spend the fuel and not us. Let them use all their boats. That’s fine. That’s their responsibility.”21 Although Castro never officially declared the border to be open as he did with Camarioca in 1965 and Mariel in 1980, the message moved quickly through word of mouth that, with the exception of hijacked vessels, departures would not be stopped. Cuban officials ignored the departing balseros who spoke about and planned their departures openly.22 A balsa trip would normally require two or three years of gathering materials, physical conditioning, and studying how to survive in the open sea.23 The window for Cubans to leave unmolested was open for an undetermined amount of time, which heightened demand for quality building materials.24 Tires and inner tubes lashed together was a common design. More desperate balseros were left with Styrofoam, scraps of wood, and twine. One group of balseros ended their journey and returned to the island after a more desperate group attacked them for their oars, compass, and water.25 Balsas without balseros washed ashore as far away as North Carolina, Texas, and Venezuela.26 Objects left behind told stories of hope and despair: unopened cans of food, pictures of people one would assume are loved ones, and cards with phone numbers of relatives in Miami. Many rafts included some representation of the La Virgen de Caridad (the Virgin of Charity), the patron saint of Cuba and balseros.27 The Transit Home and Museum in Key West is a shrine to Cuban balseros and displays many of the objects recovered from balsas. One of the most popular items is the carcass of a firefly, which served as the only source of light for one group of balseros. Wihthout the insect they would have been unable to read their compass in the dark and would have had no sense of direction without the bug. The balseros survived but the firefly did not, despite the efforts of rescuers in Miami to save it: “We started giving him food and he die.... He’s encased, he’s in a frame, because he saved the life of these people.”28

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A University of Havana survey of rafters picked up by Cuban officials found a correlation between the balseros’ confidence in reaching the United States and how frequently they listened to American radio stations. The study found no causal relationship between balseros’ confidence and Radio Martí.29 According to Debra Evenson, author of Revolution in the Balance: Law and Society in Contemporary Cuba, the station had a history of publicizing vessel seizures: “The hijackers were always given a hero’s welcome in Miami, and their feats were broadcast to Cuba ... over Radio Martí.”30 Radio Martí also aired interviews with 13 de Marzo survivors.31 Far more effective than any message disseminated by Radio Martí was the increasing number of vacant homes in Cuba. Islanders raided the homes of balseros, who, successful or not, were not likely to return and would no longer need the possessions they left behind. Cuban officials tried to deter these actions by seizing the property and placing a seal on the entrance.32 Each represented at least one person who had renounced Castro’s revolution. During the Mariel crisis, the Carter administration transferred 18,000 Cuban arrivals to Fort Chaffee, Arkansas. Frustrated with processing delays, more than 1,000 Marielitos rioted and set fire to five wooden buildings on the base. Some escaped and headed into the nearby community of Barling, prompting townspeople to arm themselves. Arkansas governor Bill Clinton ordered the National Guard to the area and authorized them to use tear gas, riot batons, and live ammunition fired “over their heads” to herd the mob back to the camp.33 The White House promised not to send any additional Marielitos to Fort Chaffee only to break the promise, which prompted Clinton to scream at the Carter aide, “You’re fucking me.”34 Arkansas voters blamed Clinton. In that year’s Democratic primary, 31 percent of the population voted for Monroe Schwarzlose, a 78-year-old turkey farmer who had never held political office and garnered only 1 percent of the vote when he ran in 1978. Clinton went on to win his party’s nomination but narrowly lost in November to Republican Frank D. White, who became the second Republican governor of Arkansas since Reconstruction. Two years after becoming the youngest governor in the history of the United States, Clinton was the youngest former governor in the history of the U.S. It was the second and last time Clinton lost an election.35 Fourteen years later, Clinton was president and determined to prevent history from repeating itself: “Castro already cost me one election. He can’t have two.”36 On August 19, 1994, Clinton’s 48th birthday, the president announced that “the people of the entire United States do not want to see another Mariel boatlift.... I’m not going to let that happen again.”37 Instead of bringing Cuban balseros to the United States and putting them on the fast track to U.S. citizenship, each rafter picked up at sea was to be taken to a camp at Guantanamo Naval Base, Panama, the Cayman Islands, or the Bahamas. From there, the White House would see that the refugees were transferred to “safe havens” but

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did not specify what that meant. Any balsero who reached the United States was taken to Krome Detention Center in Miami where their cases were reviewed. “Those who qualify can stay, and those who don’t will not be permitted to,” Clinton said.38 He also restricted exiles’ travel to Cuba and limited the amount of money they could send to relatives on the island.39 Clinton doubled the power of Radio Martí’s main transmitter from 50 to 100 kilowatts and augmented the number of shortwave frequencies on which it broadcasted from six to 10. Announcers renamed the Straits of Florida as “the Straits of Death” and pleaded with rafters not to risk their lives: “You are the future of Cuba. You should not die in the ocean.”40 The station aired a Spanish translation of Clinton’s speech, and reiterated that balseros would be held “until final determination.”41 Clinton’s actions did not stop the exodus. Balseros wagered that those incarcerated at Guantanamo and the other camps would eventually be allowed to enter the United States and continued to throw themselves to the sea. The day before Radio Martí began its efforts to discourage balseros, the U.S. Coast Guard picked up 861 balseros. One day after that, the Coast Guard picked up 1,293 followed by 2,548 on day two, and 3,253 on day three.42 According to Philip Peters of the Lexington Institute, some broadcasts implied that the U.S. general public wanted people brought to the mainland rather than detained.43 Radio Martí and Miami’s other Spanish-language radio stations maintained lists of arrivals at the camps, read them over the air and posted printed copies outside the studios.44 Any balsero known to have left but who did not appear on a list was presumed dead. It took about a week for information about loved ones to reach the island, slow but still faster than the months it took letters to travel from the camps.45 The crisis ended after the United States agreed to allow a minimum of 20,000 Cubans to emigrate legally every year in exchange for Cuba agreeing “to prevent unsafe departures.”46 Under the 1984 immigration agreement, restored in 1987, the United States agreed to permit a maximum of 20,000 Cuban visas a year. From 1984 to 1994, the United States had issued only 11,000 visas for Cubans “due to competing demands from would-be immigrants worldwide.”47 As the balsero crisis subsided, Radio Martí shifted its focus to rumors about the fate of refugees detained at the camps. In January of 1995, the White House announced that some detainees at Guantanamo would be admitted to the United States under certain conditions. Jorge Mas Canosa went on Radio Martí and said that all detainees at Guantanamo would be admitted. The station carried the statement of one woman who said, “I feel happy and joyful knowing that I will not die in this camp in Guantanamo, that my grandchildren will be able to leave as well as other children and all rafters.”48 Mas’ incorrect statement was repeated 12 times. Radio Martí spent most of the following day correcting the error.49 Public opinion had turned against Bill Clinton and the Democrats during

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his first two years in the White House. The shift was not attributable to the balsero crisis but other public issues, including the implementation of the unpopular Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy for homosexuals in the U.S. military, a failed attempt to implement universal health care coverage, and a failed humanitarian military operation in Somalia that resulted in the death of 19 U.S. soldiers. In the 1994 mid-term elections, Republicans picked up 54 seats in the House of Representatives and nine in the Senate, giving them a majority in both. This allowed North Carolina senator Jesse Helms to become chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which increased the CANF’s leverage on Capitol Hill. Helms was a CANF ally with a record of supporting the Contras, UNITA in Angola, and of course Radio and TV Martí. On February 9, 1995, Helms introduced the Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity (LIBERTAD) Act, a law consisting of three different sections designed “to elevate the pressure on Castro.”50 At a press conference introducing the bill, the first legislative item he submitted as chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Helms said that removing Castro was “high on my list of priorities.” Helms faced reelection the following year and needed CANF support, which he was guaranteed to receive after appealing directly to the exiles’ La Causa passion: “Let me be clear: Whether Castro leaves Cuba in a vertical or horizontal position is up to him and the Cuban people. But he must —and will—leave Cuba.”51 The first section of the bill, Title I, consisted of a series of policies designed to hinder Cuba’s economic capabilities. Some Title I elements were only recommendations rather than mandates. One of the mandates was for the USIA director to place TV Martí on a UHF frequency. The mandate to switch TV Martí to UHF the previous year, 1994, had yet to be implemented. Title II prohibited the White House from normalizing relations with Cuba unless it had a “transition” or “democratically elected government.” The law set 18 criteria for the former and seven criteria for the latter. Under Title II, neither Castro brother was allowed to have a leadership position. The most punitive portion of the bill was Title III, which allowed any party in the United States whose property had been seized by the Castro regime to sue foreign companies that traded with Cuba and used the confiscated property. For example, the Castro government nationalized a sugar refinery that had been owned by Coca-Cola. Under Title III, Coca-Cola could sue any foreign company that used sugar from that refinery or any of the refinery’s equipment. Compensation for the claimant would come from assets the violating company had in the United States.52 To further punish Castro, Title III also permitted Cuban exiles nationalized as U.S. citizens to file these claims. Unlike Coca-Cola, ITT, Colgate-Palmolive and other companies that maintained property claims for decades, Cuban exiles could not file such claims because they were not U.S. citizens at the time their property was taken. Expanding the property claims in this manner would drastically increase the number of actions against Cuba.

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Weeks later, lawmakers added Title IV, which called for the United States to deny visas to “spouses, minor children, or agents” of foreign companies that traded with Cuba and used confiscated property described by Title III. Titles III and IV punished those who did not punish Castro. They forced every other business in the world to choose between maintaining a relationship with Cuba, which had a population of 11 million, or the United States, which had 250 million people. Titles III and IV essentially took the unilateral United States’ embargo of Cuba and applied it to every other country in the world. Indiana representative Dan Burton introduced the House version of the Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act. The Republican takeover of the House gave Burton chairmanship of the House Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere. In January 1995, Radio Martí aired Burton’s first hearing as chair. Anyone listening to the broadcast might have been confused about the policy of the United States. One 13 de Marzo survivor who testified grossly misrepresented U.S. policy by telling refugees who might be listening in the camps that “everything will be solved so that they can come here.”53 Instead of correcting the witness to avoid disappointment later, Burton described the words as “eloquent.”54 Ileana Ros-Lehtinen submitted a 100,000-signature petition calling for refugees at Guantanamo and the other camps to be allowed to enter the United States. New Jersey representative Christopher Smith characterized Clinton as a villain for “deputizing” Fidel Castro to control immigration.55 The assistant secretary for Inter-American Affairs from Clinton’s Department of State, Andrew Skol, spoke during the hearing but did not defend the White House against the attacks. A month later, Burton’s committee aired another hearing on Cuba, again carried by Radio Martí, that specifically mentioned the Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act, which had become known as the Helms-Burton Act. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Lincoln Diaz-Balart, and Robert Menendez all argued that strengthening the embargo was the right thing to do. Diaz-Balart claimed that most Cubans wanted the United States to tighten sanctions even further. Jorge Mas Canosa testified and did not specifically endorse the Helms-Burton Act but did support the idea of punishing companies that engaged in business with Cuba.56 The rhetoric disseminated by Radio Martí contradicted White House goals. Clinton’s advisors recommended lifting travel and remittance sanctions he put in place at the height of the balsero crisis. The administration was also considering implementing a “calibrated response” if Castro agreed to terms set forth by the United States.57 At a press briefing, White House spokesperson Mike McCurry downplayed the conciliatory moves by claiming that the president was acting “pursuant to the Cuban Democracy Act,” the same 1992 law that allowed Clinton to take a Track II approach while appearing to be a hard-liner. McCurry referred to the law six times, three of which came during one response. One reporter saw that the hard-line rhetoric seemed inconsistent with the strat-

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egy being implemented. “Maybe I’m ignorant, but I didn’t understand your answer. ... Are we continuing to put the screws to Cuba, or aren’t we?” he asked. McCurry responded, “Absolutely. We’ve got an economic embargo in place.”58 In the meantime, the United States was spending about $14 dollars a day to house each balsero in refugee camps where conditions continued to deteriorate.59 In one camp where officials did not segregate male and female residents, 55 of the 275 women (20 percent) were pregnant.60 Most of the pregnancies were intentional. Pregnancy was a medical condition that could earn the expecting parents a one-way ticket to the United States. “There are women who want to have a child by anybody,” the New York Times reported.61 One refugee whose wife left him for another man in the camp tried to hang himself but failed. After treating the man at the camp, authorities offered to transfer him to the United States for additional care. Although he declined the opportunity because his estranged wife was not allowed to leave with him, other detainees saw that suicide, or at least attempted suicide, could be a ticket out.62 The February 6, 1995, Miami Herald reported that there had been a dozen bona fide suicide attempts at Guantanamo and 29 “suicide gestures.”63 Hangings and overdoses of prescription medication were common. One man injected his foot with diesel fuel, another his penis and testicles with Tabasco sauce.64 Refugees at the Panama camp scaled a chain link fence and maneuvered through the razor wire on top to slip into the jungle. To deter similar departures, camp workers said that there were dangerous animals in the wilderness beyond. It didn’t work. One of the refugees said, “If we weren’t afraid of the sea, we aren’t going to be afraid of a snake or panther in that jungle.”65 Some escaped and returned. Others vandalized U.S. military vehicles. Two balseros drowned trying to swim the Panama Canal.66 It was just as deadly at Guantanamo, which had one of the world’s largest landmines on its perimeter.67 At least 40 Cubans avoided the devices and successfully defected to the base. A few were maimed making the attempt. More than 20 refugees successfully escaped the camp and reentered Cuba. A landmine killed at least one.68 On May 2, 1995, Clinton tried to solve the refugee problem by backpedaling. Instead of being sent to “safe havens,” the incarcerated balseros would gradually be admitted to the United States, filling most of the 20,000 slots allocated for Cuban immigrants for the entire year.69 To further demagnetize the United States, Clinton implemented the “wet foot/dry foot” policy, which was similar to the policy he implemented during the balsero crisis at the end of the previous summer. Any Cuban that reached U.S. soil — having dry feet — would be put on the fast track to citizenship in accordance with the 1966 Cuban Adjustment Act. Any Cuban picked up at sea — having wet feet — would be sent to Guantanamo, not for transfer to a safe haven but rather to be repatriated to

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Cuba. Any Cubans entering Guantanamo directly from Cuba would also be repatriated.70 The policy angered CANF leaders because negotiations had been taking place since September of 1994 without their knowledge. Jorge Mas Canosa retaliated by withdrawing the Foundation’s pledge to help fund the resettlement of refugees in the United States: “They made this policy alone. Let them now solve the problems of Guantanamo alone. We don’t feel any other obligations to this administration.”71 Just 36 hours after the announcement of the new policy, the Royal Caribbean’s ship Majesty of the Seas picked up 13 balseros about 40 miles from the Cayman Islands. Foundation leaders contacted the ship’s captain and requested that the refugees be released in Jamaica, the closest port of call. A U.S. Coast Guard vessel intercepted the liner and took the 13, who were eventually returned to Cuba.72 Cuban Americans followed Foundation leaders’ calls to demonstrate across from the White House and disrupt rush hour traffic in Miami. According to the Spanish daily El País, Radio Martí’s coverage of the events echoed the Foundation’s disapproval of the policy change.73 Joseph Sullivan, an official at the U.S. Interests Section in Havana, said the station was “causing difficulties” for personnel in Cuba. One official had been identified as “collaborating” with the Castro regime. Sullivan complained to USIA director Joseph Duffey, who then pressed OCB Director Richard Lobo to use “some judgment with respect to accuracy and objectivity.”74 The next day, the New York Times published “Radio Martí Advances No Agenda on Cuba,” which was actually Lobo’s response to a story about Jorge Mas Canosa and his control over U.S. policy that had appeared on the front page of the newspaper 12 days earlier. As evidence of the station’s objectivity, Lobo cited Radio Martí’s live coverage of hearings on the United States’ Cuba policy by New York representative Charles Rangel, a staunch opponent of the embargo and TV Martí.75 Richard Lobo resigned six days later, citing frustration over trying to implement the April 1994 restructuring plan that called for the elimination of the four research positions.76 Rolando Bonachea took over as interim head. The White House tried to regain control of Radio Martí. In June, Duffey removed Augustin Alles from his position.77 A study by the USIA inspector general released a month later found that Jorge Mas Canosa exercised excessive influence over operations at the Office of Cuba Broadcasting. In August, the Baltimore Sun said that the White House was considering bringing in an entirely new Advisory Board on Broadcasting to Cuba. Of the nine seats on the board, eight were held by members whose terms had expired and the remaining position had been held by a member who died in March.78 Originally appointed to a three-year term at Radio Martí’s inception, Mas’ tenure on the board should have expired in the previous decade.79 Former Florida represen-

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tative and Martí supporter Dante Fascell was expected to replace Jorge Mas Canosa.80 In September, Richard Nuccio, Clinton’s advisor on Cuban Affairs, addressed the West Point Society of South Florida and advocated an internal transition for Cuba: “The next president of Cuba is already on the island. I don’t know who he or she is, but I do believe that the future of Cuba will ultimately be determined by those currently living in Cuba, in the same way that the present in Eastern Europe is being shaped by those whose voices were once suppressed.”81 Nuccio then proceeded to denounce the hard-liners’ latest effort to squeeze Castro: The Helms/Burton bill, currently before the Congress and supported by a number of representatives from South Florida, would in its current form damage prospects for a peaceful democratic transition. It’s anyone’s guess whether Helms/Burton will make it through both houses of Congress, but unless it is significantly changed in the process it will not have the Administration’s support.82

Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Peter Tarnoff questioned the legality of the bill: “When a state expropriates property within its own borders belonging to its own national[s], the United States has no recognized basis under international claims law for asserting a connection to the state’s action.”83 From July to September, more than 20 newspapers around the country called for Clinton to end the embargo or reject Helms-Burton.84 The United Nations voted 117 to 3 (with 38 abstentions) to oppose any effort to limit trade with Cuba. In a letter to Congress, the European Union politely warned, “The collective effects of these provisions have the potential to cause grave and damaging effects to bilateral E.U.–U.S. relations.”85 Even U.S. companies like Coca-Cola, Texaco, and ITT, who lost property and would be eligible to file under Title III, opposed it. They knew that the number of claims would skyrocket, jeopardizing the likelihood that they would ever be compensated for their losses: “We drown in a pool of Cuban-American claims.”86 The negative publicity surrounding Title III overshadowed the impact of Title II. Requiring Castro to meet certain conditions listed in the bill as a prerequisite to ease sanctions converted the embargo of Cuba from a policy that could be relaxed “by simply revoking the executive orders that originally imposed it” to a law that could not be changed by Clinton or any subsequent president even if they wanted to.87 Once enacted, lifting the embargo would require Castro to meet the conditions outlined in the bill, which was not likely to occur, or Congress to repeal the law. Clinton’s advisors viewed Title II as too restrictive. The only relevant party outside the United States that seemed to endorse Helms-Burton was Fidel Castro. The bill seemed to galvanize support for him just as the failed Bay of Pigs invasion had done more than 30 years earlier. As Castro said, “It is something so stupid that we were almost about to send a

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telegram to Helms and Burton and tell them: ‘Hey, thanks very much. You are really helping us.’”88 Although the House of Representatives passed Helms-Burton 294 to 130, it was unlikely to pass the Senate where it faced a filibuster. Even after hardline allies removed the controversial Titles III and IV, Clinton seemed unlikely to support it. In October of 1995, Clinton signed an executive order that called for the United States to waive the travel license requirements for Cuban exiles visiting the island once a year for humanitarian reasons and relaxed travel restrictions for academics, intellectuals, and religious organizations.89 To make it easier for exiles to send money to relatives still on the island, Clinton gave permission for Western Union to open offices in Cuba.90 The White House also permitted U.S. news organizations to open bureaus on the island.91 At a press conference announcing the changes, White House officials reiterated that the actions did not signal a weakening of the embargo and were consistent with the Cuban Democracy Act. Less obvious was the White House’s decision to allow companies to sign letters of intent to trade with Cuba. At least a dozen companies developed a strategy to rebuild Cuba just as the CANF had done with its Blue Ribbon Commission a few years earlier.92 The White House also allowed more than 40 individuals from U.S. corporations interested in normalizing relations with Cuba to visit the island. The administration bypassed the embargo’s restriction on such discussions by designating the travelers as journalists. Kansas senator Bob Dole, a Republican presidential hopeful, said the moves “point to normalization, and secret negotiations with Castro.”93 The Cuban leader donned a suit instead of his traditional military uniform when he met with U.S. business leaders in New York to discuss the benefits of trading with the island. Castro was in the U.S. to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the founding of the United Nations, his first trip to the United States since 1979. Clinton issued a visa to allow Castro to enter the United States but did not actually meet with him. About three weeks later the Washington Times printed a story in which Dole claimed to have “independent confirmation” of a secret meeting that took place during this time between New Mexico representative Bill Richardson and Fidel Castro in which Castro agreed to release political prisoners in exchange for a White House veto of Helms-Burton.94 Far more interesting were the rumors that Clinton planned to lift the embargo and normalize relations with Cuba if elected to a second term. Radio Martí continued to espouse the rhetoric of the CANF and contradict the policy of the United States. One Office of Inspector General probe of the OCB had been underway for more than a year, primarily because Jorge Mas Canosa and Rolando Bonachea refused to cooperate with investigators. They objected to the presence of lead investigator Marion Bennett, who released a preliminary report that charged Mas with influencing broadcasting operations.

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Duffey and Lobo also expressed concern about Bennett’s objectivity.95 Mas described the investigation as “a political witch hunt” and argued that Clinton was trying to use Radio Martí to negotiate with Castro.96 A 60 Minutes story on TV Martí that aired almost a year later also referred to an ongoing investigation with which Mas refused to cooperate. At one point, CBS reporter Steve Kroft challenged Mas at a public luncheon, causing Mas to flee. Members of his entourage blocked Kroft, allowing Mas to escape.97 Despite these problems, Texas senator Phil Gramm proposed an amendment to an appropriations bill for the Department of State that required the OCB to relocate to south Florida “not later than April 1, 1996.” Gramm was up for reelection in 1996 and planned to run for president the same year. Each campaign would receive a significant boost by offering this favor to Mas and the CANF. Congress passed and Clinton signed the bill that approved seven million dollars to move the Office of Cuba Broadcasting from Washington, D.C., to the home base of Jorge Mas Canosa, the CANF, and La Causa.98 Jose Basulto came to the United States in 1959 and volunteered for Brigade 2506, number 2522.99 By posing as a Boston College student returning to Cuba on vacation, Basulto infiltrated the island as part of a team whose objective was to instigate civil disorder to undermine confidence in the revolution prior to the Bay of Pigs invasion.100 Once he realized that the mission was a lost cause, Basulto escaped by climbing a fence at Guantanamo Naval Base.101 Basulto was part of another CIA operation, in which he was to hit a missile site. It was canceled after he infiltrated the island.102 In 1962, Basulto fired a 20mm cannon at the Hotel Rosita de Hornedo, which happened to be housing several Soviet advisors at the time. “We fired the gun at the hotel 16 times,” he said.103 It caused physical damage but no one was killed.104 Basulto remained active in the anti–Castro movement and continued to work “with the CIA,” not for the organization as he made clear to Hernando Calvo and Katlijn Declercq for their book The Cuban Exile Movement: Dissidents Or Mercenaries? He proudly admitted to them that he provided humanitarian assistance for the Contras.105 In 1991, Basulto and Billy Schuss, another CIA veteran, started Brothers to the Rescue (Hermanos al Rescate), a group of pilots who scanned the Florida Straits for balseros. They used a study by University of Miami oceanographer Dr. Bruce Rosendahl to estimate balseros’ trajectories, which allowed pilots to provide more reliable locating coordinates to the Coast Guard.106 Spotters would drop water, cell phones, smoke bombs, and other necessities to the rafters as they waited to be picked up. Each Brothers to the Rescue flight cost about $750, amounting to $5,000 a week.107 American Airlines, Chevron Oil, Gloria and Emilio Estefan, and the CANF all helped the Brothers with donations of money, fuel, and planes.108 According to Basulto, 1,840 Brothers to the Rescue missions saved more than 4,000 lives in the organization’s first three years.109 When CNN covered Brothers to the Rescue during the 1994 rafting crisis,

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Basulto claimed that the group spotted about 350 people a day.110 The group’s pilots went on Radio Martí and told horror stories of abandoned rafts and pleaded with Cubans not to risk their lives. Newspapers and television networks around the world made the pilots international heroes. Fidel Castro himself referenced the “so-called Rescue Group or Rescue Brothers” in a speech during the rafting crisis.111 The publicity generated by Brothers to the Rescue ended almost as quickly as it began. Clinton’s decision to repatriate balseros picked up at sea discouraged islanders from making the attempt. Pilots went days without spotting a single rafter. The organization’s mission of mercy had also changed, as each “rescue” resulted in a return ticket to Cuba. Pilots began dropping messages to balseros that allowed them to choose their fate: “If the Coast Guard picks you up it is possible that you would be returned to Cuban authorities. If you want us to alert the Coast Guard, wave your arms. If not, stay motionless when we fly by again.”112 Donations dropped from $1.15 million in 1994 to $20,455 in 1995.113 Brothers to the Rescue shifted its focus to advancing change within Cuba: “Our primary interest is in saving lives ... but if you can deal with the source of the problem, then that’s better.”114 In November 1994, Basulto flew with Schuss to Guantanamo to pick up a group of lawyers representing balseros detained at the base. After Basulto dropped Brothers to the Rescue bumper stickers over the island on the return trip, navy officials banned the group from returning to Guantanamo. During a flotilla to memorialize the July 13 sinking of the 13 de Marzo, two Brothers pilots entered Cuban airspace and dropped human rights leaflets, resulting in a Federal Aviation Administration investigation.115 Basulto called the move “an act of civil disobedience [to demonstrate] .... that civil disobedience is possible.”116 On another occasion, a videographer from a Miami television station accompanied Basulto on a Brothers flight to document a leaflet drop.117 After numerous complaints from Cuban officials, the FAA suspended Basulto’s license only to see him get it back through a court order.118 Basulto resisted attempts to ground him. “My request to the U.S. government is: Let us be,” he said. “Let us act. Do not impose your designs upon Cuba. Your help in the past has not been successful.”119 After realizing that the United States would not stop the flights, the Cubans installed antiaircraft guns with searchlights.120 According to Basulto, there were “five or six” incidents in which Cuban MiGs pursued Brothers pilots.121 The February 1996 issue of Good Housekeeping profiled Mayte Greco, a 36-year-old exile mother of five and Brothers to the Rescue pilot who had been pursued by a Cuban MiG after penetrating Cuban airspace. On January 13, 1996, Basulto flew over Havana and dropped copies of the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights. He went on Radio Martí two days later promising to take similar actions on a monthly basis: “We will all to do something, some act of opposition, of direct civic action

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against the government.”122 He further insulted Castro by pointing out that Brothers to the Rescue planes were unarmed. The next day Radio Martí commentator Jose Casin boasted that the Cuban Air Force “cannot take any action against even a peaceful strategy.”123 When a delegation of U.S. officials visited the island a few weeks later to inspect the Juragua nuclear facility, Cuban brigadier general Arnaldo Tamayo confronted the guests about Brothers to the Rescue. He said, “Up to now nothing has happened because we have simply refrained from acting. We have the means— antiaircraft and aircraft means— to bring them down at any moment.”124 One member of the delegation warned the State Department’s authorities on Cuba. They did not take the threat seriously, “Yes, we know. We’ve heard.”125 The Cubans had registered so many complaints about the group’s incursions that the threat may not have seemed unusual. Brothers to the Rescue formed an alliance with Concilio Cubano (Cuban Council), a coalition of more than 100 human rights groups operating within Cuba. At a ceremony in Miami on February 13, Basulto gave a check for an undisclosed amount to Concilio Cubano organizer Sebastian Arcos Bergnes, who was in the U.S. for medical treatment.126 Much of the council’s work in Cuba was done in secret although the group hoped to seek endorsements from Pope John Paul II, the United Nations, and the Martin Luther King Center.127 On February 24, Concilio Cubano was to start a three-day conference about improving conditions in Cuba. In the days before the meeting, Cuban officials arrested hundreds of Concilio Cubano members perceived as a threat to the regime.128 “Miami sources” had warned Cuban officials “that some Miamibased groups might engage in acts of solidarity in support of the Concilio Cubano.”129 The Department of State notified the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) about the possibility of Brothers to the Rescue taking action “to demonstrate solidarity with the Concilio Cubano” and activated radar to monitor the straits of Florida.130 On February 23, a Brothers to the Rescue mechanic flying from Costa Rica to Miami experienced engine trouble and had to make an emergency landing in Cuba. The Cubans questioned him about the organization and then allowed him to leave. The next day the mechanic shared his “ordinary” experience with Basulto as he and seven others prepared to head to the skies.131 Basulto and other members of Brothers to the Rescue ate burgers at OpaLocka airport on the afternoon of February 24. After a group prayer, they took off about 1:15 on what was to be a routine search mission.132 Basulto and copilot Arnaldo Iglesias flew with passengers Sylvia Iriondo, president of Mothers’ Movement Against Repression in Cuba and her husband, Arnaldo. Mario de la Peña and Armando Alejandre flew in a second plane and Carlos Costa and Pablo Morales took off in a third. Basulto notified Havana control that they would be approaching (but not necessarily in) Cuban airspace. This is standard procedure to avoid mistaking

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a routine flight for a plane that may be launching an attack. The dispatcher responded with a warning: “I inform you that the zone north of Havana is active. You run danger by penetrating that side of north parallel 24.” Tensions were particularly tense considering the actions Cuba had taken against Concilio Cubano. Basulto responded confidently: “We are aware of the danger each time we cross the area south of 24 but we are willing to do it. It is our right as free Cubans.”133 Jeffrey Houlihan was a detections systems specialist at March Air Force Base in Riverside, California. On February 24, 1996, he was monitoring airspace for unidentified aircraft entering the United States. When Houlihan’s instruments monitoring the Florida Straits showed two MiGs approaching the Brothers to the Rescue planes he contacted someone at Tyndall Air Force Base in Panama City, Florida. “I said, ‘well it looks like a MIG–23 to me heading directly towards the United States. I think that’s important.’ And he responded yes, we’re handling it, don’t worry.”134 A few minutes later, the orange square on Houlihan’s monitor representing Costa’s plane vanished. In the skies over the Straits of Florida the two Cuban MiG pilots celebrated: “We took out his balls! ... This one won’t mess around any more.”135 Costa and Morales were dead. About five minutes later, the square representing de la Peña’s plane on Houlihan’s screen disappeared.136 One of the MiGs had downed the plane carrying him and Alejandro. “The other is destroyed! The other is destroyed! ... Fatherland or death!”137 After hearing no response from either of the other two planes, Basulto’s passengers pressed him to leave. “Well, it looks like we have to get the hell out of here,” Basulto said.138 He landed at Opa-Locka airport a little more than an hour later. Jeffrey Houlihan had witnessed the execution of Operation Scorpion, the Cubans’ plan to take out Brothers to the Rescue. Juan Pablo Roque was a MiG pilot in the Cuban Air Force who swam to Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in 1992 and demanded asylum. Over the next four years, Roque became a minor celebrity in Little Havana. The Cuban American National Foundation helped Roque publish Deserter, a book that detailed his break with Castro’s revolution. He also used shortwave radio to plead with other pilots not to hinder a democratic transition in Cuba.139 Brothers to the Rescue welcomed Roque and invited him to go on search missions. He was at the controls of a Brothers to the Rescue plane on January 13, 1996, when Basulto dropped leaflets over Havana.140 Juan Pablo Roque met Ana Margarita Martinez at a Bible study class shortly after he arrived in the United States. Martinez was a 30-something single mother of two preteen children who had twice wed and divorced. She ignored her exile neighbors who chided her for consorting with a former member of Castro’s armed forces. Martinez and Roque were married on April Fools’ Day 1995.141 The FBI was suspicious of Brothers to the Rescue and had paid Roque

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almost seven thousand dollars since 1993 for intelligence about the group. Martinez knew that he had been working with the FBI and had been informed by Roque not to question his actions. When Ana Margarita Martinez heard about the shoot-down of the Brothers to the Rescue planes, she believed that it had to involve her husband. Juan Pablo Roque had left the morning of February 23 for a side job in Key West moving a boat and gave his wife a “hurried” goodbye kiss.142 She came home that evening to find that most of Roque’s clothes were gone but not his phone, credit cards, beeper and an extra set of car keys.143 Days later, Roque was on Cuban television and CNN, denouncing Brothers to the Rescue as a terrorist organization determined to “introduce weapons” into Cuba to be used by dissident groups. Roque said he pleaded with Basulto to end the flights and that his FBI contact know about Operation Scorpion. According to Roque, he said, “Don’t go on that mission because they are going to knock you out of the sky.” Roque said no one heeded the warning: “My opinion didn’t count because they wanted martyrs— martyrs to boost their anti–Castro industry.”144 Ana Margarita Martinez defended her husband: “I believe these statements were forced.... I believe he left because he has been threatened.”145 More than a week before the shoot-down, the FBI had intercepted a message from a Cuban numbers station that gave the specific dates and referred to Roque, codenamed “German,” and another Brothers to the Rescue pilot, codenamed “Castor”: “Under no circumstances should German nor Castor fly with Brothers to the Rescue or another organization on days 24, 25, 26 and 27, coinciding with celebration of Concilio Cubano, in order to avoid any incident of provocation that they may carry out and our response to it.”146 The FBI failed to pass this information to Richard Nuccio, the White House’s top advisor on Cuba who had been suspicious of the activities of Brothers to the Rescue.147 The day before the shoot-down, Nuccio e-mailed Sandy Berger, a member of Clinton’s National Security Council about the group:148 “Tensions are sufficiently high within Cuba, however, that we feel this may finally tip the Cubans toward an attempt to shoot down or force down the planes.”149 Unaware at the time that the FBI had intercepted the numbers chatter, Nuccio did not press further: “No one had ever told me, ‘We have these intercepts going on and here’s what these guys were planning and clearly they are double agents.’ These are all things that would have been crucial to me in my job that the FBI chose not to pass along.”150 Clinton consulted with the Joint Chiefs of Staff about a possible military response against Cuba.151 Instead the White House opted to limit travel to Cuba, restrict movement of Cuban diplomats in the United States, and augment Radio and TV Martí’s broadcasting power.152 Clinton also reversed his position on the Helms-Burton Act, prompting hard-liners to reinsert the punitive Titles III and IV. On March 5, the Senate voted 74 –22 to pass the reinvigorated Helms-

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Burton.153 The House approved it the following day by a vote of 336 –86 and one “present.” Both chambers had the two-thirds majority to override a presidential veto. President Clinton signed the Helms-Burton Act on March 12, 1996, the day of the Republican primary in Florida, blunting any political clout Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole may have gained in Little Havana. In the signing ceremony, Clinton described the shoot-down as a “brutal and cruel” action against pilots who had no way to defend themselves and “posed no threat” to Castro. “We do not and will not tolerate such conduct,” Clinton said.154 Richard Nuccio, the spokesperson for Clinton’s Track II strategy, disagreed with the president’s decision to sign the bill: “Last week I said [Helms-Burton] is black. This week it’s my job to say it’s white. That presents a problem to me.”155 Nuccio resigned. The European Union threatened to retaliate by blacklisting U.S. companies that filed claims under Title III: “The best way to get change in Cuba is not to clobber your allies.”156 Canada passed a law that prohibited businesses from complying with Helms-Burton. Two members of Canada’s parliament planned to introduce a bill that would have allowed claimants to sue for property the United States confiscated from British loyalists during the American Revolution. One person claimed to have “deeds for all of downtown Philadelphia.”157 Title III turned out to be a nonfactor. In July, Clinton informed foreign companies that they were “on notice” to end their business dealings in stolen property. He also suspended the date on which property claimants could file Title III suits against foreign companies, effectively postponing its real implementation date until January. This allowed Clinton to maintain positive relations with foreign allies and a hard-line Cuba policy, neutralizing two potentially disastrous issues before the November election. Still, the mere possibility of its implementation was enough to discourage foreign companies from investing in Cuba. Title IV had taken effect, although the Clinton administration “largely ignored” its enforcement.158 Clinton improved his position with the exiles when he finalized the transfer of the Office of Cuba Broadcasting to Miami, an action set in motion by Senator Phil Gramm. There were no congressional hearings on the decision.159 Neither Clinton nor Republican leaders opposed the move because neither political party wanted to lose Florida in the upcoming presidential election. Cuban organizations not affiliated with the CANF opposed the action, which they believed would “weaken both the credibility of the stations in Cuba and U.S. government control of the content of the broadcasts.”160 David Burke, chairman of the Broadcasting Board of Governors, tried to stop the move. The BBG oversaw the Office of Cuba Broadcasting, yet had not been consulted on the matter. Burke believed that the “not later than April 1, 1996,” deadline included in the bill authorizing the transfer invalidated the law because Clinton did not sign it until April 26, 1996. The office of the assistant attorney general regarded the discrepancy as a “technical error” that did not

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change the intent of the law. As a result, the Broadcasting Board of Governors was required to move the Office of Cuba Broadcasting even though it disagreed with the decision and should have had the authority to stop it.161 Less than eight months after signing the Helms-Burton Act, Clinton debated Republican nominee Bob Dole and acknowledged the friction the law had created within the international community: “Nobody in the world agrees with our policy on Cuba now.”162 Clinton won the 1996 election and the state of Florida with 48 percent of the vote.163 Medicare, not Cuba, was the most important issue in Florida.164 Castro’s sinking of the 13 de Marzo killed 41, including 10 children under the age of 10. Although Clinton denounced the incident, he continued to pursue normal relations with Cuba. The shoot-down of the Brothers to the Rescue planes killed four people but occurred during an election year. Not signing Helms-Burton could have cost Clinton Florida’s 25 electoral votes in November. This was inconsistent with his basic election strategy to do well in all the states he won in 1992 and pick up Florida, which he had lost to George H.W. Bush. Clinton said he “had worked hard in Florida for four years ... making inroads into the Cuban-American community.”165 In his memoirs, published eight years after the Brothers to the Rescue shoot-down, Clinton conceded that he signed Helms-Burton for short-term gains in spite of the detrimental long-term effects: “Supporting the bill was good election year politics in Florida, but it undermined whatever chance I might have if I won a second term to lift the embargo in return for possible changes within Cuba.”166 On the first day of the 105th Congress, New York representative José Serrano submitted a bill to repeal Helms-Burton. It never made it out of committee. When Clinton suspended enforcement of Title III again in January, Florida representative Bill McCollum introduced a bill repealing the president’s authority to act in that way, a bill that never made it out of committee either. David Skaggs tried to pull the plug on TV Martí in 1997. Lincoln Diaz-Balart amended Skaggs’ proposal to terminate funding for TV Martí only if President Clinton certified that it was “not in the national interest of the United States.” Clinton ended up vetoing the entire bill for other reasons. The United States’ Cuba policy had stalled and did not have enough momentum to move in either direction. The only component of the U.S. policy toward Cuba that seemed to change was Jorge Mas Canosa, who engaged Cuba in the form of a televised debate. Ricardo Alarcón, president of the Cuban National Assembly, was the thirdhighest-ranking official in the Cuban government and a key negotiator during the 1994 balsero crisis. The two men communicated via satellite, Mas in Hialeah and Alarcón in Havana. In what sounded like dialoguero rhetoric, Mas said he would accept a post–Castro Cuba directed by Alarcón if chosen in a democratic election.167 CBS Telenoticias aired the debate. Radio Martí, TV Martí and media in Cuba did not.

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Mas again raised eyebrows a few months later when he met with dissident Elizardo Sanchez in his south Florida home. The meeting occurred on Christmas Day but was not publicized until several days later. Even then, Foundation directors denied that it even occurred.168 The following summer, Cuban authorities renewed their charges that the Cuban American National Foundation was a terrorist organization. At least 10 bombs exploded at resort areas in Cuba, including one that killed an Italian tourist. The bombs were intended to cripple the island’s burgeoning tourism industry. About a million people traveled to the island in 1996, making it the country’s leading industry.169 The Foundation did not condemn the bombings and bought a full-page advertisement in the Herald in which it promised to overthrow Castro by any means.170 Cuban authorities arrested Salvadoran Raúl Ernesto Cruz León. Granma reported that León had confessed to six of the bombings and Cuban officials claimed to have proof that tied some incidents to the CANF. Foundation leaders denied a link to León. A year later, the New York Times published an exclusive interview with Luis Posada Carriles, the Bay of Pigs veteran and friend of Jorge Mas Canosa who had worked with the CANF to direct weapons to the Contras in Central America. The article quoted Carriles as saying that Foundation leaders backed the bombings and that Jorge Mas Canosa had given him more than $200,000 over several years to conduct acts of violence in and against Cuba.171 On October 27, the U.S. Coast Guard stopped the boat la Esperanza (the Hope) off the coast of Puerto Rico. Passengers gave an incorrect registration number and claimed to have sailed 900 miles from Miami in a day for a fishing trip.172 Authorities found high-powered rifles, night vision goggles, fatigues, ammunition, and portable radios in a secret compartment below deck. Once discovered, one passenger blurted out, “They are weapons for the purpose of assassinating Fidel Castro. My sole mission in life is to kill Fidel Castro.”173 All four men on board had been affiliated with the Cuban American National Foundation at some time. The plan was to assassinate Castro at the Ibero-American Summit in Venezuela a month later. The plotters had a speedboat, the Midnight Express, on standby for the sole purpose of transporting Jorge Mas Canosa to Cuba so that he could fill the vacuum created by Castro’s fall. Eventually there would be seven men charged with conspiring to assassinate Castro. The bombings and Esperanza mission were products of the CANF’s “War Group,” a division formed years earlier to “obtain democracy in Cuba by whatever means.”174 The War Group had purchased more than a million dollars in supplies including, “a cargo helicopter ... a large cache of explosives ... [and] ten small remote-controlled planes known as ultralights.”175 According to journalist and author Ann Louise Bardach, FBI sources said, “The idea was they could fly into Cuba, unmanned, and drop bombs. So when Castro was giving a speech in the Plaza de la Revolución, they could send one of these ultralights into Havana and take out Castro without losing a pilot.”176 The Esperanza mis-

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sion appeared to be a variation of this and may have been enacted sooner than planned. The operation was, as anonymous calls to news organizations in Miami claimed, intended to give Jorge Mas Canosa “a deathbed wish.”177 Mas was dying of Paget’s disease, a rare bone ailment. In May of 1997, the Miami Herald described him as pale at a meeting of the Advisory Board of Cuba Broadcasting but did not provide specifics. The U.S. media were relatively unaware of Mas’ condition because his inner circle tried to keep it a secret. Fidel Castro knew. Cuban spies had burrowed their way far enough into Little Havana’s core to obtain the necessary information.178 Jorge Mas Canosa died on November 23, 1997. Radio and TV Martí announced the story two hours after it was common knowledge in Miami.179 English language media across the country also covered Mas’ death. President Clinton described Mas as “a born leader and organizer, whose tenacity, strength of conviction, and passion I greatly admired,” a characterization that whitewashed the tension between Mas and the Clinton administation. The average person living outside south Florida had no idea who Jorge Mas Canosa was nor did that individual comprehend how much influence he had over U.S. policy. Wayne Smith understood: “Had it not been for Jorge Mas Canosa, we probably would have had normal relations with Cuba. He ... almost single handedly blocked all that.”180 It was the end of an era.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Meltdown fi-del-i-ty —1. strict observance of promises, duties, etc.: a servant’s fidelity. 2. loyalty: fidelity to one’s country. 3. Conjugal faithfulness. 4. Adherence to fact or detail. 5. Accuracy, exactness. The speech was transcribed with great fidelity. 6. Audio, Video. The degree of accuracy to which sound or images are recorded or reproduced.

When Pope John Paul II announced that he would make his first visit Cuba in January of 1998, President Clinton temporarily eased restrictions on traveling to the island. CANF leaders discouraged exiles from making the trip because it would give Castro a propaganda victory. In spite of this, more than 1,000 Cuban Americans ignored the Foundation and returned to Cuba.1 Radio Martí carried many of the events during the papal visit live, earning accolades from a Florida International University study on the station.2 As he was leaving, John Paul II implied that the United States should end its embargo of Cuba: In our day, no nation can live in isolation. The Cuban people therefore cannot be denied the contacts with other peoples necessary for economic, social and cultural development, especially when the imposed isolation strikes the population indiscriminately, making it ever more difficult for the weakest to enjoy the bare essentials of decent living, things such as food, health and education. All can and should take practical steps to bring about changes in this regard.3

President Clinton responded in March by allowing exiles to send $300 to relatives in Cuba every three months (renewing a policy from 1994). He made it easier to send medical supplies to the island and allowed charter flights to the island to continue.4 Ileana Ros-Lehtinen’s comments to CNN regarding these changes suggested that the hard-line coalition had weakened: “The death last year of one of Florida’s most charismatic Cuban American leaders ... combined with the pope’s trip to Cuba, gave the Clinton administration a fresh opportunity to relax 40 years of tension with Havana.”5 Even staunch hard-liners Jesse Helms and Robert Torricelli seemed to be willing to support people-to-people contact. During the pope’s visit, the two senators proposed the Cuban Solidarity Act, which would have authorized humanitarian assistance to the island, most notably the donation of food, med168

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icine and medical supplies. It also called for Radio Martí to begin broadcasting from Guantanamo Naval Base. When Helms formally introduced the legislation in May, he acknowledged the embargo’s primary flaw: “This bill will take away Fidel Castro’s excuses, by neutralizing his propaganda, which falsely blames the U.S. embargo for the hardships suffered by the Cuban people.”6 Both Helms and Torricelli worked with the CANF to draft the Cuban Solidarity Act but did not consult Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Lincoln Diaz-Balart.7 Neither Helms nor Torricelli was seeking reelection after 2002, which meant that backlash from the Foundation would not be a factor. In passing the 1996 Helms-Burton Act, the CANF had gone too far to the right. The law alienated corporations that had been interested in working with the Foundation to rebuild post–Castro Cuba and drove them to a burgeoning anti-hard-line movement that favored more cordial relations with the island. The most prominent anti-hard-line group was USA*ENGAGE, a coalition of more than 400 companies that felt a hard-line strategy, particularly unilateral sanctions, were an ineffective tool of foreign policy. Among the USA*ENGAGE members were Coca-Cola, Texaco, and AT&T, companies that lost property to Castro in the early years of the revolution and could have filed claims under the Helms-Burton Act. There was also Americans for Humanitarian Trade with Cuba, representing more than 700 business, religious, and human rights organizations that favored exchanging food and medicine with Cuba.8 The American Civil Liberties Union became very vocal in their opposition of restrictions placed on travel to Cuba. The death of Jorge Mas Canosa had created a power vacuum in Washington. For the first time in more than 15 years, the hard-line movement did not have a coordinated strategy for post–Castro Cuba nor did it have a definitive leader to execute such a plan. This extended to the Office of Cuba Broadcasting, where the stations’ direction was unclear. Heading the OCB was Herminio San Roman, a Cuban American zoning lawyer with no broadcasting experience. He was a lifelong Democrat who stumped for Clinton in Little Havana during the 1996 election but had the support of Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Lincoln DiazBalart.9 San Roman ended a 20-month period of interim leadership by Rolando Bonachea. He had been at his post only eight months when Mas died. San Roman lost the respect of his employees almost immediately. In one of his first actions, he called for some OCB officials to remove their office doors to encourage more interaction among employees.10 Radio Martí’s programming, which had been about 80 percent recorded, changed to about 80 percent live, limiting the amount of quality control over content.11 Dissidents on the island sent letters to the OCB, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Lincoln Diaz-Balart, and the CANF that called for the station to end the “rain of lies and outdated information” and fabrication of “false situations to increase hostility between the U.S. and Cuba.”12 San Roman’s changes resulted in at least two lawsuits. Angelica Mora, a

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10-year veteran of Radio Martí, sued for discrimination after San Roman reassigned her, a move she claimed was because she was born in Chile rather than Cuba.13 Radio Martí’s programming director, Oscar Barcelo, claimed that San Roman threatened to go on Miami radio stations and “out” him as a homosexual, a secret Barcelo had kept from his own family.14 San Roman was no better at improving TV Martí. A study released in 1999 found that not one person polled had seen TV Martí and, when asked to name TV stations they knew, only 10 percent gave TV Martí as an answer.15 The station stayed on the air only because of inertia. By the time Colorado representative David Skaggs made another attempt to terminate TV Martí in 1998 the debate had become a joke. Rhode Island representative Patrick Kennedy seemed to be on autopilot in his opposition to the Skaggs amendment, declaring, six times, his support of “Radio Free Martí,” which was not only not the station’s name but also the wrong medium.16 Skaggs’ amendment failed by a vote of 172 to 251. Former Radio Martí news director Jay Mallin described the OCB under San Roman as “out of control and very unprofessional.”17 Another OCB employee said, “Something needs to happen or we’ll implode.”18 There was a minor implosion in 1999 when Radio Martí’s director, Roberto RodriguezTejera, and news director William Valdes attended the wake of another exile. An altercation started when an announcer from another radio station who routinely criticized Radio Martí prevented the two men from entering. The men exchanged blows, prompting a call to the paramedics. By the time they arrived there was “no patient found.”19 The White House should have been able to turn to the Advisory Board on Cuba Broadcasting, the entity created by the 1983 Radio Broadcasting to Cuba Act that still existed, at least on paper. Under Mas, the board had become “a bunch of puppets.” It did nothing after he died.20 Of the nine individuals listed as holding seats on the Advisory Board on Cuba Broadcasting in May of 1998, two had died (including Mas as chair), two had resigned, and the remaining five were serving terms that had expired at least four years earlier.21 These five people tried to improve Radio and TV Martí but could do little because Mas had not been replaced as chair. President Clinton refused to name a successor, forcing the five to appoint board member Christopher Coursen as their leader. The board estimated that the number of people in Cuba listening to Radio Martí had decreased from about 70 percent to 25 percent and attributed the drop to San Roman’s programming decisions.22 San Roman avoided advisory board meetings for no given reason and refused to provide board members with airchecks of broadcasts.23 Coursen claimed that San Roman created policies that hindered the board’s attempts to speak with Radio and TV Martí workers: “Any request for information must be sent to him, and if he doesn’t grant it, we can’t make our recommendations.”24 In the fall of 1998, the board recommended that San Roman be fired.25

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Clinton refused. USIA director Joseph Duffey backed Clinton, claiming that San Roman had “brought credible leadership to an institution that has evidenced a great lack of credibility.”26 Other than making the recommendation, there was no other action the board could take to remove San Roman. Eight months later, the Office of the Inspector General released a study that validated most of the allegations against San Roman. It found that the internal quality control structure was insufficient. External oversight procedures were lax. There were also problems with credibility and a lack of professionalism at the OCB. The board sent a second letter to Clinton that called for San Roman to be fired: He has put into practice tactics that hide the deterioration of the programming and serious administrative irregularities that have occurred under San Roman’s direction. We have received numerous reports that detail conflicts of interests from favoritism to pressure tactics and the allegation that the levers of control over the concession of contracts have been dismantled.27

Again, the White House refused to remove him, saying, “We have confidence in the integrity of broadcasting to Cuba and in Mr. San Roman’s leadership.”28 In January 1999, Clinton announced his intention to fill the four vacancies on the advisory board and nominated Jose Pepe Collado as chair. This effort did not progress because the White House failed to submit the names to the Senate, leaving the board with Coursen as its leader. Clinton then tried to prevent the board from taking any action by refusing to approve travel funding for its members to meet. Coursen felt hopeless: “I am a hostage ... to this Administration’s unwillingness to do anything about Radio Martí. I think they are happy to have it die.”29 This did not mean that Radio Martí was dormant. In November of 1999, Radio Martí aired a Lincoln Diaz-Balart press conference from his office.30 Diaz-Balart announced that Radio Martí would be increasing its power to overcome Cuban jamming.31 He also criticized Clinton’s Track II policies and launched three of his own projects for Cuba —“Project Help,” “Awakening Smiles,” and “Rescuing the Three Kings Essay Contest.” Project Help encouraged Cuban families in the United States to “adopt” families of political prisoners and support them financially. AT&T assisted Project Help by providing 600 phone cards.32 The idea seemed unnecessary, as a number of families with relatives living in both the United States and Cuba who already communicated on a regular basis. The Miami Medical Team Foundation was behind the program Awakening Smiles, which allowed Cuban children to come to the United States for medical care. It also seemed unnecessary considering that, a month before Diaz-Balart’s press conference, Castro had allowed a seven-year-old to travel to the United States for treatment.33 Diaz-Balart’s program was unlikely to succeed because the Cuban people viewed the effort as “sinister” and a “big publicity stunt.”34 The Rescuing the Three Kings Essay Contest encouraged children to write about the meaning of Three Kings Day, the holiday that commemorated the

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wise men visiting the infant Jesus, prohibited under the Castro regime. The first 1,000 children to submit essays would receive gifts and the 100 best essays would earn TV-VCR combos. Staffers in Diaz-Balart’s office admitted that they were unsure if the prizes would go to the winners or be confiscated: “We don’t know.... It’s worth it just to get under Castro’s skin.” The promotion was done without the consent of Christopher Coursen, who requested an investigation.35 The only other significant actions against Cuba during this time were in the courtroom, where the hard-line community sought judicial retaliation against Castro. In the case Alejandre v. The Republic of Cuba, the U.S. district court in Miami awarded more than $187 million to family members of three of the four men killed in the Brothers to the Rescue attack.36 It was only a half victory. The White House did not release the settlement money from frozen Cuban assets, claiming it would hinder future foreign policy negotiations.37 After hearing about the ruling, the Cuban government filed a lawsuit against the United States for $181 billion in compensatory and punitive damages incurred on the island from the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion through the 1997 bombing campaign.38 Ana Margarita Martinez filed a lawsuit against her former husband and Brothers to the Rescue infiltrator Juan Pablo Roque. Martinez argued that had she known that he was a spy, she never would have consented to have sexual intercourse with Roque. With their entire relationship based on a lie, Martinez claimed that the intimate moments the two shared constituted rape, which was the charge she filed against Roque’s employer, the government of Cuba. Both cases received a boost in September of 1998 when the FBI identified 14 Little Havana figures as members of la Red Avispa (the Wasp Spy Network) who had infiltrated anti–Castro organizations. Five entered plea bargains. Four others, including Juan Pablo Roque, were not apprehended. This left five others, who would become known as the Cuban Five, to face trial.39 In December of 1999, a federal jury in Puerto Rico acquitted five of the seven men charged in the 1997 Esparanza plot to assassinate Fidel Castro. The charges against another were dropped due to a lack of evidence. The seventh man had cancer and did not appear at the trial. The New York Times noted that, immediately following the decision, two of the jurors joined the defendants’ celebration dinner.40 Miami’s hard-liners ended 1999 on a series of legal victories, unaware that their first major defeat was already developing. On November 21, 1999, five-year-old Elian Gonzalez, his mother, Elizabet Brotón, her boyfriend, Lazaro Munero, and at least ten others fled Cuban from port city of Cárdenas.41 The travelers would soon find themselves in the midst of a storm that disabled their motor and capsized their boat. Efforts to right the vessel failed.42 In the hours that followed, all but three members of the group died. Brotón, who could not swim, was the last to perish, a fate she had accepted. Survivors recall her last moments. “All I want is for my son to live.

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If there’s one here who has to die, let it be me, not him,” she said.43 She placed Elian on an inner tube, where he fell asleep. She then slipped under the sea, her body never to be found. On November 25, 1999, Thanksgiving Day, Sam Ciancio and Donato Dalrymple were fishing off the coast of Fort Lauderdale when they found Elian Gonzalez dehydrated and confused. He was taken to Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital in Hollywood, Florida, where doctors treated and released him to his great-uncle, Lazaro Gonzalez, who lived in Miami. Lazaro’s nephew, Juan Miguel, married Elizabet Brotón and had Elian with her. Juan Miguel and Elizabet divorced but maintained an amicable relationship that allowed Elian to spend time with both parents. Less than 24 hours after Elian’s group left Cardenas, Juan Miguel called Lazaro and said that his ex-wife and son had apparently left for Florida.44 The Miami Gonzalezes began making plans for Juan Miguel to immigrate to the United States to reunite with Elian, an idea they claimed he liked. Juan Miguel Gonzalez denied that he ever expressed any desire to leave Cuba. After the pressure from his Miami relatives to immigrate became unbearable, Juan Miguel began to hang up every time they called.45 A week after Elian’s arrival, Fidel Castro demanded that U.S. authorities reunite the boy with his father in Cardenas. Little Havana refused to give up el Milagro (the Miracle) who, according to the week-old legend, was delivered to the United States by divine intervention. Dolphins directed Elian’s inner tube to safety. God protected the child in the open water, as evidenced by the child’s relatively good health. There were also rumors that Elian’s arrival had been prophesized by Santería, the Cuban hybrid faith created by slaves who combined West African traditions with Roman Catholicism. Santería leaders in Cuba and Florida felt that Elian was the “chosen one” who signaled the demise of Fidel Castro and the revolution should Elian be allowed to remain in the United States.46 People of all faiths seemed to interpret Elian’s arrival as a significant spiritual event. According to the Washington Post, “They’re desperately looking for some sign, some announcement, some harbinger, and this boy is it.”47 Elian’s sixth birthday party on December 6 was a media event.48 Appearing on television in a CANF T-shirt surrounded by toys he never would have had in Cuba, Elian Gonzalez was the personification of the hard-line exiles’ animosity for Castro. Elian’s family in Cárdenas also celebrated his birthday even though the guest of honor was absent. Fidel Castro, dressed in his traditional olive green military fatigues, stood over Elian’s vacant school desk. Juan Miguel appeared on Cuban television wishing Elian happy birthday over the phone. “Are you coming back soon?,” the father asked. “Yes,” the child answered.49 Feeling overwhelmed, the Gonzalez family turned to Armando Gutierrez, a political consultant and public relations practitioner.50 The day after Elian’s birthday, Gutierrez called for a press conference: “We need to get the word out.

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We need to get people in the streets. This is unacceptable. The child should be here.”51 This gave Miami’s Spanish language radio stations the opportunity to carry the words everyone in Little Havana had been waiting to hear. LAZARO GONZALEZ: Tell them how you feel. Do you want to stay? ELIAN GONZALEZ: Yes. LAZARO GONZALEZ: Do you like it here? ELIAN GONZALEZ: Yes.

Juan Miguel Gonzalez disputed the validity of the boy’s statements: “That’s not what he tells me when we talk on the phone.”52 The Elian Gonzalez conflict amounted to a custody battle between two divorced guardians who hoped to use the child as a commodity to hurt the other. A Miami Herald poll indicated that 88 percent of Cuban Americans believed that the boy should remain in the United States.53 The general public disagreed. A Gallup/CNN/USAToday poll showed that 56 percent of the country felt that returning him to his father was the proper thing to do.54 The animosity that other ethnic groups had for the exiles was evident in one Herald/NBC 6 poll that indicated 76 percent of white non–Hispanics and 92 percent of black non–Hispanics in south Florida favored returning the child to Cuba.55 The hard-liners received no support from their brothers and sisters in Latin American news organizations, who also favored returning him to his father in Cuba and portrayed the Miami relatives as manipulating the situation for personal reasons.56 On January 4, 2000, the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) announced that Elian should be reunited with his father and set a deadline of 10 days. Elian’s Miami relatives rejected the decision and proceeded to file for custody of the child. Elian told Radio Martí, “Tomorrow they’re going to make me an American citizen.”57 Both sides dug in their heels for a long custody battle. In Havana the area across from the U.S. Interests Section became the focal point for daily protests. The Cuban government built a permanent concrete and steel stage, which would be known as the Jose Martí Anti-Imperialist Permanent Stage in Anti-Imperialist Plaza.58 The street outside the modest Miami two-story Gonzalez home became a collage of flags and religious images as disciples from across the country journeyed to be near el Milagro. The Elian saga had the right amount of drama and conflict to make it a media event. Lazaro Gonzalez’ neighbors began renting space on their front lawns for as much as $1,500 a day, a bargain for cable news channels that were earning higher than average ratings every day of the conflict.59 Miami’s Spanish language radio personalities were christened as authorities on foreign policy. Most were broadcasting live outside the home, making them easy to find. Radio Martí’s coverage of the events was subpar. The station would wait three hours to issue key statements from President Clinton and Attorney Gen-

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eral Janet Reno that repeated their intention to reunite Elian with his father.60 The lack of objectivity made it obvious that key personnel at Radio Martí opposed the White House’s actions. Alan Diaz was a freelance photographer hired by the Associated Press to shadow Elian. As a Cuban American, Diaz was able to build rapport with Lazaro Gonzalez and forge a friendly relationship with the family. For four months, Diaz documented the boy’s life 16 hours a day, knowing that the saga was accelerating to a decisive climax. To prepare for any scenario, Diaz became familiar with the layout of the Gonzalez home and had been granted access to the property by the family. Shortly before dawn on April 22, Alan Diaz was awakened by a swarm of feet on the move. “They’re here.” He grabbed his camera, jumped a fence and entered the house shouting, “It’s going down.” A family member directed Diaz upstairs, where he found Elian’s room empty. He moved to another where Donato Dalrymple hid in a closet with Elian trembling in his arms. “What’s happening,” the boy cried. Diaz answered, “Nothing’s happening baby, everything is going to be all right.”61 INS agents in full riot gear entered the room and went to the closet. The lead member of the team pointed a submachine gun at Dalrymple and demanded he surrender the child. Diaz’ camera captured the event, creating a Pulitzer Prize winning image that became the conflict’s signature moment. Dalrymple passed Elian to a female agent, who covered him with a blanket and rushed him out of the room. The other agents pulled out. “Back off,” one of them told Diaz as he tried to follow the team downstairs.62 Elian was rushed outside to a waiting minivan. The entourage on the lawn and in the surrounding area had been subdued with pepper spray and offered no resistance. By the time the van had pulled away, the bystanders had recuperated and retaliated by throwing any available stray object. It was too late. The child was in government custody. The entire operation lasted 154 seconds.63 Officials put Elian on a plane and flew him to Edwards Air Force Base outside Washington, D.C., where he was reunited with his father about three hours later. Juan Miguel Gonzalez was in the United States to complete the legal processes needed to repatriate his son. Elian’s lawyer released photographs of the boy smiling with his father, stepmother, and half brother, validating the decision to return him to Cuba. Little Havana said the picture had been faked or the child had been drugged. It was about this time that Radio Martí began covering the raid. The wire services, broadcast networks, local media, Voice of America, and Radio Rebelde were on the story long before Radio Martí, which had reporters at the house yet said nothing for four hours. An article in the Miami New Times (citing la Nueva Cuba) attributed the delay to Radio Martí’s director, Roberto RodriguezTejera, who resigned as soon as he learned that federal agents had raided the

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home. Radio Martí reporters saw Rodriguez-Tejera among protesters at the Gonzalez home and asked him how to cover the events. He responded, “Don’t ask me. I’m not the director. I’ve resigned.”64 Radio Martí advocates would later claim that the absence of a leader made it difficult for station workers to interrupt normal programming. Christopher Coursen, Mas’ successor as chair of the Advisory Board on Cuba Broadcasting, believed that Radio Martí’s coverage of the raid illustrated a serious problem at the station: “I scoured the press accounts of what people in Cuba were doing when they went in to get Elian, and I looked very carefully to see any mention of Radio Martí. There was none. To me, this is unthinkable.”65 Broadcasting officials in the State Department were unable to obtain transcripts or airchecks of Radio Martí during the events. One bureaucrat told a journalist covering the story, “If you turn up some information, let us know.”66 There were also accounts of Rodriguez-Tejera lambasting Janet Reno and the Justice Department on another radio station.67 Vice President, and 2000 Presidential Candidate, Al Gore publicly sided with the Miami hard-liners. When the White House announced its intention to return the boy to Cuba, the vice president e-mailed several news organizations expressing his disapproval of the decision: From the very beginning, I have said that Elian Gonzalez’s case is at heart a custody matter. It is a matter that should be decided by courts that have the experience and expertise to resolve custody cases— with due process, and based on Elian’s best interests. It now appears that our immigration laws may not be broad enough to allow for such an approach in Elian’s case. That is why I am urging Congress to immediately pass legislation that is being sponsored by Sens. Bob Graham and Bob Smith — which would grant permanent resident status to Elian, his father, stepmother, half-brother, grandmothers, and grandfather, so that this case can be adjudicated properly. I know that Congressman Bob Menendez has introduced similar legislation in the House as well. Let us be clear that the real fault in this case lies with the oppressive regime of Fidel Castro. Elian should never have been forced to choose between freedom and his own father. Now we must take action, here on our own shores, to make sure that Elian’s best interests are served.68

Gore wanted to win Florida, a state where he trailed the Republican nominee, Texas governor George W. Bush, by about eight points. Bush’s lead began shrinking after his brother Jeb, who happened to be the governor of Florida, alienated black voters by discontinuing affirmative action in the state’s colleges and universities. Both candidates saw Florida, with 25 electoral votes, as a must win state. As a representative for Tennessee, Gore voted for both versions of the Radio Broadcasting to Cuba Act and cosponsored an early version of the Cuban Democracy Act in the Senate. His hard-line aura diminished as vice president. Cuban Americans associated Gore with Clinton, a traitor to La Causa for adopting the wet foot/dry foot policy and sending Elian Gonzalez back to Cuba. In

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an effort to recapture Florida votes, Gore chose Connecticut senator Joe Lieberman as his vice presidential nominee. As the first Jewish candidate to appear on the presidential ticket of a major political party, Lieberman helped solidify one of Florida’s most crucial demographic groups. His impeccable track record of supporting anti–Castro legislation might also neutralize the blowback from the Elian raid. The strategy failed. Instead of Lieberman’s hard-line glow rubbing off on Gore, the toxicity of Clinton, Reno, and Gore contaminated Lieberman. Talk about Lieberman on Miami’s hard-line radio stations was hostile and became anti–Semitic when announcers began comparing Lieberman to the dialoguero Bernardo Benes, who happened to be Jewish.69 To avoid further alienating the hard-liners, Gore did not oppose efforts to develop Homestead Air Force Base south of Miami. The base had sustained a substantial amount of damage from Hurricane Andrew in 1992, prompting then presidential candidate Bill Clinton to advocate transferring control of the base to private developers.70 Miami-Dade civic leaders granted the right of first refusal to Homestead Air Base Developers Inc. (HABDI), a group of prominent Cuban American builders. When competing development groups with plans for the area cried foul, the commission held a 5:40 A.M. meeting during which it approved a no-bid lease for HABDI.71 A regular airstrip at the facility would bring 230,000 flights a year to an area just two miles west of Biscayne National Park and 10 miles east of Everglades National Park.72 Over the next several years, environmental groups conducted a series of impact studies that postponed development. After the 1996 election, Gore himself called for an environmental study to delay development: “The Everglades is one of the greatest environmental treasures on the planet, and it’s in the custody of the United States of America.”73 In his 1992 book, Earth in the Balance, Gore specifically acknowledged the “destruction of the Everglades” induced by the expansion of sugarcane.74 He and Clinton had held weekly lunches during which they discussed preserving the area. As the HABDI controversy became an issue during the 2000 Florida primary, New Jersey senator Bill Bradley, Gore’s only serious competitor for the Democratic nomination, came out against the project. Gore remained silent because he did not want to offend the Cuban Americans in HABDI who included Jorge Mas Canosa’s relatives. More important for Gore was Alex Penelas, a rare Cuban American Democrat who, in 2000, had more political clout than the Mas Canosa family. After becoming mayor of Miami-Dade (which has more responsibility than mayor of Miami) in 1996, Penelas stumped for Clinton, allowing him to pick up 40 percent of the Cuban vote against Bob Dole.75 In 1999, People magazine named Penelas its “Sexiest Politician.”76 Over the years, Gore and Penelas appeared at many events throughout south Florida, leading the vice president to believe that Penelas would help him as he did with Clinton. Rumors circulated that Gore would reward Penelas with

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a cabinet post or even a vice presidential nomination.77 The relationship soured after the White House announced its intention to return Elian Gonzalez to Cuba.78 Penelas was one of more than 20 south Florida mayors who made it clear that the city would not assist any effort to remove the boy. He also warned of violent retribution. “If their continued provocation, in the form of unjustified threats to revoke the boy’s parole, leads to civil unrest and violence, we are holding the federal government responsible, and specifically Janet Reno and the president of the United States, for anything that may occur in this community.”79 Penelas severed his relationship with Al Gore after INS officials executed the raid without first consulting him. Days before Gore’s nomination at the Democratic National Convention, the Miami Herald published a front page story with the headline “Cuban Exiles’ View of Gore Hits Low Level.” Little Havana was a hopeless campaign for Gore yet he did not denounce the development of Homestead. Environmentalists showed the Gore campaign polls that indicated he would pick up four points by publicly opposing the Homestead development but his workers rejected the idea.80 Third party candidate Ralph Nader seemed to hammer Gore more than Bush on the environment. “Al Gore speaks about environmentalism, but bows to corporatism.”81 In the meantime, Congress passed the Everglades Restoration Act, which did not prohibit development at the disputed location but acknowledged that “development at the Homestead site could potentially cause significant air, water, and noise pollution and result in the degradation of adjacent national parks.”82 A week before the election, the Senate passed the bill by unanimous consent. Four days before the election the House passed it by a vote of 312 to 2 (with 119 abstentions), guaranteeing that it would become a law. Gore continued to remain silent on the subject. Cuban Americans contributed almost $115,000 to Bush’s campaign and only $28,000 to Gore’s.83 Two days before the election, Radio Mambi’s Armando Perez-Roura, described as a Cuban Rush Limbaugh, introduced Bush at a rally and reminded the crowd what the Clinton administration had done: “We must punish the enemy with our votes.”84 Armando Gutierrez, the PR spokesperson for the Gonzalez family, visited several voting sites on election day with a sign that said, “Remember Elian — Vote for Bush.”85 More than 80 percent of Florida’s Cuban Americans voted for Bush, or rather against Gore, which was about the same percentage of Cubans that believed Elian should remain in the United States.86 Nader garnered more than 97,000 votes in Florida, most of which defected from Gore.87 By the end of Election Day, the outcome in Florida was still unclear. Bush had a slight lead but there were disputed votes in several counties, triggering a state law that called for a mandatory recount. Much of the focus was on Dade County, which provided Gore with the best opportunity to pick up votes. On November 14, the Miami-Dade Canvass-

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ing Board voted not to administer a hand recount of votes. Three days later they reversed that position. As the meticulous process slowly progressed and the difference between Bush and Gore narrowed, Republican supporters, many of whom were brought in from other states, demonstrated at the Stephen P. Clark Government Center, location of Miami-Dade and federal government offices. At some point a group of demonstrators made their way inside the building and up to the 19th floor where the canvassing board was trying to work. With just a few walls separating election workers from the angry mob, the tension increased and hindered the counting. The canvassing board tried to streamline the process by examining only the 10,750 ballots that did not clearly select a presidential candidate. Lincoln Diaz-Balart and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen increased the tension further by appearing on Radio Mambi and crying foul for not counting all the ballots. Within hours, Cuban Americans increased their numbers among the demonstrators. By the end of the day, board members Myriam Lehr and Lawrence D. King reversed their positions, changing the position of the canvassing board from 2–1 in favor of a hand recount to 3 –0 against it. King spoke for the group: “I do not believe we have the ability to conduct a full, accurate recount.”88 Gore supporters pointed out that both Lehr and King had hired Armando Gutierrez as a consultant for their 1996 reelection campaigns.89 Alex Penelas was notably absent from the festivities. Although he had no direct authority over the canvassing board, Penelas wielded a great deal of power and could have acted on Gore’s behalf to minimize the tension at the Clark Center. The normally docile Gore would later label Penelas as “the single most treacherous and dishonest person I dealt with during the campaign anywhere in America.”90 The two campaigns continued to debate the necessity of a recount until December 12, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the recounts could cause “irreparable harm” to Bush’s candidacy and ordered Florida’s election officials to stop. The official results from Florida show Bush with 2,912,790 votes (48.85 percent), Gore 2,912,253 (48.84 percent), Nader 97,488 (1.63 percent) and 40,579 votes (0.68 percent) for other candidates. With a difference of 537 votes, Bush won Florida’s 25 electoral votes and a 271 to 266 victory in the Electoral College. One of Gore’s last actions as vice president was to validate the electoral votes that gave the election to Bush. Al Gore went on to win the 2007 Nobel Prize for drawing awareness to climate change. George W. Bush went on to earn a reputation as one of the most environmentally unfriendly presidents in history. For a few months in 2000, both were in the same category: environmentally unfriendly presidential candidate. Although much has been said about the mistakes that Florida officials made during the 2000 election, few people acknowledge that Gore would have won Florida and the White House if he had come out against development at Homestead.

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The big picture was that, despite some cracks in the hard-line coalition, Cuban exiles still had enough influence to make politicians fear opposing them. No one wanted to induce “Gore’s Syndrome,” an affliction in which hard-liners destroyed the political career of an official that betrayed La Causa. Offending the Cubans could not only risk the career of one official, it could place opportunities for the official’s entire party at risk. Any official who threatened to touch Radio or TV Martí risked inducing Gore’s Syndrome, a consequence that was not worth the risk. Alberto Mora was familiar with repressive regimes. His mother was from Hungary and his father from Cuba. In 1959, 8-year-old Mora fled Cuba with his family and went to the United States, where they eventually settled in Jackson, Mississippi. After earning a B.A. from Swarthmore College, Mora worked for the State Department and earned a law degree from the University of Miami. President George H.W. Bush appointed Mora general counsel to the USIA. Clinton named him to the BBG three times. The Cuban American National Foundation endorsed Mora as head of the Office of Cuba Broadcasting, replacing Herminio San Roman, who resigned in June of 2001. According to Ann Louise Bardach in her book Cuba Confidential: Love and Vengeance in Miami and Havana, San Roman had become too much of a liability for Lincoln Diaz-Balart, who withdrew his support for the OCB director. 91 Bardach cites San Roman’s decision to allow Cuban dissident Elizardo Sanchez to appear on Radio Martí as the impetus for his downfall.92 Lincoln Diaz-Balart did not agree with Mora as OCB leader, opting for Salvador Lew. According to Bardach, Diaz-Balart’s father and Castro’s former brother-in-law, Rafael Diaz-Balart, made the call.93 Lew represented the old guard. Rafael Diaz-Balart and Fidel Castro were all at the University of Havana at the same time. President Bush nominated Lew to the post in July, confirming that Lincoln Diaz-Balart had replaced Jorge Mas Canosa as the person who influenced White House policy on Cuba. Bush advisors consulted with DiazBalart on all proposals and appointments related to the island.94 The CANF abdicated its authority by trying to rebuild its image and the image of the exile community. Personifying this renaissance was the Foundation’s renovation of the Freedom Tower, a 283-foot concrete block building originally built in 1925 as the Miami News Tower, home of the News and Metropolis.95 From 1962 to 1974, the building housed the processing center for Cuban immigrants arriving in the United States, making it the exile version of Ellis Island. Less than a year before he died, Jorge Mas Canosa paid $4.1 million to purchase the Freedom Tower. In August 1999, Jorge Mas Santos, son of the late Jorge Mas Canosa and new leader of the CANF, initiated a $16 million renovation of the building.96 Plans included a Cuban American museum and the offices of the CANF.97 The Freedom Tower represented a more dignified “this is who we are”

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image rather than the hostile “this is what we want” persona that had come to characterize Cuban Americans in previous years. Jorge Mas Santos was a member of Generation Ñ, the niños y niñas (sons and daughters) of the exiles who arrived in the 1960s. Like most members of Generation Ñ, Mas was born in the United States, never experienced life under Fidel Castro, and did not participate in the Bay of Pigs invasion. He had never even been to Cuba. The younger Cuban Americans still opposed Fidel Castro but had less La Causa passion. Mas wanted to steer the CANF, as well as the entire exile community closer to the center by shifting its base to Generation Ñ: “A great benefit from what happened with Elian Gonzalez was that you saw a younger generation of Cuban-Americans find out that who they were was not understood nationally and it sparked in them a desire to get involved.... And what I have done in the foundation is said, ‘Welcome.’”98 It was during the initial phase of this transition that the exile community received more negative publicity. During the trial of the Cuban Five, the members of the Red Avispa spy network, the defense characterized Little Havana as a den of terrorists that justified surveillance of exile activities. The trial resurrected allegations that the CANF had sponsored bombings at tourist sites in Cuba. One spy for Cuba, who testified from the island by videotape, claimed that the Foundation had offered him more than $10,000 to detonate two bombs.99 The contact did not accept the offer. Trial testimony also revealed that spies that had already infiltrated the CANF by the time Jorge Mas Canosa’s health had begun to deteriorate. Cuban operatives had observed “disagreements within CANF over its internal leadership succession and future terrorist plans.”100 After 1997, there were no terrorist actions against Cuba attributed to the Cuban American National Foundation. Foundation leaders kept a low profile during the proceedings and commented little about it. As the public waited for a verdict, the Foundation announced its support of Democrat Bill Nelson, the newly elected U.S. senator from Florida, even though Nelson expressed a desire to meet with Fidel Castro. When the jury found each of the Cuban Five guilty, Foundation leader Joe Garcia applauded the verdict but in a discrete manner: “There should be nothing standing in the way of prosecuting Castro. There is proof now that operatives of the Cuban government were involved in the murder of U.S. citizens.”101 Jorge Mas Santos continued his efforts to reinvent Little Havana’s image by promoting Miami as the host for the 2001 Latin Grammy Awards. Miami missed the opportunity to hold the inaugural ceremony in 2000 because of an ordinance that prohibited the city from providing basic services for parties that engaged in business with Cuba. The exclusion extended to musicians still living in Cuba who might be nominated for a Grammy. The ordinance was not always enforced. In 1999, the Cuban band Los Van Van played to around 3,000 people in the Miami Arena while about 4,000 protested outside.

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A similar conflict developed after Miami was awarded the 1999 Junior Pan American Games. The city had bid for the games years earlier believing that, by the time of the event in 1999, Fidel Castro would no longer be in power and Cuba would be free. When that failed to develop, Miami officials rescinded the offer. Organizers moved the games to Tampa less than three weeks before they started.102 In 2000, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled such ordinances unconstitutional, prompting Jorge Mas Santos to make a pitch for the 2001 Grammy Awards. He succeeded but alienated members of the Foundation’s old guard who felt the organization had become soft. The most prominent figure to denounce the more moderate CANF was Ninoska Pérez-Castellón, a popular radio personality on Radio Mambi and the Foundation’s own radio station, La Voz de la Fundación. Miami Cubans tuned to Mambi a few days later when she went on the air, in tears, and denounced the organization. Cuban radio picked up on the CANF’s collapse, referring to it as “a ‘Bay of Pigs’ for the Miami Mafia” and claiming “the Foundation continues to be a terrorist organization.”103 The separatists acted quickly to form their own anti–Castro organization. On October 10, 2001, the Miami Herald announced the creation of the Cuban Liberty Council, which included Pérez-Castellón, and some CANF officers. When asked about the competing group, CANF executive director Joe Garcia noted, “All who struggle for the liberty of Cuba are welcome.”104 By splintering the CANF into rival groups, the hard-line movement appeared to resume its posture of the 1960s and 1970s. Instead of presenting a unified front, the exiles were once again competing against each other. Miami’s radio waves were active with attacks against the Foundation, which seemed to be turning the other cheek. Two months after the departure of Ninoska Pérez-Castellón from La Voz de la Fundación, the CANF announced that it would be pulling the plug on the station.105 The division within the anti–Castro movement suggested that hard-liners might not be in a position to resist a call for changes. On September 10, 2001, North Dakota Senator Byron Dorgan submitted an amendment that would have terminated funding for TV Martí. Less than 24 hours later, terrorists attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and hijacked another plane, which crashed in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Realizing that Congress faced more pressing needs in the wake of the attacks, Dorgan withdrew the item on September 13 but added that it was “not necessarily the end of that discussion this year.”106 The hard-line coalition seemed weak at the end of the year when it was unable to stop the United States from selling food to Cuba. Hurricane Michelle hit the island on November 4, 2001, as a category 4 storm, the most powerful storm to hit Cuba since 1952. Michelle killed five people, ruined crops, and destroyed at least 2,000 homes on the island.107 Following standard procedure, the Bush administration offered humanitarian assistance, provided that materials be distributed through intermediaries to ensure that the aid benefited the

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Cuban people and not the Castro government. The Cubans rejected the offer of charity but unexpectedly offered to buy food from the United States, a move that the White House approved. Ships carrying about $30 million worth of goods reached the island in mid–December.108 Although the humanitarian exchange after Hurricane Michelle showed that the two countries could work together, the United States and Cuba were still adversaries. On September 21, 2001, federal authorities arrested Ana Belen Montes, an analyst at the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) for espionage. Montes had begun providing information to Cuba in 1985, a 16-year span that included the Contra War in Nicaragua, the 1994 balsero crisis, and the 1996 Brothers to the Rescue shoot-down. Montes, who accepted no money for her work, used a shortwave numbers station to communicate with Cuban intelligence officers. She and her Cuban contact had an elaborate system in which they used pagers and prepaid phone cards to call from public pay phones, making it difficult to trace the calls. In True Believer: Inside the Investigation and Capture of Ana Motes, Cuba’s Master Spy, Scott W. Carmichael, the man who headed the investigation, did not mention the Radio or TV Martí, not a surprise considering that the DIA has limited involvement with broadcasting operations. One thing Carmichael did acknowledge was Montes’ involvement in many intelligence studies related to Cuba and its allied countries.109 One could not help but question the validity of the studies, most of which said that Cuba no longer posed a threat to the United States.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Anticlimax No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we’ll ever see on this earth! 1 — Ronald Reagan

Oswaldo Payá was the only child in his grade school class who refused to join the Communist Youth after Castro’s rise to power.2 According to his biography in America, a weekly Catholic publication, Payá maintained his faith throughout childhood even after Castro eliminated Catholic publications, took over Catholic schools, and forced many of the island’s priests and nuns from the island. When given the opportunity to leave Cuba during the 1980 Mariel boatlift, Payá chose to stay in Cuba and pursue a career repairing hospital equipment. 3 Cuban officials placed Payá under constant surveillance and released misleading information to discredit him and the dissident movement.4 Payá founded the Christian Liberation Movement and cofounded Concilio Cubano, the dissident organization that was to meet the day of the Brothers to the Rescue shoot-down. In the years that followed, Payá and others in the Christian Liberation Movement launched El Proyecto Varela (the Varela Project), a movement that called for “free speech, free assembly, multiparty elections, broader free enterprise and the freeing of political prisoners.”5 The Varela Project capitalized on a clause in Cuba’s constitution that allowed a nationwide referendum if petitioned by more than 10,000 people. The campaign takes its name from Father Felix Varela, a Cuban priest who denounced slavery and Spanish control of Cuba in the early 1800s. Varela’s stance resulted in a death sentence, forcing him to flee the island.6 From 1998 to 2002, Varela Project volunteers crisscrossed the island collecting more than 11,000 signatures. Oswaldo Payá was the face of the Varela Project as well as Cuba’s dissident movement in the new decade. The European parliament awarded Payá the Sakharov Prize and Czech president Vaclav Havel nominated him for the Nobel Peace Prize of 2002.7 Other endorsements for Payá and the Varela Project came from the CANF, Secretary of State Colin Powell, and the United States Senate, which voted 87–0 in favor of a resolution supporting the movement.8 Most 184

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impressive about the Varela Project was that the island’s state-controlled media suppressed all information about the movement, which meant that word of mouth had generated practically all publicity about it within Cuba. Coverage of Oswaldo Payá and the Varela Project could have defined Radio Martí the way the information about AIDS, Chernobyl, and Angola defined the station in its early years. Instead, Radio Martí took the same position as Castro by ignoring the movement. Little Havana was mixed on its support of the Varela Project. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Lincoln Diaz-Balart did not endorse the movement because it called for cooperation with the existing regime.9 Payá further angered the hard-liners by opposing the United States’ embargo of Cuba. As he told Jeff Jacoby of the Boston Globe, “Extend your hands to Cuba — but first unshackle ours.”10 The Varela Project got a huge boost in May of 2002 when former president Jimmy Carter visited the island for six days, the first trip to Castro’s Cuba by a former or standing U.S. chief executive. Carter met with Payá, who proudly boasted that the Varela Project had progressed without any assistance from the United States and would have refused any help if offered.11 Castro granted Carter’s requests to address the Cuban people at a time that would reach a large audience and agreed that radio and television stations on the island would broadcast his speech. The former president denounced the U.S. embargo and Cuba’s detainment of political prisoners. He also called for people to support the Varela Project: It is gratifying to note that Articles 63 and 88 of your constitution allows [sic] citizens to petition the National Assembly to permit a referendum to change laws if 10,000 or more citizens sign it. I am informed that such an effort, called the Varela Project, has gathered sufficient signatures and has presented such a petition to the National Assembly. When Cubans exercise this freedom to change laws peacefully by a direct vote, the world will see that Cubans, and not foreigners, will decide the future of this country.12

Carter claimed it was the first time a dignitary visiting Cuba had openly criticized Castro in public and confronted him about human rights violations.13 Cuban radio and television stations carried the speech live and replayed it on several occasions. Cuban newspapers printed transcripts of it. The following day, Granma covered Carter’s address and mentioned the Varela Project for the first time.14 Despite the significance of the events, Radio Martí waited to air Carter’s speech until Voice of America’s Spanish service carried it the following day. OCB director Salvador Lew argued that the station could not air the speech live because it had no reliable feed from Cuba and that it was not standard procedure to rebroadcast the signal of another radio station: “We don’t know what Havana Radio was going to do, and would be risky and completely out of legal proceedings” because of copyright issues.15 Other government broadcasting officials later said that there were no such restrictions and that no one from the

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Office of Cuba Broadcasting had consulted with them about rebroadcasting a Cuban signal. To avoid any surprises from Cuban Radio, Radio Martí could have implemented a delay, just as radio talk shows do with callers to ensure that no profanity goes over the air. Lew became the focal point for all criticism directed at Radio and TV Martí. Born in Camajuani in the center of the island, Lew earned a law degree at the University of Havana, where he was a classmate of Fidel Castro: “He tried to get me to come over to his own group.... I thought Fidel was a violent person — a person who would never obey the law — and I believe in laws.”16 Lew worked for a law firm that represented Santo Trafficante, the most powerful mafia figure in Cuba during the Batista years. After arriving in Miami in 1961, Lew found work as a radio announcer at WQBA-AM, where he became famous for reporting the presence of Soviet missiles in Cuba more than a month before the Cuban Missile Crisis reached its climax.17 Over the next 40 years, Lew served as a radio advocate for La Causa. He was president of WQBA-AM during the Mariel crisis. He was general manager at WRHC-AM, where he opposed Jane Fonda’s 1984 visit to Miami to promote a line of exercise apparel.18 When a Marielito shot and killed Miami police officer Donald Kramer, Lew blamed Fidel Castro and led a fund-raising drive to build a memorial for the fallen officer on behalf of the Cuban community.19 In 1989 Lew supported the release of Orlando Bosch, one of the men who brought down Cubana flight 455. Lew argued that Bosch had “every right to integrate himself into free society.”20 At the Office of Cuba Broadcasting, Lew doubled the amount of news on Radio Martí from two and a half hours to five hours and added news updates at different times during the day.21 He introduced a program called Aché, named after the universal life force associated with the Afro-Cuban religion of Santería. In the more than 15 years that Radio Martí had been on the air, the station had never had a program that prominently featured Santería nor did the station make an effort to appeal to Afro-Cubans. Lew shifted TV Martí’s broadcasting hours from 3:30 –8:30 in the morning to 6:00 –10:30 in the evening, which still did not generate an audience, due to jamming, but at least seemed to be at a reasonable time. He also brought back Jay Mallin, Radio Martí’s first news director, to produce a program about the Cuban military.22 Any progress achieved by these changes was negated by low morale and pending lawsuits Lew inherited. He exacerbated these problems four months into the job by eliminating the OCB’s internal program review committee, the entity that determined which programs went on the air and which did not. In the months that followed, at least 13 programs bypassed the formal review process, including one that had been rejected twice.23 Lew also became dependent on outside contractors for Radio Martí content. Many of the new programs not only duplicated existing Radio Martí shows but also used talent that appeared on other Spanish-language stations in south

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Florida, Radio Mambi being the most prominent. Mambi personalities appearing on Radio Martí included Rafael Diaz-Balart and Ninoska Perez-Castellón (as a guest). Another host interviewed men who searched for Castro operatives in the United States, meaning those who advocate dialogue with Cuba. Much of the interview consisted of identifying and destroying dialogueros.24 In the first seven months of FY 2002, OCB had spent more than 2 million dollars on contract employees compared to 1.1 and 1.8 million in the two previous complete fiscal years. About 15 percent of veteran employees said that a contractor was doing the work that they themselves had been assigned. Black employees said they were either replaced or paid less than white employees who did the same amount of work. Charges of cronyism were rampant and validated by contractors who admitted to investigators that Lew hired them simply because they asked for a job.25 Almost two-thirds of workers said that morale had decreased since Lew’s appointment and attributed this to a “lack of structure and procedures.”26 Employees instinctively consulted upper management, bypassing middle-management supervisors. The absence of quality control measures was obvious in the broadcasts. A month after Carter’s trip to Cuba, Radio Martí repeatedly (eight times, according to Cuban officials) quoted Jorge Castañeda, Mexican foreign secretary, as saying “the doors of the embassy of Mexico on the island are open to all Cuban citizens.”27 Castañeda made the statement at the inauguration of Mexico’s Cultural Institute in Miami and was referring to a general sense of openness. He claimed that “radical elements in Miami” had deliberately quoted him out of context.28 In less than 24 hours after the first broadcast, 21 Cubans drove a bus through the gates of the Mexican embassy in Havana and demanded asylum.29 Mexican officials turned the men over to the Cuban government, prompting some in Little Havana to call for a boycott of Mexico.30 Jeff Flake served a Mormon mission in southern Africa prior to earning his B.A. in international relations and M.A. in political science from Brigham Young University. Flake then moved to Namibia, just south of Angola, to serve as executive director of the Foundation for Democracy.31 The organization witnessed Angola’s governmental evolution after South Africa’s withdrawal in 1988. In 2000 Flake was elected to Congress as a fiscal conservative Republican to represent Arizona’s First District. He became a consistent critic against “pork” and was named a “taxpayer superhero” by the Citizens Against Government Waste in 2007. William Delahunt was a liberal Democrat more than 20 years older than Jeff Flake. After serving as district attorney for Massachusetts’ Norfolk County, Delahunt was elected to represent the state’s 10th Congressional District in the House. According to Project Vote Smart, Delahunt consistently voted in support of the agendas of the NAACP, the ACLU, and the Human Rights Campaign.32 He was less supportive of USA*ENGAGE, voting in favor of its interests only 40 percent of the time in 2001–2002.33

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By 2002, Flake and Delahunt had emerged as the unofficial leaders of the anti-embargo movement and the latest to accept the challenge of initiating changes at the Office of Cuba Broadcasting. Both visited Cuba in 2001 and found that most people on the island had tuned out Radio Martí “because it is not news anymore. It is just rhetoric. It is just anti–Castro drivel that we have heard before and there is no reason to listen to it.”34 Flake and Delahunt visited the Office of Cuba Broadcasting the following year and characterized the operation as being in “total disarray.”35 When Flake asked why only 5 percent of people on the island listened to Radio Martí, OCB officials rejected the allegation and argued the extreme opposite, that the listener numbers were up to around 95 percent.36 In a markup session for an unrelated funding bill, Flake and Delahunt modified the legislation so that it terminated funding for TV Martí and called for an outside review of Radio Martí. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen vehemently objected and repeated the same boilerplate arguments for maintaining the broadcasts that had been used for years: Castro restricts information in Cuba; shutting them down would give Castro a victory; Voice of America and Radio Free Asia are also jammed but no one calls for their termination. She also denied any improper conduct at the station: “Since the fall of 1987, Radio and TV Martí has [sic] been subjected to 52 investigations and audits, 52, including programming evaluations. Changes have been made, but Cuban broadcasting, overall, has passed these reviews with flying colors.”37 The changes proposed by Flake and Delahunt had little chance to succeed because Ros-Lehtinen promised to derail the larger bill: “This bill will not progress, as the leadership and the White House are committed to blocking any effort to soften U.S. policy toward the regime. The President is personally committed to make both TV and Radio Martí a success. They are critical tools in the U.S. efforts to bring democracy to Cuba.”38 The two sides compromised. Flake and Delahunt dropped the modifications in exchange for a hearing during which Cuban dissidents could comment on the stations. The parties continued the discussion six weeks later when the House Subcommittee on International Relations and Human Rights, chaired by Ros-Lehtinen, held the first hearing in almost 14 years that dealt exclusively with either station. The last was the House Committee on Foreign Affairs hearing on TV Martí in 1988. Ros-Lehtinen was quick to defend Salvador Lew and the Martís. She challenged the validity of the surveys that indicated a decline in listeners: “Of course they fail to mention that people go to prison in Cuba for speaking the truth. You really think you can do a survey in Cuba? I guess you believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny too.”39 When Georgia representative Cynthia McKinney, an African American Democrat, asked why Aché was the first program that appealed to Afro-Cubans, Ros-Lehtinen drew attention to the absence of any such program during the Clinton administration. Delahunt sided with witness and exile Alfredo Duran, who said, “Radio Martí only reflects one point of

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view — that of the historical exiled community” and described TV Martí as “a waste of taxpayers’ money.”40 Ros-Lehtinen disagreed with Duran, who was once president of the Bay of Pigs Veterans Association but was forced to resign after expressing a desire to dialogue with Cuba. She blunted the impact of Duran’s testimony by attacking his credibility: MS. ROS-LEHTINEN: I know that halo above your head is shining brightly as you talk about libelist attacks against you, et cetera. Just refresh my memory, is it true or not true that you just settled a case with a Cuban-American National Foundation about your libelist attacks against that organization? In fact, you had to pay and you had to print a retraction about statements that you and Mr. Wayne Smith had made against that organization, is that true or not? MR . DURAN: That’s not true. I was not sued. They sued me, but they dropped the case. They dismissed the case because it was unfounded that I had ever made that statement. MS. ROS-LEHTINEN: So those press reports weren’t correct that — MR . DURAN: I beg your pardon? MS. ROS-LEHTINEN: Thank you. MR . DURAN: It’s not true. MS. ROS-LEHTINEN: Thank you. Mr. Delahunt, I am aware that you went to Cuban prisons....”

In 1998, the CANF named Duran in a lawsuit after he distributed an article written by Wayne Smith in which the former head of the U.S. Interests Section said that the Foundation failed to comply with “neutrality laws” and had been linked to “planned terrorist attacks.”41 The most damaging portion of the hearing involved the questioning of Daniel Fisk. Just a few months earlier, Fisk had been with the Heritage Foundation, the conservative think tank that championed Radio Martí during the Reagan administration. The organization was less enamored with the broadcasts two decades later. In a 2001 Washington Quarterly article, Fisk said the Martís needed serious improvements: Moving the facilities to Miami sacrificed its effectiveness, making it simply another Miami radio station. Radio Martí should be relocated and every effort should be made to end its image as a mouthpiece of the Miami-Cuban American community.... The United States should offer to abolish TV Martí in exchange for the Castro regime’s end to the jamming of a relocated Radio Martí.42

After the article’s publication, President Bush appointed Fisk as the State Department’s deputy assistant secretary for the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs. Fisk had been at his post just six weeks when he appeared before the committee and found himself defending Radio and TV Martí, describing the stations as “critical elements of our initiative to break Castro’s monopoly on information to the Cuban people.”43 When Delahunt challenged Fisk on his inconsistency, he admitted writing the article but in a way that was “in the context of the importance attached to the Martís.”44

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Brian Conniff, director of the International Broadcasting Bureau, found himself in a similar situation. Representative Flake mentioned a report, to which then OIG worker Conniff contributed, that drew attention to the stations’ lack of objectivity, excerpted below: • [T]he vast majority of items represented a single prospective [sic].45 • This [hard-line position] is a legitimate and important perspective, but it is by no means the only perspective that a branch of the U.S. International Broadcasting Bureau should be presenting.46 • Many of the program hosts are warm in their exchanges with listeners and they have a lively spontaneity, but some of them get very heated in their denunciation of the regime, and give long and passionate speeches at which point the[y] lose credibility as news anchors.47 • Less appealing. Were long and rambling monologues in which hosts gave their opinions, including some inappropriate comments, long interviews and programs which did not distinguish adequately between information and opinion.48 Conniff conceded that there had been problems but assured Flake and the subcommittee that “a positive trend” had improved the stations’ content “over the last two months,” instigated by complaints from the U.S. Interests Section about “rambling monologues and one-sided information and not diversity of opinion.”49 Lew, Fisk and Conniff left the hearing prior to adjournment, prompting Flake to criticize them for lacking the “courtesy” to remain, “emblematic of the problems we have here.”50 Radio Martí restored some of its credibility a few months later by acknowledging the Varela Project and recognizing the work of dissidents on the island. In December of 2002, the station had live coverage of the Sakharov Prize award ceremony commemorating the work of Oswaldo Payá. Radio Martí also covered Payá’s 2003 visit to Miami when he tried to generate support among exiles for the Varela Project. The station aired a speech Payá delivered to an audience of 200 at a south Florida church, a programming coup considering that the Cuban media had resumed their censorship of information about the Varela Project.51 In a message to one of the participants, Payá expressed his gratitude to Radio Martí: “I wish to thank you, here and from Cuba, for the work that you do. For the heart that you put into it. For giving us a voice and for raising our hopes. Only God can see the work that you do. You bring light, and you bring truth, and you give voice to many Cubans even in the darkest of moments.”52 Hardline radio stations actively opposed Payá’s visit, as did others who organized an anti–Payá rally.53 Payá also had an uncomfortable meeting with Ileana RosLehtinen and Lincoln Diaz-Balart, who remained steadfast in their opposition to the Varela Project. As Ros-Lehtinen said, “I don’t think the Varela Project is a way to get real, fundamental change.”54 To hinder the progress of the Varela Project, Castro launched “Black

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Spring” in March of 2003. Over a period of three days, Cuban officials arrested more than 70 dissidents for antirevolutionary behavior. Of the 70 arrested, 46 were affiliated with Payá’s Christian Liberation Movement. 55 Among the arrested was 62-year-old Oscar Manuel Espinosa Chepe, who hosted Charlando con Chepe [Talking with Chepe], a weekly segment on Radio Martí about the Cuban economy. Chepe did not fit the profile of a hard-liner. He initially viewed Radio Martí as an intrusion upon Cuban society. He opposed the U.S. embargo of Cuba and favored reuniting Elian Gonzalez with his father. Chepe began writing articles for international journals and contributing to other international media after Castro’s revolution failed to meet his expectations.56 After forming a relationship with Radio Martí, Cuban officials arrested and charged Chepe with participating in “activities against the integrity and sovereignty of the State.”57 He rejected the idea that Radio Martí was funding anti–Castro activity in Cuba: “I didn’t get a cent from Radio Martí.”58 On the second day of the Black Spring arrests, six men wielding kitchen knives diverted a Cuban Aerotaxi flight to Key West and demanded asylum.59 Less than two weeks later, a man who threatened to blow up a plane with hand grenades hijacked a plane to Key West.60 Castro and James Cason, head of the U.S. Interests Section, radioed the aircraft in an attempt to dissuade the hijacker from carrying out his action.61 The following day, more than a dozen hijackers with pistols seized control of a ferry and headed north until exhausting their fuel supply 30 miles from Cuba.62 Realizing that this was the early stage of a trend that would have been detrimental to both sides, Cason tried to stem the tide by issuing a statement to the island via Cuban radio and television: Any individual of any nationality, including Cuban, who hijacks an aircraft or vessel to the United States will be prosecuted with the full force of the U.S. legal system. The individual convicted of such offenses can expect to serve lengthy sentences in federal penitentiaries. Once convicted of such an offense the individual, including a Cuban, would be rendered permanently ineligible for lawful permanent residence in the U.S.63

The growing crisis ended in less than 24 hours when Cuban officials raided the drifting ferry and captured the hijackers, ending the growing crisis in less than 24 hours. Three were executed a few days later.64 On the same day the executions were carried out, Cuban officials prevented another hijacking by arresting four plotters before they could board a plane.65 Cason’s use of Castro’s media and his willingness to cooperate with Cuban officials served as a subtle indicator that the island’s information sources had just as much impact as the Martís. The Office of Inspector General issued a report that cited inappropriate hiring procedures at the two stations. Salvador Lew resigned shortly after the document’s release, citing health issues: “Working there is extremely hard.”66 The following day, President Bush nominated Pedro Roig for the post. Roig also trained for Brigade 2506 with Jorge Mas Canosa

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and had been a member of the CANF.67 He was an internal hire, having hosted a cultural affairs and interview program on Radio Martí for years. The situation at the OCB did not seem likely to improve. One of the first people Roig hired was his nephew as chief of staff even though he had no broadcasting experience. He also hired Luis Zuniga, a leader in the old CANF who had become the executive director of the Cuban Liberty Council for “special projects.” Both positions earned six-figure salaries. Like Lew, Roig was immediately faced with the responsibility of finding a way to overcome Cuban interference with TV Martí. On May 20, Radio Martí’s 23rd birthday, Radio and TV Martí began broadcasting from modified C–130 cargo planes code-named Commando Solo. By transmitting the stations’ signals from the air, officials argued that they had a better chance to overcome Cuban jamming. John Spicer Nichols argued that a frequency emanating from a plane was no more likely to overcome interference than a source on the ground: “Just because the plane’s moving around doesn’t change the fact that [the signal] is broadcast on a frequency.”68 Planes made 39 trips to Cuba from August 2004 to June 2005.69 For each mission, Commando Solo flew more than a thousand miles from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, where the planes served as part of the 193rd Special Operations Wing. Commando Solo is the only military unit capable of providing this service and has flown over operations in Grenada, Saudi Arabia, Haiti, BosniaHerzegovina, Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq.70 Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Bob Menendez, now a senator from New Jersey, were quick to cite the need for Commando Solo flights when the Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere met again in June. Flake and Delahunt acknowledged that the broadcasts had improved somewhat but still called for the termination of TV Martí. The Radio and TV Martí debate had shifted from content to implementation of a permanent airborne platform for broadcasting. Hugo Chávez had a distinguished military career but was consistently disappointed and frustrated by corruption within the Venezuelan government. In 1992 he conspired with other military leaders to launch a coup against President Carlos Andrés Pérez very similar to Castro’s 1953 Moncada attack. The plan was to kidnap the president and seize control of a television station, which they would use to show that Pérez had been removed from power and a transition government was underway. The plan collapsed when the rebels failed to capture Pérez, who aired his own call to arms, inspiring Venezuelans to support him rather than Chávez.71 As forces loyal to Pérez surrounded the coup leaders, Chávez surrendered before a throng of television reporters who sent his picture live across the country: “Comrades: Unfortunately, for now, the objectives we had set for ourselves were not achieved in the capital city.”72 By accepting responsibility for the fiasco, which is rare in Latin America, Chávez morphed from obscure military figure to prominent revolutionary. The phrase “for now”

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suggested that the movement would resume at some point with Chávez at the helm. Ironically, the pivotal phrase was an accident. Chávez did not intend to say it and, even after saying it, did not realize that he had said “for now.”73 Like Castro, Chávez was pardoned early. When he flew to Cuba a few months after his release, newspapers throughout Latin America printed the image of Castro personally welcoming Chávez as he got off the plane. Prensa Latina, the state news service in Cuba, supplied the media with a Chávez quote: “I am honored to be in Cuba and even more honored that President Fidel Castro has been so kind as to be here personally.”74 The press in the United States ignored the meeting, failing to recognize the relationship that had been forged. Castro became a mentor to Chávez, whose popularity in Venezuela continued to grow. In 1998, six years after the military strongman tried to take control of his government by force, Chávez was democratically elected as its president. Venezuela is different from other Latin American countries in that it produces oil, which Chávez traded to Castro in exchange for medical care from Cuban doctors. The United States became concerned when Castro and Chávez began to work with leaders of other countries to improve social conditions throughout the hemisphere. Venezuelans fearing a Cuba-like government launched a coup in April 2002. Chávez was arrested but returned to power after two days. Other states in the region followed the lead of Chávez by adopting “Bolivarian” policies. Simón Bolívar was a Venezuelan aristocrat who inspired South Americans to oppose Spain in the early 1800s. He is the transcontinental figure who unites all Latinos, just as Jose Martí is the unifying figure for Cubans living in Cuba and in exile. Bolivarianism calls for Latin American countries to be self-sufficient and resist imperialism. The movement opposes the policies of the United States and favors those of the left. By 2002, cells hoping to promote Bolivarian policies and known as Bolivarian Circles had taken root across Latin America. Less than six years after the failed coup against Chávez, Columbia, El Salvador, Mexico and Peru were the only governments in Latin America that did not have a distinct leaning to the left.75 When the Bush administration returned 12 boat hijackers to Cuba, CANF executive director Joe Garcia went on a Miami radio station and described Lincoln Diaz-Balart as “politically impotent” in his efforts to influence the White House.76 Diaz-Balart struck back by issuing a statement to the Miami Herald that described Garcia and the CANF as “remnants of an organization that had once been on our side, but now has become part of the coalition working to weaken U.S. opposition to the dictatorship in Cuba.”77 Garcia also found himself banned from White House events, a drastic change from when the Foundation dictated Cuba policy. Garcia’s comments illustrated Little Havana’s growing disappointment with the leadership in Washington, most notably President Bush, who found

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himself with the same dilemma his father faced in 1992. Democrat hard-liner and aspiring presidential candidate Joe Lieberman had restored his friendship with the hard-liners and saw an opportunity to attack the president from the left. In a live broadcast on Radio Martí Lieberman said, “There has been not adequate support particularly of the creation of civil society in Cuba and not adequate support of the dissidents.” He reminded the audience, “I have always fought for a free Cuba.”78 The event gave the Connecticut senator’s presidential campaign a slight surge that soon dissipated.79 To improve relations with Cuban Americans, Bush released a report by the Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba (CAFC) five months before the 2004 election. The CAFC was chaired by then national security advisor Colin Powell and consisted of cabinet members and advisors. The document, more than 450 pages long, proposed a multilayered approach to ousting Castro and undermining the succession strategy. The recommendations included the following: “Limit family visits to Cuba to one (1) trip every three years under a specific license [p. 41]. Permit individuals to send remittances only to immediate family (grandparents, grandchildren, parents, siblings, spouses, and children) in Cuba [p. 39]. Offer rewards to those who report on illegal remittances that lead to enforcement actions. An undetermined amount of remittances are sent illegally to Cuba, via third country companies and through “mules” who carry the money to Cuba either directly or through third-countries. Rewards will encourage efforts to identify and eliminate illegal remittance networks [p. 40]. Direct U.S. law enforcement authorities to conduct “sting” operations against “mule” networks and others who illegally carry money to Cuba as a means to disrupt and discourage the sending of illegal remittances [p. 40]. Limit gift parcels to medicines, medical supplies and devices, receive-only radios, and batteries, not to exceed $200 total value, and food (unlimited in dollar amount) [p. 40]. Establish a Transition Coordinator at the State Department to facilitate expanded implementation of pro-democracy, civil-society building, and public diplomacy projects for Cuba and to continue regular planning for future transition assistance contingencies [p. 52]. Direct the immediate deployment of the C–130 COMMANDO SOLO airborne platform and make available funds to acquire and refit a dedicated airborne platform for the transmission of Radio and Television Martí into Cuba, consistent with U. S. international telecommunications obligations [p. xvii]. Disseminate information abroad about U.S. foreign policy, specifically regarding human rights and other developments in Cuba, including Castro’s record of harboring terrorists, committing espionage against the United States and other countries, fomenting subversion of democratically elected governments in Latin America, and the U.S. Government’s belief that Cuba has at least a limited developmental offensive biological weapons research and development effort [p. xviii].

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The phrase “if requested by a transition government” preceded a number of potential benefits. These were basically enticements for the Cubans to turn against Castro. The CAFC report was essentially another hard-line strategy to rebuild post–Castro Cuba, with the hard-liners directing that plan. It mentioned the Varela Project only three times: once to denounce the Castro regime for arresting members of the Varela Project, once to denounce the Cuban legislature for failing to acknowledge the Varela Project, and once to recognize the Varela Project as an example of an “independent civil society.” Philip Peters, a Cuba expert who worked for the Lexington Institute, said the CAFC was the invention of a select few who wanted to validate their arguments for maintaining the status quo: “They went to one place, and they talked amongst themselves.... They explicitly only discussed it in Congress with Ros-Lehtinen and Diaz-Balart or others like them.”80 The Miami New Times described the CAFC as “a very tiny tail ... wagging a very big dog.”81 Not surprisingly, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen said the recommendations represented “a great victory for the people of Cuba.”82 Lincoln Diaz-Balart said the proposals would “hasten the day that freedom and democracy will return to Cuba.”83 Almost everyone else on Capitol Hill opposed the restrictions. Montana senator Max Baucus said, “The Administration’s absurd and increasingly bizarre obsession with Cuba is more than just a shame, it’s a dangerous diversion from reality.”84 VOA News reported that Elizardo Sanchez and Oswaldo Payá rejected the proposals: “We do not accept transition programs made outside of Cuba.”85 Joe Garcia agreed with most of the White House’s recommendations but criticized the travel restrictions: “Any time the government gets between families we think it’s just bad.”86 Bush went on to defeat John Kerry in November. He took Florida with 52 percent of votes in the state, not as close as expected.87 In spite of Bush’s initiatives, his family’s history of supporting La Causa, and having his brother as the governor of Florida, his share of the Cuban American vote was not as dominant as that of previous Republican candidates. Bush generated about 10 percent fewer votes from Cubans than he did in 2000.88 This was partially due to the unusually high number of Cuban Americans who voted for Bush in 2000 after the Elian Gonzalez affair but may have also indicated that Generation Ñ was growing up and hard-liners’ influence continued to slide. In spite of the growing division, Bush’s hard-line actions made it clear that the United States and Cuba would remain adversaries for the remainder of his years in the White House. The anti-embargo movement was incapacitated, as was any effort to tone down Radio Martí. The station’s news stories about Cuba lacked objectivity, while discussion and talk programs were distinctly more antagonistic than those that had aired just a few years earlier.89 In one promo, a Cuban husband and wife discussed how to overcome Cuban jamming. As she said to him, “Radio and Television Martí are also on the Internet without inter-

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ference.”90 The promo and information about online technology was more relevant to listeners in Miami who were likely to have Internet access rather than those on the island who were not. Officials at the U.S. Interests Section in Havana initiated a campaign to distribute shortwave radios to anyone who visited the building. They installed loudspeakers on the building’s exterior to broadcast Radio Martí to people outside.91 In December of 2004, the interests section displayed a light-up Santa Claus, who had been banned in Cuba, and other Christmas decorations on the building. The most controversial display was a light-up “75” sign, a reference to the 75 dissidents that had been arrested during the Black Spring of 2003. Wayne Smith, the former head of the interests section, said the Cubans should respond by posting pictures of U.S. soldiers mistreating prisoners at Abu Ghraib.92 Just a few days later, Anti-Imperialist Plaza, the venue opposite the interests section that had been the site for demonstrations during the Elian Gonzalez custody battle, showed pictures of prisoner abuse pseudo-stamped with a swastika and “Made in the USA” label.93 In April 2005, North Dakota senator Byron Dorgan submitted yet another amendment to terminate funding for the station.94 He argued that Fat Albert was an ineffective way to deliver a television signal to Cuba: “If this were a television show, it would be a comedy.”95 Dorgan’s amendment stalled when the Senate voted 65 to 35 in favor of tabling it. Three months later, on July 9, 2005, Hurricane Dennis destroyed both the main TV Martí aerostat and its backup. An official for the U.S. Air Force, which operates the facility, said, “The warning for the storm came up late and we couldn’t deflate them in time.”96 Dorgan resumed his fight after the hurricane. 97 Again, he argued on the Senate floor that Fat Albert was an ineffective way to deliver a television signal to Cuba, unaware that the aerostat had been out of commission for 10 days: This is a picture of Fat Albert. Fat Albert is an aerostat balloon. We have this balloon go way up into the air and then, on a big tether, it broadcasts television signals into Cuba. Castro, through his technology, blocks the signals so the Cuban people cannot see them. So we have $189 million we have spent to send broadcast signals to Cuba that the Cuban people cannot receive.98

Florida senators Mel Martinez and Bill Nelson argued for implementing regular airplane broadcasts of TV Martí, but not because Fat Albert had been destroyed. Martinez cited the damage that Hurricane Dennis had inflicted on Cuba as a reason for maintaining the broadcasts but failed to acknowledge that the same storm had knocked TV Martí’s broadcast signal off the air. Like Dorgan, it appeared as if he had not heard about Fat Albert’s demise: The people of Cuba recently have suffered the ravages of yet another hurricane. As a result of that hurricane, it is unquestionable that the people of Cuba are desperate to know the facts of free information flow. For instance, the Cuban Government has

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refused humanitarian aid from the U.S. Government. We hear that most of Cuba today has blackouts given the fact that the hurricane destroyed large parts of the electrical system. Would it not be good to get the information to the people of Cuba that their dictator, their tyrant, while he sleeps in a comfortable, dry bed, does not want them to have the humanitarian assistance that our Government would provide?99

At no time during the discussion on TV Martí did anyone say that it was available only by satellite, which was unavailable to most people in Cuba and even then difficult to tune in. The Senate defeated Dorgan’s amendment 66 – 33. The votes were almost identical to the April vote to table his amendment and clearly along party lines.100 Only two Republicans voted to end TV Martí.101 Only a handful of Democrats voted to keep it, most notably Hillary Clinton of New York and Joe Biden of Delaware. Neither wanted to alienate hard-line Cubans and jeopardize a 2008 campaign for the White House. Democrats Barack Obama of Illinois and Chris Dodd of Connecticut, neither of whom at the time was regarded as strong presidential candidates for 2008, opposed TV Martí both times. The first Miami Herald story acknowledging that TV Martí was off the air did not emerge until five weeks after Fat Albert’s final voyage, an indication that no one watched the station or perhaps could not distinguish its signal from regular static.102 It was during this time that Radio and TV Martí gained a formidable competitor. La Nueva Televisora del Sur (the New Television Station of the South), or Telesur as it was more commonly known, was a commercialfree news network designed to provide an alternative to programming originating from the United States, which comprised about 62 percent of television content in Latin America.103 Telesur was a cooperative effort, with Venezuela providing 51 percent of the funding, followed by Argentina (20 percent), Cuba (19 percent), and Uruguay (10 percent).104 Telesur scared the Bush administration when it announced intentions to form a relationship with Al Jazeera, the Qatar network that disseminates information in the Middle East and is generally perceived as being hostile to the United States.105 Three days before Telesur’s official launch date, Florida representative Connie Mack introduced an amendment that called for the creation of a broadcasting operation to counter the anti–U.S. messages from Chávez’ network, “much like we currently do with Radio and TV Martí in Cuba.” The House approved, by voice vote, the anti–Chavez station but the project ended when the larger bill failed to advance. Any attempt to kill TV Martí had little chance to succeed. The White House had already requested $10 million in the FY 2006 budget for a plane specifically dedicated to broadcasting to Cuba.106 The administration’s delay in implementing the plan created a great deal of friction with the exile community. The destruction of the Fat Alberts expedited the process, leading one to wonder if their demise was an accident or a sacrifice. The fact that workers at the Cudjoe

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site managed to unload all of the transmitting equipment before the hurricane destroyed the aerostats supports this argument. Either way, Bush announced in June of 2005 that one of the Commando Solo planes that had been carrying Radio and TV Martí would not be redirected to Iraq until a plane specifically dedicated to Cuban operations could be acquired. According to the Miami Herald, this was done to placate Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, who had a son serving in Iraq at the time.107 The information war against Castro shifted to the absurd the following January when workers at the U.S. Interests Section installed an electronic news ticker at the top of their building. It showed quotes from human rights leaders, political leaders and popular culture figures like Frank Zappa and George Burns. Castro responded by erecting 148 flagpoles at Anti-Imperialist Plaza across from the building. Each pole had a black flag to represent Cuban victims of an ongoing conflict with the United States. More important, the flags blocked the street view of the messages at the top of the 7-story building.108 The building retaliated: “Who fears the billboard? Why block it?” The Cuban people were amused: “That Fidel, he’s smart —very smart.”109 Even with Castro’s wall of flags, there may have been more people whom saw the sign on the interests section in the first 16 weeks of 2006 than had seen TV Martí in its first 16 years. After 47 years, 6 months and 23 days as leader of the Cuban people, 79year-old Fidel Castro relinquished control of the country to his 75-year-old brother, Raul.110 On July 31, 2006, Cuban television announced that doctors had operated on Fidel to end stress-induced gastrointestinal bleeding. Castro’s absence in delivering the message led observers on both sides of the Straits of Florida to speculate that he might be dead. Cubans in Miami cruised Calle Ocho flying Cuban flags and honking their horns. Miami officials dusted off plans for the “Farewell Fidel” party in the Orange Bowl. TV Martí aired a video montage that showed a statue of Lenin falling in East Germany in 1989, a statue of Saddam Hussein falling in Iraq in 2003, and Fidel Castro falling and breaking his knee at a graduation ceremony in 2004.111 A gaunt and pale Fidel Castro appeared in Granma two weeks later with his brother and Hugo Chávez, who was visiting the former Cuban leader for his 80th birthday. The “Castro is dead” and “Castro is dying” rumors continued to resurface for the next few months as the frequency of his appearances in the media decreased substantially. An occasional picture or statement published in Granma was enough for Cubans to confirm that he was still alive. As the rumors subsided so did the euphoria in Little Havana. The power vacuum created by a transition of power never developed and the doomsday predictions of events that were to follow never occured. Cuban officials did not launch a power struggle to gain control of the government. No exiles returned to reclaim property. There was no mass migration to or from the island. It was almost as if nothing significant had happened. It was like watching High Noon for 50 years only to find out that the showdown between Gary Cooper and the

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bad guys had been postponed indefinitely because the train carrying one of the men had been delayed —“Call the sheriff and tell him to wait.” Fidel Castro’s “demise” was anticlimactic to say the least. That was it? That was what we had been waiting for all this time? The transition was anticlimactic not because it lacked violence but rather because it provided no resolution. It also seemed to be a huge waste. The near 50-year campaign to remove Castro from power did not seem worth the countless lives that had been lost or the billions of dollars that had been spent. He had been removed by natural causes. The fact that Raul Castro was 75 years old suggested that a regime change could still occur at any moment, allowing Radio and TV Martí proponents to argue that the stations could play a key role during a transition of power. A politician would look foolish if they tried to correct Radio Martí or pull the plug on TV Martí and then woke up the following day to find out that Fidel or Raul Castro had died and Cuba was in a state of civil war. Maintaining the status quo and letting the Cuba problem work itself out was the safe bet. As a result, all relevant parties continued their normal operations and the Office of Cuba Broadcasting continued to generate controversy. In September 2006 the Miami Herald revealed “that at least 10 south Florida journalists” had been on the government payroll for appearing on Radio Martí, TV Martí, or both stations. Two worked for the Herald’s sister paper El Nuevo Herald and two others, a freelancer and a syndicated columnist, published articles that appeared in both publications.112 The other journalists were from other Spanish-language media.113 The personalities were paid $75 to $100 for each appearance beginning in 2001, putting the total amount of compensation in excess of $200,000.114 In journalism, accepting something as small as a cup of coffee is often frowned upon because it creates a potential conflict of interest that could threaten a journalist’s objectivity. Ironically, it was the Herald that broke the story by submitting a Freedom of Information Act request with the Broadcasting Board of Governors. Jesus Diaz Jr., editor of Miami Herald Media, resigned less than a month after the story broke. That same day, the Herald announced that the two reporters it fired would be granted amnesty due to vague company policies about such activities.115 The paper also revealed there were at least 49 journalists throughout south Florida who had been on the payroll from either Radio Martí or TV Martí.116 In October of 2006, the Office of Cuba Broadcasting launched the airborne platform President Bush had promised two years earlier. Aero Martí, two specially equipped twin-engine Gulfstream propeller planes, began sending TV Martí to Cuba four hours a day, six days a week at a cost of $5.9 million a year.117 After just a few months, OCB officials claimed to have “anecdotal indications that increased viewership for TV Martí in Cuba has resulted from the airborne platforms.”118 John Spicer Nichols disagreed. He visited Cuba almost a year after Aero Martí first took flight and found “no evidence of significant

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viewership of TV Martí.” He added, “The signal from the plane is essentially unusable.”119 Even with Aero Martí, the White House called for the stations to increase the number of broadcasting platforms in its follow up CAFC report. In December, the Office of Cuba Broadcasting contracted with Miami’s Radio Mambi to carry Radio Martí programming and TV Azteca affiliate WPMF-TV to rebroadcast TV Martí. The arrangement with TV Azteca gave TV Martí an added advantage because DirecTV included the station in its lineup, which made it easier for Cubans with satellite dishes to receive the station. WPMF was a normal commercial television station that aired regular programs in addition to TV Martí programs. It also aired regular commercials, sometimes adjacent to TV Martí content. One advertisement was for a phone sex line and another for a love calculator. There were also commercials for political candidates, including one who was running for president of the United States. The contracts for both stations were around $800,000 a year, somewhat high because the contracting process did not seek bids in the proper competitive manner.120 After excessive criticism of the arrangement, the OCB ended its arrangement with Radio Mambi in February 2008. TV Azteca continued to air TV Martí.121 In February 2007, Jose M. Miranda, TV Martí’s programming director from 1999 to 2004, pleaded guilty to accepting kickbacks from Perfect Image Film and Video Productions. Over a period of three years, Miranda received more than $100,000 from Perfect Image, about half of the amount that the Office of Cuba Broadcasting paid the company for programs that aired on TV Martí.122 Miranda was sentenced to 27 months in prison and three years of probation. VOA and Granma covered the story.123 It is unclear if Radio or TV Martí covered it at all. La Causa passion returned to the spotlight in the summer of 2007 because of Vamos a Cuba [A Visit to Cuba]. The children’s book deemed offensive because the children on its cover were smiling and the text did not depict the horrors of Castro’s revolution. The Miami-Dade School Board voted 6 –3 to remove all 49 copies of Vamos a Cuba from school library shelves, reviving tensions between south Florida’s Cubans and non–Cubans. This extended to Radio Martí, where a station personality sided with the school board: “Laden with lies about how Cubans live today, it should be withdrawn from the 33 Miami-Dade libraries that have it.... This book must be gone from the library.” In just a few weeks, the American Civil Liberties Union sued the Miami-Dade School Board and won. The court of the Southern District of Florida ordered the board to have the book back on library shelves by the first day of school in August. Three years later, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the decision and ruled in favor of the school board. Amidst all of the discourse between the United States and Cuba and everything disseminated by Radio and TV Martí, there was one group that had been ignored: the Marielitos. The more than 700 incarcerated immigrants who first

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arrived during the 1980 boatlift continued to languish in prison. In the years that followed the 1987 uprisings in Atlanta and Oakdale, riots involving Marielitos occurred at a prison in Talladega, Alabama, in 1991 and a facility in St. Martinville, Louisiana, in 1999. Only some were excluded. Almost all inmates had served well beyond the normal sentences for their crimes but still could not easily be reintroduced into society and could not be returned to Cuba, which did not want them. The Marielitos were granted a general amnesty on January 12, 2005, when the Supreme Court ruled that illegal immigrants could not be held for an excessive period of time, even if they could not be returned to their country of origin. The first 150 Marielitos were released in south Florida about a month later, with others being released over the next several weeks from locations scattered throughout the country. The average detainee did not have a birth certificate, social security number or other essentials needed to get a job. Many Marielitos were simply dumped in cities and expected to survive. Most found refuge at homeless shelters. In October of 2006, the Miami Herald said that 327 of 771 recently released Marielitos had been rearrested and it described horrible deaths of three recently released Marielitos. One appeared to be a “suicide by cop” situation. Another victim was shot in his car, where he lived. Authorities found a female Marielito in a motel naked and strangled to death, presumably murdered by another Marielito.124 In March, the New Orleans Times-Picayune said that eight Marielitos were “wandering the streets” in the city.125 It is not known if the eight, or possibly more, were still in the area when Hurricane Katrina hit four months later. If they were, they may have been among the refugees sent to camps, one of which was at Fort Chaffee, Arkansas, and another at Fort Indiantown Gap, Pennsylvania, the same sites that served as shelters following the Mariel boatlift.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Change or More of the Same? Cuba continues to have much the same effect on United States Administrations that the full moon reputedly had on werewolves.1 — Wayne S. Smith, 1982

During George Bush’s second term, the public had grown tired of fighting a war in Iraq. Democrats won a majority in the House and Senate in the 2006 congressional elections, primarily because of public animosity toward President George W. Bush and the Republicans. Radio and TV Martí were on the defensive as Democrats took control of the committee chairmanships relevant to the stations. William Delahunt was named chair of the House Subcommittee on International Organizations, Human Rights, and Oversight and quickly called for hearings on Radio and TV Martí.2 According to Delahunt, “There’s mismanagement ... that really demands a thorough review.”3 His immediate capacity to change the stations was limited. Bush would be in the White House for the next two years and could hinder any effort to change the broadcasts. Democrats had their eyes on the presidential election, just two years away, and did not want to alienate south Florida’s Cubans and have them go en masse to the Republican candidate as they had with Bush in 2000. As a result, an awkward calm settled in at the Office of Cuba Broadcasting. Two years later voters were still so upset with Bush and the Republicans that any candidate the Democrats put forth, regardless of who it was, seemed likely to win. This put the spotlight on Hillary Rodham Clinton, the former first lady turned New York senator who announced her intention to run for the White House just two months after the 2006 elections. An early ABC News/Washington Post poll had her way out in front, leading all Democrats with 40 percent of the vote. Illinois Senator Barack Obama was a distant second at 16 percent.4 A Hillary Clinton administration would have changed little in regard to relations with Cuba. She favored maintaining a hard-line strategy as long as 202

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Castro maintained policies that restricted human rights. She also favored the Bush administration’s controversial travel restrictions for Cuban Americans who had relatives still living on the island. Clinton’s biggest threat came from Obama. As a state senator in 2004, Obama “repeatedly” favored lifting the embargo against Cuba because it had “utterly failed in the effort to overthrow Castro.”5 Three years later, as a U.S. senator campaigning for the White House, Obama published an op-ed in the Miami Herald in which he seemed to reverse his position and agree with Clinton: “If a post–Fidel government begins opening Cuba to democratic change, the United States ... is prepared to take steps to normalize relations and ease the embargo.”6 Bush, Clinton, and Obama’s positions were consistent with Title II of the 1996 Helms-Burton Act. Obama disagreed with Clinton on travel restrictions and remittances: “I will grant Cuban Americans unrestricted rights to visit family and send remittances to the island.”7 Although he did not mention it in the op-ed, Obama supported Radio Martí and opposed TV Martí. As a senator, he had voted on two occasions to end funding for TV Martí. Clinton had voted to table the 2005 Dorgan amendment to terminate funding for TV Martí, which delayed addressing the problems associated with the station and amounted to a vote in favor of allowing it to stay on the air. When the Senate voted on Dorgan’s bill in July, Clinton voted against terminating funding for TV Martí. Obama voted opposite Clinton both times. Arizona senator John McCain was the leading Republican candidate for the White House. In his 1999 book, Faith of My Fathers, McCain detailed his time as a prisoner of war at the Hanoi Hilton and mentioned a Cuban at the camp “who delighted in breaking Americans, even when the task required him to torture his victim to death.”8 McCain used his experience to connect with the exiles’ pain and loathing of Castro: “There’s a person I want you to help me find when Cuba is free, and that’s that Cuban that came to the prison camps of North Vietnam and tortured and killed my friends. We’ll get him and bring him to justice, too.”9 Endorsing McCain were Miami’s most prominent hardliners, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Lincoln Diaz-Balart, as well as anti-hard-liner and fellow Arizonan Jeff Flake. The United States’ relationship with Cuba was not a factor during the 2008 elections. Voters saw the economy, war in Iraq, and treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay as the key issues during the election rather than relations with Cuba. There was a minor controversy when a Houston television station aired video of Obama supporters in an office that had a Cuban flag with the image of Che Guevara. After the story migrated to south Florida’s talk radio stations, the Obama campaign issued a statement: “We were disappointed to see this picture because it is both offensive to many Cuban Americans and Americans of all backgrounds, and because it does not reflect Senator Obama’s views.... Barack Obama has been very clear in putting forth a Cuba policy based on one principle: freedom for the Cuban people.”10 Obama officials added that the

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workers were not officially part of the senator’s campaign, only advocates.11 With that, the controversy subsided. Cuba sneaked on the radar a few days later when Fidel Castro announced that he would not seek reelection, allowing his brother Raul to assume permanent leadership status. The peaceful transition of power seemed complete. Public interest of the candidates’ positions on Cuba soon dissipated, with the exception of Cuba-watchers in south Florida and one Website out of Dobbs Ferry, New York, cubacandidatewatch.blogspot.com. By May, McCain had captured the Republican nomination. On Cuban Independence Day, McCain addressed a group of hard-liners and criticized Obama for statements he had made years earlier advocating more cordial relations with Cuba. “He also wants to sit down unconditionally for a presidential meeting with Raul Castro— an unconditional meeting,” said McCain. The crowd booed as McCain stepped away from the microphone, mouth agape. McCain continued, “These steps would send the worst possible signal to Cuba’s dictators: There is no need to undertake fundamental reforms; they can simply wait for a unilateral change in U.S. policy.”12 Obama had overtaken Clinton and seemed on his way to securing the Democratic nomination. He spoke before the Cuban American National Foundation three days after McCain’s visit and criticized the Republican candidate for repeating the same hard-line rhetoric that every other candidate had done every four years. He then proposed a new strategy: keep the embargo to maintain leverage against Castro but allow Cuban Americans to travel to the island and serve as unofficial ambassadors.13 As Obama’s popularity surged nationwide McCain saw what had been a lead in Florida slowly erode during the campaign, not because of either candidate’s position on Cuba but rather because voters blamed Bush and the Republicans for the downfall of the economy and felt that Obama would better address the problems associated with it. The desperate McCain camp launched a series of automated telephone calls reminding Cuban Americans that Fidel Castro endorsed Obama. It didn’t work. McCain lost Florida and lost the election. There is a Road Runner cartoon titled Soup or Sonic in which Wile E. Coyote is reduced to an outrageously smaller size than his adversary and manages to “catch” his prey by hugging the bird’s tree trunk of a leg. It is the only cartoon in which he actually succeeds. The coyote produces a knife, fork, and napkin in preparation for devouring the bird but soon realizes that the task at hand is more daunting than he expected. The cartoon ends with Wile E. Coyote turning to the audience and holding up two signs that say, “Okay, wise guys, you always wanted me to catch him,” “Now what do I do?” This was the dilemma greeting the Democrats as they entered the 111th Congress. For the first time since the first two years of the Clinton administration, Democrats controlled both chambers of Congress and the White House and were in a position to change the United States’ policy toward Cuba. Con-

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gress could have repealed Helms-Burton, perhaps even with enough votes to override an Obama veto, and call for the White House to meet with Castro. Doing so would have revitalized the sagging economy in the United States, addressing the key issue during the 2008 campaign. The Democrats also could have put some pressure on Radio and TV Martí to be more accountable. At the very least, they could have terminated funding for TV Martí. Republicans seemed unlikely to resist these efforts as GOP officials from Midwestern states advocated normalization. Indiana senator Richard Lugar, a Republican who leaned slightly in favor of a hard-line strategy, issued Changing Cuba Policy — In the United States National Interest, a document that called for the new administration to have more cordial relations with Cuba: “After 47 years ... the unilateral embargo on Cuba has failed to achieve its stated purpose of ‘bringing democracy to the Cuban people....’ We must recognize the ineffectiveness of our current policy and deal with the Cuban regime in a way that enhances U.S. interests.”14 As the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Lugar’s statement carried the implication that any movement by the Democrats to ease sanctions would meet minimal resistance. The document also called for Congress to “review the effectiveness of ” the Cuban Democracy and Helms-Burton acts and acknowledged Radio and TV Martí had strained relations with Cuba that Radio and TV Martí had placed on relations with Cuba. The problem was that nobody cared. This apathy was obvious on January 1, 2009. With the exception of a few people in south Florida, most of the country failed to acknowledge the significance of the date, the 50-year anniversary of Batista’s departure from Cuba. A Google search on that day using the terms Cuba 50-Year Anniversary produced 206,000 Web pages. The word combinations Radio Martí and TV Martí returned 424,000 and 600,000 pages respectively. Many of those hits were not about the stations but rather stories for which Radio Martí or TV Martí were the source. These are still impressive numbers until compared to the word combination Obama Puppy, a reference to Obama’s election night announcement that he would get his daughters a new dog as compensation for enduring two years of campaigning. That phrase produced more than 8.5 million Web pages.15 Improving relations with Cuba was a daunting task but improving the situation at the Office of Cuba Broadcasting was not. The problem was a lack of public awareness. There had been dozens of investigations of one or both stations, almost all of which documented a lack of professionalism. They were usually viewed as yet another example of government inefficiency. News stories about the Martís typically include the phrase “the U.S. sponsored station that broadcasts to Cuba,” implying that the average person has no idea that the stations even existed. The new Congress wasted no time building a case against both Radio and TV Martí. In January the Government Accountability Office issued “Broadcasting to Cuba: Actions are Needed to Improve Strategy and Operations,” a 50-plus-page report (herein referred to as the “Actions Are Needed” report)

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that systematically identified problems at Radio and TV Martí. The most damaging information seemed to come from audience research. According to 2003, 2005, and 2006 telephone surveys of people living in Cuba, less than 2 percent of respondents said they “listened to Radio Martí in the last week.” Surveys in 2008 found that less than 1 percent said they “listened to Radio Martí in the last week.”16 All surveys dating to 2003 found that less than 1 percent of respondents “watched TV Martí during the last week.” The audience did not increase after launching Aero Martí and distributing TV Martí programs by satellite.17 The survey results came under question for lacking credibility, which a follow up report on Radio and TV Martí acknowledged: [T]elephone interviewers almost immediately were confronted with hostile respondents, who thought the interviewers were working on behalf of the Cuban Government and were trying to trick them into admitting that they listened to Radio and TV Martí, which would incriminate citizens as government opponents. Many respondents answered the pollsters’ questions by saying that, of course they did not listen to Radio Martí or watch TV Martí, and to tell Cuban authorities that their utilities were in need of repair, that there was not enough food in the marketplace, or that the local hospital lacked supplies.18

Even without valid audience numbers, other findings in the “Actions Are Needed” report were damaging for Radio and TV Martí: • DVDs were a more effective way to distribute TV Martí programs than broadcasting.19 • Other television sources were available on the island and had higher viewership than TV Martí. About 30 percent of respondents in the telephone surveys said they had watched CNN International in the past week. Telemundo and Univision each garnered about 3 percent viewership.20 • Broadcasts from other countries, including Voice of America, are not jammed.21 • Cuban television aired U.S. programs like Grey’s Anatomy and The Sopranos.22 • The stations aired “individual views as news, editorializing, the use of guests whose viewpoints represented a narrow segment of opinion,” “unsubstantiated reports,” “offensive and incendiary language,” and exercised “a lack of timeliness in news and current affairs reporting.” OCB workers conceded that “the same recommendations” had been made “from year to year” yet the stations did not seem to improve.23 The report attributed this to a lack of employee training about the standards of journalism and objectivity. • The State Department’s “Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor provides a $700,000 grant to a nongovernmental organization near Miami that also broadcasts to Cuba 7 days a week.” The report criticized OCB officials for failing to work with this organization and

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noted that officials in the BBG “were unaware of this organization’s broadcasting efforts or its audience research activities.”24 The plethora of negative information overshadowed the one positive element in the document, Radio Martí’s excellent coverage of Hurricane Ike, which “was widely heard in Cuba, with callers from all over Cuba providing updated information on the situation to OCB.”25 In the report’s conclusion, the authors seemed to recognize that the Democrats’ control of Congress and the White House could force changes at the Office of Cuba Broadcasting: “the United States has a fresh opportunity to reassess the purpose and effectiveness of U.S. radio and television broadcasting to Cuba.”26 The Cuban American National Foundation responded with a statement titled, “Office of Cuba Broadcasting Should Be Restructured to Effectively Promote Its Original Objectives.” The document listed five recommendations for the OCB: • Develop a clear strategy with time lines and program markers that allow for proper measurement of program successes or failures. • Increase broadcasts of programming that features the participation of civil society members in Cuba. • Diversify programming to include a wider array of views and opinions. • Broadcast impartial news and information that is not editorialized and that allows listeners to formulate their own opinions. • Focus the agency’s budget on funding methods of transmission that have been proven to be effective in penetrating the Castro regime’s jamming.27 The Foundation also issued “A New Course for U.S.–Cuba Policy: Advancing People-Driven Change,” a white paper that urged the White House to support dissident groups on the island and use broadcasting to advance their cause: “Radio and television transmissions have a critical role to play in helping to precipitate change.”28 It repeated the phrase “critical role” in reference to the success of Radio Free Europe and repeated a statement from its earlier press release: “A lack of proper oversight has allowed the Office of Cuba Broadcasting to veer off course.”29 The policies advocated by the CANF seemed to coincide with the Obama administration’s strategy to use visitors to Cuba to carry a message of goodwill from the United States. The only issue on which the Foundation and Washington conflicted was broadcasting. The consensus on Capitol Hill and at the White House seemed to be that the stations should be scaled back if not terminated. The Foundation disagreed: “Radio and TV Martí are essential to achieve freedom in Cuba.”30 The Foundation’s ability to support the broader strategy may have earned a reprieve for the stations.

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Instead of terminating one or both of the stations outright, it appeared that the Office of Cuba Broadcasting would gradually be reduced in size. In May of 2009, the White House announced that funding for broadcasting to Cuba would be reduced by more than two million dollars but the stations would continue to operate. OCB officials said they planned to switch Radio Martí to an all news format and have five-minute news updates on TV Martí every half hour.31 Wayne Smith said the White House should have “taken TV Martí off the air within weeks” and placed Radio Martí under the authority of the VOA as it was when it first signed on.32 Instead, the White House made low-risk gestures. The U.S. Interests Section in Havana turned off its electronic ticker and removed the antagonistic signs around the building in July. An official from the Department of State acknowledged the change, consistent with the broader strategy: “We believe that the billboard was really not effective as a means of delivering information to the Cuban people.... We think that some of the measures that the President announced to increase the free flow of information to the people of Cuba, will ultimately be more effective.”33 A month later, Delahunt’s subcommittee held a hearing on TV Martí, titled “TV Martí: A Station in Search of an Audience.” The Massachusetts representative repeated his desire to kill TV Martí but entertained more economical means of getting a message to the island: “Is there a better way? Is there a more cost effective way of transmitting objective information to the Cuban people, spreading American values and, most importantly, is anyone watching TV Martí?”34 Delahunt was receptive of three of the four speakers. Jess Ford, author of the “Actions Are Needed” report, repeated much of what was already in the document. Philip Peters from the Lexington Institute said that allowing people to visit the island would be more effective than TV Martí. John Spicer Nichols spoke more than 20 years after he initially testified against TV Martí and predicted it would be a failure: “I hate to be the type of guy to say I told you so, but I simply could not resist.”35 To drive his point home, Nichols attached a transcript of his testimony from 1988. Also speaking before the subcommittee was Tim Shamble, a former Radio Martí broadcast technician who went on to become president of the American Federation of Government Employees, the union that represented workers at the Office of Cuba Broadcasting. Shamble agreed that the broadcast signals of TV Martí had failed because of Cuban jamming and caused morale to diminish considerably at both stations. He added that both problems could be overcome if TV Martí turned to new forms of distribution like the Internet, cell phones, and iPods: “The real problem with TV Martí is the signal, the transmission. It is not the programming.”36 Shamble was clearly trying to protect jobs at station but was cut off by Delahunt, who tried to lead him to say that the station was overrun with problems. When Shamble continued to propose new media, Delahunt cut him off again.

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Shamble’s suggestion to use new technology platforms had merit. That same week, Iranians used Twitter and social networking sites to organize demonstrations against the country’s disputed 2009 vote that reelected President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. This technology was limited in Cuba but did exist and had potential for growth. In 2008, Raul Castro allowed Cubans to have prepaid cell phones and computers. According to a story published in Business Wire the day after Delahunt’s hearing, Cuba planned to improve its online network, increasing access from about 2.5 percent of the population in 2009 to 10 percent by 2012.37 There was also an increasingly popular Website, Revolico.com, that operated similar to Craigslist and allowed Cuban black marketers to trade online. The site received about two million hits and 50,000 postings a month.38 One of the biggest Cuban Internet sensations in 2009 was Yoani Sánchez, winner of the Maria Moors Cabot Prize from Columbia University. Sánchez created Generación Y, a blog written in Cuba about life on the island. Although Cubans had limited access to her site, information about Sánchez and what she was doing was not. The number of bloggers in Cuba skyrocketed shortly after international media began to acknowledge her work. Sanchez even began offering classes on how to blog and use new technology.39 A few weeks later, the Senate Appropriations Committee reduced funding for the Office of Cuba Broadcasting by 15 million dollars. Although the amount did not terminate TV Martí it killed the Aero Martí flights.40 The Senate committee also noted that “DVDs, cell phones, and other handheld electronic devices should be considered,” interesting considering that distributing TV Martí programs by DVD was not mentioned during the Delahunt hearing even though the “Actions Are Needed” report said that it was the most effective form of dissemination.41 The House Appropriations Committee also recognized problems at the stations but called for both to continue and reduced funding for the Office of Cuba Broadcasting by only about two and a half million dollars. The committee’s report encouraged OCB officials to “find alternative opportunities, offer job retraining, or utilize buy-out and voluntary early-out authority for those affected employees,” consistent with the idea of a progressive downsizing of Radio and TV Martí.42 Six months later Florida senator George LeMieux threatened to stonewall the entire funding bill if the money for the OCB was not restored. The Senate conceded and $30 million for the stations was resurrected with little resistance.43 LeMieux was not a powerful figure. Appointed to replace the retiring Mel Martinez, LeMieux had been in the Senate only three months and did not plan to run for reelection. Wisconsin senator Russ Feingold, a longtime opponent of government waste, was growing increasingly impatient with the lack of action against TV Martí and submitted the Control Spending Now Bill, which called for cuts in excess of nine billion dollars. Included among the cuts were reduced funding

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for a NASA lunar mission — by $2.5 billion a year; canceling the V–22 Osprey program — a billion a year; and terminating both Radio and TV Martí—$30 million a year.44 A month later, Feingold made TV Martí the initial subject of a new series he called “Spotlight on Spending,” his version of the Razzie Awards which gave dishonorable recognition of government waste.45 Obama’s strategy to use travelers to Cuba and not broadcasting became more obvious in February of 2010 when the White House called for the only shortwave VOA transmitter on the United States mainland to be shut down. VOA Sites A, B, and C near Greenville, North Carolina, first went on the air in 1963.46 At least one of the sites was believed to be a listening station that allowed officials to monitor chatter from “U.S. embassies, the military and the Central Intelligence Agency.”47 Site C signed off in 1995. VOA Site A followed a few years later in accordance with a recommendation from the Office of Inspector General.48 VOA transmitter sites in Bethany, Ohio, and Delano, California, closed in 1995 and 2008 respectively. The push to close Site B in Greenville was consistent with Obama’s call to reduce wasteful spending. The transmitter, which carried VOA and Radio Martí, was perceived as unnecessary in an era in which shortwave listeners around the world were decreasing.49 Officials at the Office of Cuba Broadcasting began working with VOA to produce radio programs for audiences in Venezuela. Critics for and against broadcasting to Cuba were confused as to the impetus for the change. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen seemed to think that it was a product of White House pressure: “I am looking into this issue to ensure that this is an effort to maximize resources to expand U.S. coverage in the region and not a back door to reducing U.S. broadcasts to Cuba.” Jeff Flake attributed the change to OCB officials trying to save their jobs: “I think they realize they’re on borrowed time with the Cuba project, so I think they’re trying to merge it in as much as they can with Voice of America.”50 Radio and TV Martí received what could have been interpreted as good news a year later when the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations published “U.S. International Broadcasting: Is Anybody Listening?— Keeping the U.S. Connected” (herein referred to as the “Is Anybody Listening” report). It did not recommend terminating either Radio or TV Martí but did suggest that officials consider terminating Alhurra, an Arabic language television network launched after the September 11 attacks to counter anti–U.S. media in the Middle East. Alhurra has a $90 million budget, three times the Office of Cuba Broadcasting, but, like TV Martí, has failed to generate a significant audience. The 91-page document described several instances of mismanagement and inefficiency at international broadcasting operations but devoted little attention to the Office of Cuba Broadcasting. One of the more interesting recommendations in the “Is Anybody Listening” report was for Congress to “revisit the Smith-Mundt legislation,” the 1948 law that authorized funding for Voice of America.51 The committee advocated removing a section of the law that prohibited VOA or any other government

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information intended for overseas audiences from being released to the domestic population. The original purpose of this language was to avoid making the federal government a source for news, and possibly propaganda for the domestic population. The Smith-Mundt restriction on domestic dissemination has been applied to all government sponsored broadcasting operations, including Radio Martí and TV Martí, and has been criticized for several reasons. It makes no sense that U.S. taxpayers fund the broadcasts but are denied access to the information. Shortwave VOA transmitters in the United States disseminate programs which are also available online, meaning anyone with a shortwave radio receiver or Internet connection can be exposed to propaganda. Even more absurd is that the law only prohibits government officials from distributing the information within the United States. It does not prohibit U.S. citizens from obtaining the information. It is perfectly legal for a party outside the United States to request information, receive it, and then send it back to a party in the United States who can redistribute the material any way they chose. An even more serious problem was that the Smith-Mundt restriction on domestic dissemination made it difficult for independent nongovernment parties to hold the stations accountable, which is one way Radio and TV Martí have avoided public scrutiny. Although the “Is Anybody Listening” Report covered several improprieties at the different broadcasting operations, the document did not list increased government transparency as a reason for lifting the Smith-Mundt restriction on domestic dissemination. This was ironic considering that Obama and other Democrats promised increased government transparency during the 2008 campaign. Instead, the “Is Anybody Listening” report argued that foreign-born audiences in the United States would be better served by granting them easier access to government-produced information: Originally written in the days before cable television, and then amended in the days before the Internet, many argue the law is even self-defeating if recent Arabic-speaking immigrants to the U.S. have easy access to Al Jazeera but not Alhurra. A similar Smith-Mundt objection was made by the BBG when a Somali community in the Midwest wanted permission to re-broadcast VOA Somali programming to recent immigrants.52

The “Is Anybody Listening” report called for downsizing international broadcasting operations but also said that the domestic population should have access to the programs, suggesting a possible shift in the nature of VOA, Radio Martí, and other broadcasts. Instead of having a primary audience overseas, the stations’ primary audience could be domestic. This would allow the federal government to openly create and distribute propaganda to the domestic population, facilitating the environment that lawmakers tried to prevent with the Smith-Mundt restriction on domestic dissemination. The election results for Florida’s 18th, 25th and 27th congressional districts in 2008 indicated that support for candidates supporting a hard-line strategy

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for Cuba was still strong but eroding. Annette Taddeo, a Colombian-born businesswoman who converted to Judaism, overcame a huge early deficit to take 42 percent of the vote, giving Ileana Ros-Lehtinen her closest margin of victory since the 1989 special election that first sent her to Congress.53 Raul Martinez, the former mayor of Hialeah who was indicted by Dexter Lehtinen prior to Ros-Lehtinen’s special election in 1989, took about 42 percent of the vote in the 25th District against Lincoln Diaz-Balart.54 Martinez favored cutting funding for TV Martí. Mario Diaz-Balart, Lincoln’s youngest brother who was first elected to represent Florida’s District in 2002, almost lost his bid for reelection to Joe Garcia. This was the same Joe Garcia who helped lead the CANF through its transition to a moderate group and described Lincoln Diaz-Balart as “politically impotent.” Garcia also supported cutting funding for TV Martí, a milestone considering his connection to the CANF, the group that had originally championed the idea.55 The 2008 election results were a product of the national backlash against Republicans but also reflected a trend in south Florida. Generation Ñ was displacing the aging hard-liners. Even more detrimental for the hard-line movement was that it lacked a Jorge Mas Canosa–like figure to unite hard-line Cuban Americans in applying pressure on Congress. Lincoln Diaz-Balart recognized this and volunteered to fill this role. On February 11, 2010, he called a press conference at the Rafael Diaz-Balart School of Law on the campus of Florida International University and announced that he would not seek reelection in 2010: I am convinced that in the upcoming chapter of the struggle, I can be more useful to the inevitable change that will soon come to Cuba, to Cuba’s freedom, as a private citizen dedicated to helping the heroes within Cuba and to the study and propagation of the ideas and ideals of “The White Rose,” which was founded by my father, Rafael Diaz-Balart, in January, 1959.56

The transformation from public official to advocate allowed Diaz-Balart to devote all of his time and energy to La Causa rather than dividing his time among other constituent issues. The hard-line movement was still well represented by Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, New Jersey Democrats Albio Sires (a Cuban American representative elected in 2004) and Senator Bob Menendez in the Senate. Mario Diaz-Balart announced his intention to replace his brother in the 25th District. By the summer of 2010 it was obvious that Obama’s political honeymoon was over. Those who disagreed with his policies began using the phrase “Welcome Back Carter,” implying that conditions in the United States mirrored the conditions of the late 1970s. The comparison was not far off. Obama seemed to be taking a human rights based approach to foreign policy similar to that of Carter although not as obvious because of the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq he inherited from Bush. Table 13.1 compares the two periods. Both Carter and Obama facilitated Cuban exiles’ travel to the island and allowed them to send remittances to relatives in Cuba. Carter capped this at

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$500 each quarter.57 Obama has allowed unlimited remittances. Both favored a strategy of engagement to bring about change in Cuba. During Carter’s administration, anti–Castro sentiment in Cuba resulted in the Mariel boatlift. No such event has developed yet during the Obama administration but it may be due. The three mass exoduses from Cuba to the United States have occurred about 15 years apart from each other (1965, 1980, 1994) and always after a Democrat administration relaxed travel restrictions. Some people were angered in 1979 after learning that a Soviet brigade was in Cuba. Thirty years later, Russia announced that it had spoken with Cuba and Venezuela about using their countries as bases for its bombers. The Obama administration downplayed the situation: “We do not comment on hypotheticals.”58 Leftist governments, led by Nicaragua, increased their influence in Central America during the Carter administration. Daniel Ortega was elected president of Nicaragua in 2006, two decades after U.S.–backed Contras launched a 10year war that led to his removal. By 2010, Bolivarian influence had increased in South America, with Venezuela leading the charge. Central America did not experience the same degree of conflict as it had 30 years earlier. Honduras teetered on the edge of civil war in the summer of 2009 after President Manuel Zelaya, a friend of Fidel Castro and Hugo Chávez, was ousted in a coup and exiled to Costa Rica. Table 13.1 Comparison of the Status of U.S. Foreign Policy in 1980 and 2010 1980 President of Cuba Broadcasts to Cuba

Fidel Castro VOA

Relations with Cuba Relations with Cuba

Travel for Cuban Exiles Exiles may send $2,000 a year in remittances to relatives still on the island Cuba serves as base for Soviet brigade Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua Unfriendly government in Nicaragua Civil war in El Salvador

The Soviet Union in Cuba The Western Hemisphere The Western Hemisphere The Western Hemisphere

2010 Raul Castro Smaller VOA, Radio Martí, TV Martí Travel for Cuban Exiles Exiles may send an unlimited amount in remittances to relatives still on the island Cuba may serve as base for Russian bombers Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua Unfriendly government in Venezuela Honduras on verge of civil war

Marco Antonio Rubio is the child of Cuban exiles, his father a bartender and his mother a hotel housekeeper and K-Mart check-out clerk. After receiving a bachelor of science degree from the University of Florida in 1993, Rubio earned his law degree from the University of Miami. He worked for Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, served as a city commissioner, married a former Miami Dolphins cheer-

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leader, and was elected to represent the 111th District in Florida’s house of representatives. While in the house, Rubio published 100 Innovative Ideas for Florida’s Future, a compilation of proposals collected from constituents across the state, 57 of which became law, according to Rubio. When Rubio was named Florida’s speaker of the house in 2005, Radio Martí carried the ceremony live. He is a hard-liner and opposes easing sanctions against Cuba. In 2010, Florida voters chose Marco Rubio to replace George LeMieux in the U.S. Senate. Before the results had even been tallied, pundits began discussing Rubio as a possible candidate for vice president or even president as early as 2012. He had a solid political track record, youth, good looks, and an attractive wife. He is Catholic but also affiliates himself with a nondenominational church in south Florida, making him appealing to more than one religious demographic group. Perhaps most important of all was that Rubio appealed to Hispanics, not just Cubans. This raised the possibility that he could steal the fastest growing voting bloc that had historically favored the Democrats and could tip the balance of power to favor the Republicans. David Rivera defeated Joe Garcia for Florida’s 25th District, Mario DiazBalart’s old seat. Like Rubio, Rivera was born in the United States to exiled parents and lived outside Miami but eventually found his way to that city, where he represented the region in Florida’s House of Representatives. Rivera also worked for the old CANF and went on to work in the Office of Cuba Broadcasting as Rolando Bonachea’s assistant. Radio and TV Martí carried a debate between Rivera and Garcia, the first aired by the stations. Rivera also claimed to have received income from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) for seven years. The organization said they had no record of his ever working for them. Also intriguing was Rivera’s claim that he had top-secret clearance from the State Department. During the 2010 campaign, one radio announcer asked if he ever worked for the CIA, leaving the audience to wonder if it was a joke or a serious question. Rivera said no but added that any person who did work for the CIA would also say no. Just as it did at the end of the Carter administration, the pendulum seemed to be swinging in favor of a more hard-line strategy for Cuba. Rubio and Rivera represented a segment of Generation Ñ who had been ignored, hard-liners who could help Lincoln Diaz-Balart refocus La Causa just as Jorge Mas Canosa had done in the early 1980s. There was one key obstacle Diaz-Balart had to face that Jorge Mas Canosa did not — an established Cuban American organization that favored a more moderate position. In 2011 this opposition would come from none other than the Cuban American National Foundation, the organization that Jorge Mas Canosa helped create.

Chapter Notes Introduction

15. Ibid., 112. 16. Ibid. 17. English, Havana Nocturne, 201–202. 18. Jose Antonio Echevarria, “Acción Radio Reloj,” Combate (Havana), supplement, March 13, 1959, p. 15, and Bohemia (Havana), March 24, 1957, pp. 72–73, quoted in Ramón L. Bonachea and Maria San Martin, The Cuban Insurrection, 1952 –1959 (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books, 1974), 117. 19. Jay Mallin, Adventures in Journalism: A Memoir (Washington, DC: Kelbrenjac, 1998), 175. 20. Oscar Luis Lopez, La Radio en Cuba: Estudio de su Desarollo en la Sociedad Neocolonial (Habana: Editorial Letras Cubanas, 1981), 443 – 445, cited in Michael Brian Salwen, Radio and Television in Cuba: The Pre–Castro Era (Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1994), 105. 21. Airing at the same time as his program on the island, the first show began with “Tonight and every night at this hour I will bring you truth about our beloved Cuba.” Ray Brennan, Castro, Cuba, and Justice (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1959), 162–166, cited in Michael Brian Salwen, Radio and Television in Cuba: The Pre–Castro Era (Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1994), 104. 22. Lawrence C. Soley and John Spicer Nichols, Clandestine Radio Broadcasting: A Study of Revolutionary and Counterrevolutionary Electronic Communication (New York: Praeger, 1987), 169; John Spicer Nichols, “Cuba,” in Keeping the Flame, 80. Castro intended to create a radio station earlier and brought a transmitter with him on the Granma but was forced to leave it after the landing was botched and the rebels had to flee. 23. Soley and Nichols, Clandestine Radio Broadcasting, 80 –81, 169; Enrique Nunez Rodriguez, “La Radio y la Television en el Movimiento Revolucionario,” Carteles, January 18, 1959, pp. 84 –85, 109, cited in Michael Brian Salwen, Radio and Television in Cuba: The Pre– Castro Era (Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1994), 107; “Violeta Casals: Voice of Castro’s

1. Bill Swainson, Encarta Book of Quotations (New York: St. Martin’s, 2000), 614. 2. John Spicer Nichols, “Cuba: Right Arm of a Revolution,” in Keeping the Flame: Media and Government in Latin America, ed. Robert N. Pierce (New York: Hastings House, 1979), 80. 3. Michael Brian Salwen, Radio and Television in Cuba: The Pre–Castro Era (Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1994), 94. 4. Robert E. Quirk, Fidel Castro (New York: Norton, 1993), 36, 41. 5. Antonio Rafael de la Cova, The Moncada Attack: Birth of the Cuban Revolution (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2007), xxv– xxvi. 6. Fidel Castro, History Will Absolve Me (La Habana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales, 1968), 195. 7. The Isle of Pines is said to have inspired Robert Louis Stevenson to write Treasure Island. 8. Tad Szulc, Fidel: A Critical Portrait (New York: Morrow, 1986), 301; T.J. English, Havana Nocturne: How the Mob Owned Cuba — and Then Lost It to the Revolution (New York: William Morrow, 2008), 156. 9. Leycester Coltman and Julia Sweig, The Real Fidel Castro (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003), 110–113. Oriente Province has since been subdivided into six provinces. The area where Castro landed is now in Granma Province. 10. Herbert Matthews, “Cuban rebel is visited in hideout,” New York Times, February 24, 1957, ProQuest (accessed October 19, 2010). 11. Thomas M. Leonard, Fidel Castro: A Biography (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2004), 31. 12. Anthony DePalma, The Man Who Invented Fidel: Cuba, Castro, and Herbert L. Matthews of the New York Times (New York: Public Affairs, 2007), 94. 13. Leonard, Fidel Castro, 32. 14. DePalma, The Man Who Invented Fidel, 103.

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Radio,” Miami Herald, October 30, 1992, p. A14, cited in Michael Brian Salwen, Radio and Television in Cuba: The Pre–Castro Era (Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1994), 107. 24. Nichols, “Cuba,” 81; Soley and Nichols, Clandestine Radio Broadcasting, 170. 25. Don Moore, “Revolution! Clandestine radio and the rise of Fidel Castro,” Monitoring Times, April 1993, http://www.pateplumaradio. com/central/cuba/rebel1.html (accessed May 19, 2010). 26. Soley and Nichols, Clandestine Radio Broadcasting, 174; Szulc, Fidel, 443. 27. “CUBA: Agonizing Reappraisal,” Time, April 28, 1958, www.time.com (accessed October 19, 2010). 28. Don Moore, “Revolution!”; Soley and Nichols, Clandestine Radio Broadcasting, 171–172. 29. Quirk, Fidel Castro, 184. 30. Ibid. 31. Nichols, “Cuba,” 80; Moore, “Revolution!” 32. Don Moore, “Revolution!” 33. Quirk, Fidel Castro, 183; Moore, “Revolution!” 34. “CUBA: Stuck in the Mud,” Time, June 16, 1958, www.time.com/time/magazine/article/ 0,9171,863486,00.html (accessed October 19, 2010). 35. Ronald Segal, The Race War (New York: Viking, 1967), 154. 36. In the following weeks, Castro’s forces used the two items to misdirect Batista’s forces, often sending them into ambushes (Moore, “Revolution!”). 37. “CUBA: Trappings of Election,” Time, November 10, 1958, http:www.time.com (accessed April 2, 2010). 38. “Castro in threat to slay nominees,” New York Times, October 14, 1958, ProQuest (accessed October 18, 2010). 39. Wayne S. Smith, The Closest of Enemies: A Personal and Diplomatic Account of U.S.-Cuban Relations Since 1957 (New York: W.W. Norton, 1987), 30 –31. 40. Soley and Nichols, Clandestine Radio Broadcasting, 170. 41. Ibid. 42. Smith, The Closest of Enemies, 38 –39; Alfredo José Estrada, Havana: Autobiography of a City (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), 223. 43. John Dorschner and Roberto Fabrico, The Winds of December (New York: Coward, McCann and Geoghegan, 1980), 385. 44. Warren Hinckle and William W. Turner, The Fish Is Red: The Story of the Secret War Against Castro (New York: Harper and Row, 1981), 59. 45. Michael Brian Salwen, Radio and Television in Cuba: The Pre–Castro Era (Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1994), 122–125. 46. Telephone interview between Michael B. Salwen and Emilio Guede, San Juan, Puerto

Rico, November 8, 1990, cited in Michael B. Salwen, Radio and Television in Cuba: The Pre–Castro Era, 125. 47. Moore, “Revolution!” 48. Leycester Coltman and Julia Sweig, The Real Fidel Castro (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003), 137. 49. Peter H. Marshall, Cuba Libre: Breaking the Chains? (Boston, NY: Farber and Farber, 1987), 52; Quirk, Fidel Castro, 210 –211. 50. Quirk, Fidel Castro, 211. 51. Moore, Revolution. 52. Quirk, Fidel Castro, 220. 53. “CUBA: The first 100 days,” Time, April 20, 1959, time.com (accessed April 2, 2010). 54. “CUBA: The vengeful visionary,” Time, January 26, 1959, time.com (accessed April 2, 2010). 55. Quirk, Fidel Castro, 229. 56. J. Marrerro, Dos Siglos de Periodismo en Cuba. Havana: Editorial of Pablo de la Torriente, cited in Juan Orlando Perez, “The media in Castro’s Cuba,” in The Media in Latin America, ed. Jairo Lugo-Ocando, 116 –130 (Maidenhead, Berkshire: McGraw Hill/Open University Press, 2008), 118. 57. James S. Olsen, ed., Historical Dictionary of the 1960s, 1999 (Westport, CT: Greenwood), 122. 58. Wayne S. Smith, The Closest of Enemies: A Personal and Diplomatic Account of U.S.-Cuban Relations Since 1957 (New York: W.W. Norton, 1987), 52. 59. There was also subscriber revenue but that is not typically where publications generate most of their income. 60. Nichols, “Cuba,” 86. 61. Jay Mallin, Adventures in Journalism: A Memoir (Washington, DC: Kelbrenjac Publisher, 1998), 30 –31. 62. Ibid., 31. 63. Ruby Hart Phillips, “Havana Retaliates,” New York Times, October 26, 1960, ProQuest (accessed February 23, 2010).

Chapter One 1. “FOREIGN RELATIONS: Uproar over a brink,” Time, January 23, 1956, time.com (accessed April 2, 2010). 2. Stephen G. Rabe, Eisenhower and Latin America: The Foreign Policy of Anticommunism (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1988), 44. 3. Don Moore, “The clandestine grandaddy of Central America,” Monitoring Times, April 1989; Stephen G. Rabe, Eisenhower and Latin America: The Foreign Policy of Anticommunism (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1988), 45. 4. Stephen C. Schlesinger and Stephen Kinzer, Bitter Fruit: The Story of the American

Notes—Chapter One Coup in Guatemala (Boston: Harvard University Press, David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, 1999), 75; Robert L. Scheina, Latin America’s Wars. Volume 2, The Age of the Professional soldier, 1900 –2001 (Dulles, VA: Brassey’s, 2003), 201. 5. Schlesinger and Kinzer, Bitter Fruit, 76. 6. Nick Cullather and Piero Gleijeses, Secret History: The CIA’s Classified Account of Its Operations in Guatemala, 1952–1954 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999), 77. 7. Ibid., 80. 8. Richard H. Immerman, “Guatemala as Cold War history,” Political Science Quarterly 95, no. 4 (Winter 1980 –81): 629 –653, 648. 9. Moore, “The clandestine granddaddy of Central America”; David Atlee Phillips, The Night Watch (New York: Atheneum, 1977), 44–45. 10. Phillips, The Night Watch, 46. 11. Lawrence C. Soley and John Spicer Nichols, Clandestine Radio Broadcasting: A Study of Revolutionary and Counterrevolutionary Electronic Communication (New York: Praeger, 1987), 223. 12. Moore, “The clandestine granddaddy of Central America.” 13. D. Phillips, The Night Watch, 44. 14. D. Phillips, The Night Watch, 43–44; Burton Hersh, The Old Boys: The American Elite and the Origins of the CIA (New York: Scribner’s, 1992), 348. 15. David Wise and Thomas B. Ross, The Invisible Government (New York: Random House, 1964), 177. 16. Cullather and Gleijeses, Secret History, 96. 17. “Cuba urges rebel help,” New York Times, June 22, 1954, ProQuest (accessed September 29, 2010). 18. Schlesinger and Kinzer, Bitter Fruit, 185. 19. D. Phillips, The Night Watch, 47. 20. Schlesinger and Kinzer, Bitter Fruit, 178. 21. Ibid., 182. 22. D. Phillips, The Night Watch, 46; David Wise and Thomas B. Ross, The Invisible Government (New York: Random House, 1964), 177; Burton Hersh, The Old Boys: The American Elite and the Origins of the CIA (New York: Scribner’s, 1992), 351. 23. Cullather and Gleijeses, Secret History, 76. 24. D. Phillips, The Night Watch, 48. 25. Ibid., 52. 26. Castillo Armas served as President of Guatemala for less than three years. A member of the palace guard assassinated him on July 26, 1957. 27. Alan Luxenberg, “Did Eisenhower push Castro into the arms of the Soviets?” in Neighborly Adversaries: Readings in U.S.–Latin American Relations, ed. Michael LaRosa and Frank O. Mora, 155–170 (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 1999), 159.

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28. Warren Hinckle and William W. Turner, The Fish Is Red: The Story of the Secret War Against Castro (New York: Harper and Row, 1981), 41. 29. E. Howard Hunt, Give Us This Day (New Rochelle, NY: Arlington House, 1973), 164. This is actually a combination of two quotes by two different people. The first portion was a question posed by a CIA associate. The “as appropriate” was a response by E. Howard Hunt. 30. Evan Thomas, The Very Best Men: Four Who Dared, the Early Years of the CIA (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995), 206. 31. “Fund bill approved: Aids urban renewal,” New York Times and Associated Press, April 8, 1960, ProQuest (accessed March 30, 2010). 32. Broadcasting, “Voice of America’s $17 million pitch for truth,” January 6, 1958, 40. 33. Ruby Hart Phillips, “American fliers downed by Cuba,” New York Times, March 22, 1960, ProQuest (accessed April 1, 2010). 34. Wise and Ross, The Invisible Government, 334; Peter Wyden, Bay of Pigs: The Untold Story (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1979), 23. The United States claimed several islands, mostly in the Pacific, under the authority of the Guano Act of 1856. 35. Soley and Nichols, Clandestine Radio Broadcasting, 177. 36. Ibid., 178. 37. Wyden, Bay of Pigs, 23; Wise and Ross, The Invisible Government, 333 –334. 38. D. Phillips, The Night Watch, 99. 39. Ibid. 40. The United States gave up its claims to the Swan Islands in 1971 and officially ceded them to Honduras. At the time of this writing, at least one entrepreneur is using the Internet to recruit anyone who may be interested in developing the area as a resort. 41. United Press International, “13 Hondurans ‘invade’ island claimed by U.S.,” cited in Los Angeles Times, July 21, 1960, ProQuest (accessed February 10, 2010). 42. Jerome S. Berg, Broadcasting on the Short Waves, 1945 to Today (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2008), 146; U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, “A brief history of Radio Swan,” 1961, reprinted in Psywar on Cuba: The Declassified History of U.S. Anti-Castro Propaganda, ed. Jon Elliston (Melbourne, Victoria: Ocean, 1999), 59 –63. 43. Juan Carlos Rodríguez, The Bay of Pigs and the CIA, trans. Mary Todd (Melbourne, Victoria: Ocean, 1999), 49. 44. Wise and Ross, The Invisible Government, 331. 45. Ibid., 330. 46. Don Bohning, “U.S. propaganda war preceeded exile landing at the Bay of Pigs,” Miami Herald, April 30, 2000. 47. “USA’s radio and TV “psychological war-

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fare” discussed,” BBC Smmary of World Broadcasts, October 21, 1004, Lexis-Nexis (accessed May 18, 2010). 48. Henry Loomis, Memo to Edward R. Murrow, February 10, 1961, reprinted in Psywar on Cuba, 32–35. 49. D. Phillips, The Night Watch, 96 –97. 50. Tom Kneitel, “Inside the CIA’s secret radio paradise: Part I,” Popular Communications (November 1985): 16 –20, 18; Radio Swan also aired propaganda designed to undermine Rafael Trujillo, who was the leader of the Dominican Republic and also considered hostile to the U.S. 51. Gonzalo R. Soruco, Cubans and the Mass Media in South Florida (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1996), 38; Cruz, The Bay of Pigs and the CIA, 50. 52. Wyden, Bay of Pigs, 23; D. Phillips, The Night Watch, 97. 53. Ibid., 23. 54. Donald R. Browne, International Radio Broadcasting: The Limits of the Limitless Medium (New York: Praeger, 1982), 149; John M. Crewdson, “Worldwide propaganda network built by the C.I.A.,” New York Times, December 26, 1977, ProQuest (accessed March 18, 2010); Tom E. Mahl, Espionage’s Most Wanted: The Top 10 Book of Malicious Moles, Blown Covers, and Intelligence Oddities (Washington, DC: Brassey’s, 2003), 168. 55. Crewdson, “Worldwide propaganda network built by the C.I.A.”; Cruz, The Bay of Pigs and the CIA, 50. 56. U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, “A brief history of Radio Swan,” 59 –63, 60; Kneitel, “Inside the CIA’s secret radio paradise,” 16 –20, 17. 57. Wise and Ross, The Invisible Government, 331. 58. Cruz, The Bay of Pigs and the CIA, 55. 59. Conde, Operation Pedro Pan, 26. 60. “Education plans stir Cuban fear,” New York Times, February 19, 1961, ProQuest (accessed September 29, 2010). 61. John A. Britton, Molding the Hearts and Minds: Education, Communications, and Social Change in Latin America (Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, 1994), 171. 62. Conde, Operation Pedro Pan, 17. 63. Richard Gott, Cuba: A New History (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004), 189. 64. Conde, Operation Pedro Pan, 41. 65. Cruz, The Bay of Pigs and the CIA, 55–56. 66. Pedro Pan Group Inc., The History of Pedro Pan, 2009, http://www.pedropan.org/content/history-operation-pedro-pan (accessed September 29, 2010). 67. Conde, Operation Pedro Pan, 222. Conde was herself a Pedro Pan child who came to the United States in 1961 at the age of 10. 68. Cruz, The Bay of Pigs and the CIA, 52. 69. “HONDURAS: Swans, spooks, and boo-

bies,” Time, December 6, 1971, http://www.time. com (accessed September 29, 2010). 70. Cruz, The Bay of Pigs and the CIA, 52. 71. Elliston, ed., Psywar on Cuba, 58. 72. Warren Miller, 90 Miles from Home: The Face of Cuba Today (Boston: Little Brown, 1961), 225. 73. Ibid., 15. 74. Wise and Ross, The Invisible Government, 333; Fidel Castro, “Speech Made Before the United Nations,” Castro Speech Database, September 26, 1960, http://lanic.utexas.edu/project/ castro/ (accessed July 18, 2007). 75. U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, “A brief history of Radio Swan,” 59 –63, 60. 76. Hernando Calvo Ospina and Katlijn Declercq, The Cuban Exile Movement: Dissident or Mercenaries?, trans. Mary Todd (Melbourne, Victoria: Ocean, 2000), 89. 77. Wyden, Bay of Pigs, 115. 78. Ibid., 114 –115. 79. Wyden, Bay of Pigs, 115; Hinckle and Turner, 82. 80. Wyden, Bay of Pigs, 116; Arthur M. Schlesinger, A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1965), 243 –244. 81. Wyden, Bay of Pigs, 35. 82. John Prados, Presidents’ Secret Wars: CIA and Pentagon Covert Operations from World War II through the Persion Gulf (Chicago: I.R. Dee, 1996), 195. Recruit #2506, Carlos Rodriguez Santana, was killed on September 8, 1960 when he fell off a 2,000-foot cliff. 83. Haynes Johnson, The Bay of Pigs: The Leaders’ Story of Brigade 2506 (New York: Norton, 1964), 98. 84. Wyden, Bay of Pigs, 38. 85. Ibid. 86. Johnson, The Bay of Pigs, 57–61; Schlesinger, A Thousand Days, 236. There was also a “near revolt” at the camp in November 1960 at the camp. Guatemalan forces were upset about the presence of a CIA-led force in the country. The conflict ended when brigade planes “scared” the disgruntled Guatemalans (Piero Gleijeses, “Ships in the Night: The CIA, the White House and the Bay of Pigs,” Journal of Latin American Studies 27, no. 1 (1995): 1–42, 15 –16; Prados, Presidents’ Secret Wars, 195). 87. D. Phillips, The Night Watch, 99 –100. 88. The Inspector General’s Survey of the Cuban Operation, October 1961, reprinted in Bay of Pigs Declassified, Peter Kornbluh, ed. (New York: New York Press, 1998), 96. 89. Hinckle and Turner, The Fish Is Red, 48. 90. Stephen M. Streeter, Managing the Counterrevolution: The United States and Guatemala, 1954 –1961, 34 vols. (Athens, OH: University Center for International Studies, 2000), 220.

Notes—Chapter One 91. Streeter, Managing the Counterrevolution, 220. 92. Paul P. Kennedy, “U.S. helps train an anti–Castro force at secret Guatemalan airground base; clash with Cuba feared,” New York Times, January 10, 1961, ProQuest (accessed September 29, 2010). 93. Carlton Beals, “Cuba’s invasion jitters,” Nation (November 12, 1960), 360. 94. Prados, Presidents’ Secret Wars, 194. 95. Harris Wofford, Of Kennedys and Kings: Making Sense of the Sixties (New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1980), 344. 96. Arthur Schlesinger, “Cuba: Political, diplomatic and economic problems,” memo to President Kennedy. April 10, 1961, reprinted in Jon Elliston, Psywar on Cuba: The Declassified History of U.S. Anti-Castro Propaganda, ed. Jon Elliston (Melbourne, Victoria: Ocean, 1999), 40 –44, 44. 97. Thomas Powers, The Man Who Kept the Secrets: Richard Helms and the CIA (New York: Knopf, 1979), 113. 98. Hinckle and Turner, The Fish Is Red,14. 99. Howard Jones, The Bay of Pigs (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), 56 –57. 100. Ibid., 58. 101. David R. Farber and Eric Foner, The Age of Great Dreams: America in the 1960s, American century series (New York: Hill and Wang, 1994), 36. 102. Schlesinger, A Thousand Days, 257–258. 103. Ibid., 267. 104. Wise and Ross, The Invisible Government, 47. 105. Footnote in Johnson, The Bay of Pigs, 68. 106. Of the 69,000 pounds of weapons dropped, 46,000 were intercepted by Castro’s forces, enough to arm 300 men (The Inspector General’s Survey of the Cuban Operation, 76 –77; Thomas, The Very Best Men: Four Who Dared, 241–242. 107. The Inspector General’s Survey of the Cuban Operation, 76. 108. D. Phillips, The Night Watch, 98. 109. The Inspector General’s Survey of the Cuban Operation, 82. 110. Thomas, The Very Best Men, 242. 111. “Cuba: Castro’s triumph,” Time, May 5, 1961, time.com (accessed September 29, 2010). 112. D. Phillips, The Night Watch, 100; Quirk, Fidel Castro, 371; “Cuba: Castro’s triumph,” Time, May 5, 1961, time.com (accessed September 29, 2010). Quirk estimates 50,000 to 100,000. Time says as many as 250,000. 113. Herbert Lionel Matthews, Revolution in Cuba: An Essay in Understanding (New York: Scribner, 1975), 203. 114. Alejandro M. de Quesada and Stephen Walsh, The Bay of Pigs: Cuba, 1961 (Oxford: Osprey, 2009), 20; Robert L. Scheina, Latin Amer-

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ica’s Wars. Volume 2, The Age of the Professional Soldier, 1900–2001 (Dulles, VA: Brassey’s, 2003), 247; Jones, The Bay of Pigs, 76 –77. 115. Jones, The Bay of Pigs, 77. 116. Ibid., 79. 117. Thomas C. Wright, Latin America in the Era of the Cuban Revolution (New York: Praeger, 1991), 33. 118. Scheina, The Age of the Professional Soldier, 1900 –2001 (Dulles, VA: Brassey’s, 2003), 247; Jones, The Bay of Pigs, 81. 119. Johnson, The Bay of Pigs, 100. 120. Wise and Ross, The Invisible Government, 62. 121. Wyden, Bay of Pigs, 209; Hinckle and Turner, The Fish Is Red, 87. 122. Jones, The Bay of Pigs, 99. 123. Mario Lazo, Dagger in the Heart: American Policy Failures in Cuba (New York: Funk and Wagnalls, 1970), 295. 124. Victor Andres Triay, Bay of Pigs: An Oral History of Brigade 2506 (Gainsville: University Press of Florida, 2001), 74. 125. Don Bohning, The Castro Obsession: U.S. Covert Operations against Cuba, 1959 –1965 (Washington, DC: Potomac, 2005), 47–48; the brigade secured the airport on the first day but could not hold it. 126. Edward B. Ferrer, Operation Puma: The Air Battle of the Bay of Pigs (Miami, FL: International Aviation Consultants, 1982), 210. 127. Alex Antón and Roger E. Hernández, Cubans in America: A Vibrant History of a People in Exile (New York: Kensington, 2003), 156. 128. Erik Barnouw, The Image Empire: A History of Broadcasting in the United States, from 1953 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1970), 191. 129. U.S. News and World Report, January 13, 1963, p. 43. 130. Wise and Ross, The Invisible Government, 54 –55. 131. Hunt, Give Us This Day, 201. 132. Wise and Ross, The Invisible Government, 334. 133. “Cuba: The Massacre,” Time, April 28, 1961, time.com (accessed April 2, 2010). 134. Quirk, Fidel Castro, 371. 135. Wise and Ross, The Invisible Government, 81. 136. Time reported that a ham radio operator in New Jersey picked up signals from someone in Cuba: “This is Cuba calling. Where will help come from? This is Cuba calling the free world. We need help in Cuba” (“Cuba: The Massacre,” Time, April 28, 1961, time.com [accessed April 2, 2010]). 137. The Inspector General’s Survey of the Cuban Operation, 41 (original not written in all caps). 138. The Inspector General’s Survey of the Cuban Operation, 41 (original not written in all

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caps); Thomas, The Very Best Men, 264; Hinckle and Turner, The Fish Is Red, 95. 139. Thomas, The Very Best Men, 264; Myra MacPherson, All Governments Lie: The Life and Times of Rebel Journalist I.F. Stone (New York: Scribner, 2006), 382. 140. Thomas, The Very Best Men, 264. 141. Matthews, Revolution in Cuba, 206. 142. Triay, Bay of Pigs, 115. 143. Exact numbers on the number of killed and captured vary. In The Very Best Men (264) Thomas lists 114 dead and 1,189 captured. Some casualty figures include nine men who were captured but later died of asphyxiation while being transported to prison. Others account for one group of 22 who managed to escape by boat, after which they drifted at sea for 16 days. Sixteen men survived that ordeal, including some who ate the remains and drank the blood of one of the dead (Pablo Alfonso, “Bay of Pigs Survivor: We Became Cannibals,” Miami Herald, April 16, 1998, latinamericanstudies.org [accessed December 9, 2010]). 144. Jones, The Bay of Pigs, 122. 145. Erik Barnouw, Tube of Plenty: The Evolution of American Television (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), 295 –297. 146. Schlesinger and Kinzer, Bitter Fruit, 228. 147. Wofford, Of Kennedys and Kings, 363. The person who said this was Clayton Fritchey, a staff member of the United States ambassador to the United Nations, Adlai Stevenson.

Chapter Two 1. Wolfgang Mieder, Proverbs: A Handbook (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2004), 169. 2. Morton D. Winsberg, “Housing segregation of a predominantly middle class population: Residential patterns developed by the Cuban immigration into Miami, 1950–74,” American Journal of Economics and Sociology 38, no. 4 (1979): 403 –418, 405. 3. Winsberg, “Housing segregation.” Although it is technically not part of Miami, nearby Miami Beach has the second highest Jewish population in the United States after New York City (Alex Stepick, Guillermo Grenier, Max Castro and Marvin Dunn, This Land Is Our Land: Immigrants and Power in Miami (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003), 36). 4. Sanford J. Ungar, Fresh Blood: The New American Immigrants (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995), 197. 5. Felix Roberto Masud-Piloto, From Welcomed Exiles to Illegal Immigrants: Cuban Migration to the U.S., 1959 –1995 (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 1996), 32. 6. Alejandro Portes and Alex Stepick, City on the Edge: The Transformation of Miami

(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), 101, 102. 7. Ibid., 102. 8. Robert M. Levine, Secret Missions to Cuba: Fidel Castro, Bernardo Benes, and Cuban Miami (New York: Palgrave, 2001), 23. 9. Max Frankel, “Plight of Cubans in Miami growing,” New York Times, November 16, 1960, ProQuest (accessed March 18, 2010). 10. Ungar, Fresh Blood, 197. 11. Milton Bracker, “Cuba Libre in Miami: Center of anti–Castro refugee activity stirred by nonpolitical fashion note,” New York Times, August 10, 1961, ProQuest (accessed June 4, 2009). 12. Miguel A. de la Torre, La Lucha for Cuba: Religion and Politics on the Streets of Miami (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001), 38; Levine, Secret Missions to Cuba, 49; Winsberg, “Housing segregation,” 403–418, 408. 13. Thomas D. Boswell and James D. Curtis, The Cuban-American Experience: Culture, Images, and Perspectives (Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Allanheld, 1984), 66 –67, 77. 14. James Stuart Olson and Judith E. Olson, Cuban Americans: From Trauma to Triumph, Twayne’s immigrant heritage of America series (New York: Twayne, 1995), 39. 15. U.S. Bureau of the Census, U.S. Census of Population: 1950, Vol. 4. Special Reports, Part 3, Chapter A, “Nativity and Percentage” (Washington, DC: U.S. GPO, 1954), 71–74, cited in Boswell and Curtis, The Cuban-American Experience, 41. 16. Levine, Secret Missions to Cuba, 39; Olson and Olson, Cuban Americans, 39; Boswell and Curtis, The Cuban-American Experience, 61–62. It is difficult to obtain specific statistics for Cubans because most census figures did not identify people by nationality or origin. Immigrants from Spanish-speaking countries were simply described as Hispanic. 17. Alex Stepick and Carol Dutton Stepick, “Power and identity: Miami Cubans,” in Latinos: Remaking America, ed. Marcelo M. SuarezOrozco and Mariela M. Paez (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002), 75 –92, 81. 18. Portes and Stepick, City on the Edge, 132– 133. 19. Ibid. 20. Stepick and Stepick, “Power and identity: Miami Cubans,” 75 –92. 21. Masud-Piloto, From Welcomed Exiles to Illegal Immigrants, 48. 22. U.S. Department of Health Education and Welfare, Fact Sheet, 1978, cited in Guillermo J. Grenier and Alex Stepick, Miami now!: Immigration, Ethnicity, and Social Change (Gainsville: University Press of Florida, 1992), 87. 23. “Fact Sheet,” Cuban Refugee Program, U.S. Department of Health and Human Resources, Miami, Florida, October 31, 1981, cited

Notes—Chapter Two in Boswell and Curtis, The Cuban-American Experience, 64; Julia Vadala Taft, David S. North and David A. Ford, Refugee Resettlement in the U.S.: Time for a New Focus (Washington, DC: New TransCentury Foundation, 1979), 222.; Cuban Refugee Center, Miami, Florida, Statistical Unit, reprinted in John F. Thomas “Cuban Refugees in the United States,” International Migration Review vol. 1 no 52. 24. Olson and Olson, Cuban Americans, 64 – 65; Guillermo J. Grenier and Lisandro Perez, The Legacy of Exile: Cubans in the United States (Boston: Pearson Education, Inc., 2003), 53; State Department Bulletin, February 27, 1961, 309–310, cited in Masud-Piloto, From Welcomed Exiles to Illegal Immigrants, 49. 25. Julia Vadala Taft, David S. North and David A. Ford, Refugee Resettlement in the U.S.: Time for a New Focus (Washington, DC: New TransCentury Foundation, 1979), 222. 26. Bruce Porter and Marvin Dunn, The Miami Riot of 1980: Crossing the Bounds (Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 1984), 196. 27. Olson and Olson, Cuban Americans, 64 – 65. 28. Masud-Piloto, From Welcomed Exiles to Illegal Immigrants, 48; María Cristina García, Havana USA: Cuban Exiles and Cuban Americans in South Florida, 1959 –1994 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), 21. 29. James C. Davies, “Toward a theory of revolution,” American Sociological Review 27, no. 1 (1962): 5 –19. 30. Boswell and Curtis, The Cuban-American Experience, 170; Psywar on Cuba: The Declassified History of U.S. Anti-Castro Propaganda, ed. Jon Elliston (Melbourne, Victoria: Ocean, 1999), 169. 31. Lynn Darrell Bender, “The Cuban exiles: An analytical sketch,” Journal of Latin American Studies 5, no. 2 (1973): 271–278. 32. Felix Masud-Piloto, “Cuba: Colonizers, slaves, exiles, and refugees in Cuban history,” in Migration and Immigration: A Global View, eds. Maura I. Toro-Morn and Marixsa Alicea, 53–65 (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2004), 59. 33. Bender, “The Cuban exiles,” 271–278. 34. Operation Pedro Pan Group, Inc., The History of Operation Pedro Pan, Inc., Operation Pedro Pan Group, 2009, http://www.pedropan. org/content/history-operation-pedro-pan (accessed September 16, 2010). 35. Stepick and Stepick, “Power and identity,” 75 –92, 77. 36. Mario Garcia, “Miss Free Cuba Picked in Contest in Miami,” Miami News, June 19, 1967. 37. Boswell and Curtis, The Cuban-American Experience, 92. The two presidents are General Machado and Carlos Prío Socarrás. 38. Belen Jesuit Preparatory School, About Belen, 2009, http://www.belenjesuit.org/Page. aspx?pid=575 (accessed September 30, 2010).

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39. Robert M. Levine and Moisés Asis, Cuban Miami (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2000), 72–74. Levine and Asis also point out that the story may not be true, because some accounts say that the original restaurant is in Havana while others say Santiago de Cuba. The two cities are on opposite ends of the island. 40. Thomas M. Leonard, Castro and the Cuban Revolution (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1999), 58. 41. Levine, Secret Missions to Cuba, 67. 42. Norman L. Zucker and Naomi Flint Zucker, Desperate Crossings: Seeking Refuge in America (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1996), 46– 47; R. Drew Smith and Frederick C. Harris, Black Churches and Local Politics: Clergy Influence, Organizational Partnerships, and Civic Empowerment (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2005) 25; Daryl B. Harris, The Logic of Black Urban Rebelions: Challenging the Dynamics of White Domination in Miami (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1999), 62–68. 43. Levine, Secret Missions to Cuba, 69. 44. Porter and Dunn, The Miami Riot of 1980, 195. 45. Metropolitan Dade County, Office of the County Manager, Profile of the Black Population (1979), 65 and 53, cited in Harris, The Logic of Black Urban Rebellions, 66. 46. Jim Marrs, Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy (New York: Carroll and Graf, 1989), 142. 47. Grenier and Stepick, Miami now!, 11; Richard D. Mahoney, Sons and Brothers: The Days of Jack and Bobby Kennedy (New York: Arcade, 1999), 168. 48. Steve Hach, “Cold War in South Florida historic resource study,” National Park Service, ed. Jennifer Dickey, 2004, www.nps.gov, 18; de la Torre, La Lucha for Cuba, 40. 49. Mahoney, Sons and brothers; de la Torre, La Lucha for Cuba, 40. 50. Joan Didion, Miami (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1987), 90 –91; David Rieff, Going to Miami: Exiles, Tourists, and Refugees in the New America (London: Bloomsbury, 1987), 193– 207; Cynthia Jo Rich, “Pondering the Future: Miami’s Cubans after 15 Years,” Race Relations Reporter 5, no. 21 (November 1974), 7–9, cited in Grenier and Perez, The Legacy of Exile, 53. 51. There is also a movie called 638 Ways to Kill Castro. 52. Reuters (cited in the New York Times), “The Villain on Cuba TV: C.I.A. Man,” March 28, 1976, ProQuest (accessed March 6, 2010 from ProQuest). Cuban political artist Antonio Prohías lampooned the absurdity of espionage, conducted by both sides, in a series of cartoons titled Spy vs. Spy. After he drew an unflattering cartoon of Fidel Castro, Cuban officials labeled Prohías as a CIA operative and threatened to put him

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against the wall. Prohías left Cuba in 1960. His wife and family joined him after being threatened on Cuban radio. He decided the best revenge against Castro would be to make money from the accusations against him. The Spy vs. Spy cartoons would become staples in MAD Magazine (Antonio Prohías, Spy vs. Spy: The Complete Casebook (New York: Watson-Guptill Publications, 2001), 15). 53. de la Torre, La Lucha for Cuba, 40. 54. Rory Carroll and Giles Tremlett, “Front: The CIA agent who penetrated the heart of Castros regime — his own sister Juanita: Memoir reveals details of secret messages and codes: Recruitment was a rare triumph for US spymasters,” Guardian, October 27, 2009, Lexis-Nexis (accessed October 18, 2010). 55. William Harvey, memo to Brigadier General Edward Lansdale, August 6, 1962, reprinted in Psywar on Cuba, 14 –115, 115. 56. Central Intelligence Agency, memo to Brigadier General Edward Lansdale, October 10, 1962, reprinted in Psywar on Cuba, 119–126, 124. 57. Donald Wilson, Report on Phase I progress to Brigadier General Edward Lansdale, July 20, 1962, reprinted in Psywar on Cuba, 105 – 113. 58. Brigadier General William Craig, “Possible actions to provoke, harass, or disrupt Cuba,” memo to Brigadier General William Lansdale, February 2, 1962, reprinted in Psywar on Cuba, 87–90. 59. Brigadier General William Craig, Operation Bounty memo to Brigadier General William Lansdale, January 30, 1962, reprinted in Psywar on Cuba, 84 –86. 60. Edward R. Murrow, Memorandum to John McCone, December 10, 1962, reprinted in Psywar on Cuba: The Declassified History of U.S. Anti-Castro Propaganda, ed. Jon Elliston (Melbourne, Victoria: Ocean Press, 1999), 154 –155, 154. 61. Edward R. Murrow, memorandum to John McCone, December 10, 1962, reprinted in Psywar on Cuba, 154 –155, 155. 62. Psywar on Cuba: The Declassified History of U.S. Anti-Castro Propaganda, ed. Jon Elliston (Melbourne, Victoria: Ocean, 1999), 72. 63. Isidoro Malmierca, “Speech Delivered by Isidoro Malmierca, Member of the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba, on the Anniversary of the Founding of Radio Havana Cuba,” in XV Anniversary of Radio Havana Cuba. Havana: Department of Revolutionary Orientation of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba. 1978, cited in Howard H. Frederick, Cuban-American Radio Wars: Ideology in International Telecommunications (Norwood, NJ: Ablex, 1986), 9 (brackets are in Frederick); in Communication in Latin America: Journalism, Mass Media and

Society, Richard R. Cole says Radio Havana Cuba signed on weeks after the Bay of Pigs invasion. Frederick appears to contradict this by mentioning Radio Havana Cuba broadcasts leading up to the invasion. There was an existing station named Radio Havana Cuba. 64. Ruby Hart Phillips, “Cuba completing new radio ‘Voice,’” New York Times, February 4, 1961, ProQuest (accessed March 30, 2010). 65. Frederick, Cuban-American Radio Wars, 10. Guarini and Quechua are languages used by some indigenous tribes of South America. 66. Timothy B. Tyson, Radio Free Dixie: Robert F. Williams and the Roots of Black Power (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1999). Originally from Monroe, North Carolina, Williams became an advocate for civil rights after he witnessed Jesse Helms, Sr., a Monroe police officer and father of North Carolina senator Jesse Helms, beating a black woman. Williams and his wife fled to Cuba in 1961 to avoid charges in the United States. The Williamses lived there until 1965, when they moved to China. They eventually returned to the United States. The charges against Williams were dropped. 67. Robert F. Williams, “Speech from Radio Free Dixie,” in Modern Black Nationalism: From Marcus Garvey to Louis Farrakhan, ed. Wiilliam L. Van Debug, 94–96 (New York: New York University Press, 1997), 96. 68. Juan Orlando Perez, “The media in Castro’s Cuba,” in The Media in Latin America, ed. Jairo Lugo-Ocando, 116 –130 (Maidenhead, Berkshire: McGraw Hill/Open University Press, 2008), 122. 69. Juan Orlando Perez, “The media in Castro’s Cuba,” in The Media in Latin America, ed. Jairo Lugo-Ocando, 116 –130 (Maidenhead, Berkshire: McGraw Hill/Open University Press, 2008), 122. 70. Kenneth Adler, “VOA Radio Listening in Cuba,” April 23, 1971, cited in Psywar on Cuba: The Declassified History of U.S. Anti-Castro Propaganda, 182. 71. Walter C. Rucker and James N. Upton, Encyclopedia of American Race Riots (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2007), 535. 72. “Cuba tones down overseas radio,” New York Times, August 24, 1969, ProQuest (accessed March 26, 2010). 73. Lars Schoultz, That Infernal Little Cuban Republic: The United States and the Cuban Revolution (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2009), 401. According to radio enthusiast Tom Kneitel, Radio Americas signed off on May 15, 1968 (Tom Kneitel, “Inside the CIA’s Guano Paradise,” Part 2, Popular Communications (December 1985), 18 –22, 22. 74. Kneitel, “Inside the CIA’s Guano Paradise,” 18 –22, 22. 75. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations,

Notes—Chapter Two Radio Broadcasting to Cuba, 97th Cong., 2nd sess. (Washington, DC: U.S. GPO, July 1, 27, and August 19, 1982), 382. 76. A 1975 New York Times article revealed that for more than 10 years the agency paid Cuban Americans to monitor and maintain files on Cuban exiles. The program began as a component of the Bay of Pigs to identify Castro operatives in the United States. It continued after the invasion because the CIA believed the information would be instrumental when it needed to fill government positions in post–Castro Cuba. As one exile said, “As far as I know they haven’t discovered a single Castro spy here, but they sure made many detailed reports, including gossip, about personal lives of all prominent Cubans, if anything usurping the functions of the FBI.” At one point, the surveillance project had 150 informants on the payroll, a plane that moved agents within the United States and abroad, and a budget of two million dollars. The operation ended in the early 1970s after a plane associated with the operation crashed in California and the recovery team found that it had been carrying heroin and cocaine (George Volsky, “Cuban exiles recall domestic spying and picketing for C.I.A.,” New York Times, January 4, 1975, p. 8; Warren Hinckle and William W. Turner, The Fish Is Red: The Story of the Secret War Against Castro (New York: Harper and Row, 1981), 314). 77. José Luis Méndez, “Tereorismo de origen Cubano,” PhD diss., MES, Havana, 1995, cited in Jesús Arboleya, The Cuban Counterrevolution, Research in International Studies, Vol. 33 (Athens: Ohio University Center for International Studies, 2000), 160. 78. Edna Buchanan, “Murder in Exile,” Miami Herald, April 18, 1976, p. 1-D. There were allegations that Torriente used money that had been donated to the “Torriente Plan” to invest in real estate. Torriente denied this claim. 79. Hinckle and Turner, The Fish Is Red, 252. 80. T.J. English, Havana Nocturne: How the Mob Owned Cuba — and Then Lost It to the Revolution (New York: William Morrow, 2008), 324. 81. Senate Subcommittee to Investigate the Administration of the Internal Security Act and other Internal Security Law, Terroristic Activity 8: Terrorism in the Miami Area, 94th Cong., 2nd Sess. (Washington, DC: GPO, May 6, 1976), 631. 82. Amy Goodman, Peter Kornbluh, Max Lesnick and Vivian Lesnick Weisman, “The Man of Two Havanas: Max Lesnik on His Transition from Cuban Revolutionary to Exile to Target of Terrorist Attacks by Anti-Castro Cuban Militants in Miami,” Democracy now!, May 7, 2007, http://www.democracynow.org/ article.pl?sid=07/05/07/1411212 (accessed May 26, 2010).

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83. William Schmidt, “MINORITIES: Backlash in Miami,” Newsweek, March 17, 1975, Lexis-Nexis (accessed December 30, 2009). 84. Goodman et al., “The Man of Two Havanas.” 85. William Tucker, “Clues sought in bombing,” Miami News, May 1, 1976, http://www.latin americanstudies.org/belligerence/clues.htm. (accessed April 4, 2010). 86. David Adams, “His father’s voice,” St. Petersburg Times, December 5, 2002, http:// www. sptimes.com/2002/12/05/Floridian/His_ father_s_voice.shtml (accessed June 9, 2009). 87. At one time Peruyero was president of the Brigade 2506 veterans group. 88. Associated Press, January 7, 1977, LexisNexis (accessed April 4, 2010). 89. Amy Driscoll, “Miami-Dade detective hopes her father’s 1977 murder is solved,” Associated Press State and local wire, February 19, 2006, Lexis-Nexis (accessed April 4, 2010). 90. John Prados, Presidents’ Secret Wars: CIA and Pentagon Covert Operations from World War II Through the Persion Gulf (Chicago: I.R. Dee, 1996), 212. 91. Senate Subcommittee to Investigate the Administration of the Internal Security Act and other Internal Security Law, Terroristic Activity 8: Terrorism in the Miami Area, 94th Cong., 2nd Sess. (Washington, DC: GPO, May 6, 1976), 632. 92. Ibid., 608. 93. Senate Subcommittee to Investigate the Administration of the Internal Security Act and other Internal Security Law, Terroristic Activity 8: Terrorism in the Miami Area, 615–616; “Cuban extremists in the U.S.: A growing terror threat,” U.S. News and World Report, December 6, 1976, Lexis-Nexis (accessed May 26, 2010). 94. El Miami Herald, Sept. 22, 1978, p. 22a, cited in Masud-Piloto, From Welcomed Exiles to Illegal Immigrants, 77. 95. García, Havana USA, 143. 96. Hernando Calvo Ospina and Katlijn Declercq, The Cuban Exile Movement: Dissident or Mercenaries?, trans. Mary Todd (Melbourne, Victoria: Ocean, 2000), 12. 97. Associated Press, August 2, 1977, LexisNexis (accessed October 13, 2010). 98. Associated Press, August 5, 1977, LexisNexis (accessed February 27, 2010). 99. Didion, Miami, 111; Howell Raines, “Banker is proud of role in freeing Cubans,” New York Times, December 27, 1978, ProQuest (accessed May 16, 2010). 100. Levine, Secret Missions to Cuba, 37. 101. Ibid., 78, 69. Benes would also testify before Congress on behalf of black-owned banks (House Subcommittee on Domestic Monetary Policy of the Committee on Banking, Finance, and Urban Affairs, Present and future conditions of credit markets their impact on local economies

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Part 2, 97th Cong., 1st sess. [Washington, DC: U.S. GPO, November 16, 1981]). 102. E-mail from Bernardo Benes to Robert M. Levine, November 13, 2000, cited in Levine, Secret Missions to Cuba, 87. 103. Didion, Miami, 112. 104. Levine, Secret Missions to Cuba, xiii. 105. Wayne S. Smith, The Closest of Enemies: A Personal and Diplomatic Account of U.S.-Cuban Relations Since 1957 (New York: W.W. Norton, 1987), 162. 106. This was not the first time exiles had traveled to Cuba to meet with Castro. A year earlier, the Antonio Maceo Brigade, a pro-Castro group, traveled to the island. 107. Ward Sinclair, “The two sides of a negotiator for Castro’s prisoners; sucessful Miami banker undeterred by threat of other Cuban exiles for his role in Havana talks,” Washington Post, December 3, 1978, Lexis-Nexis (accessed May 16, 2010). 108. Raines, “Banker is proud of role in freeing Cubans.” 109. La Crónica, October 15, 1979, 23, cited in Miguel A. de la Torre, La Lucha for Cuba, 49. 110. Americas Watch Committee (U.S.) and Fund for Free Expression (U.S.), “Dangerous Dialogue: Attacks on freedom of expression in Miami’s Cuban exile community” (New York, 1992), 3. 111. Didion, Miami, 114. 112. Fran Markowitz and Anders H. Stefansson, Homecomings: Unsettling Paths of Return (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2004), 202. 113. Levine and Asís, Cuban Miami, 45. 114. Zucker and Zucker, Desperate Crossings, 50. 115. Smith, The Closest of Enemies, 207. 116. “Peru says 8,000 –10,000 Cubans jam embassy in Havana,” Associated Press, April 6, 1980, Lexis-Nexis (accessed October 13, 2010). 117. Liz Balmaseda, “Mariel: That was then, this is now,” Miami Herald, July 31, 1989, NewsBank (accessed March 11, 2010). 118. Liz Balmaseda, “Exile: I was mastermind of Mariel,” Miami Herald, July 31, 1989, NewsBank (accessed March 11, 2010). 119. Smith, The Closest of Enemies, 211. 120. Vernon M. Briggs, Mass Immigration and the National Interest (Armonk, NY: Sharpe, 1992), 143. 121. Masud-Piloto, From Welcomed Exiles to Illegal Immigrants, 83. 122. Juan O. Tamayo, “Man behind Mariel speaks,” Miami Herald, May 16, 2010, News Bank. 123. David Wells Engstrom, Presidential Decision Making Adrift: The Carter Administration and the Mariel Boatlift (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 1997), 82–83.

124. William J. Durch, “Keepers of the gates: National militaries in an age of international population movement,” in Demography and National Security, ed. Myron Weiner and Sharon Stanton Russell, 109 –153 (New York: Berghahn Books, 2001), 123. 125. Fabiola Santiago, “Miami’s Cuban stations a key force,” Miami Herald, April 3, 2005, NewsBank (accessed March 11, 2010). 126. Ibid. 127. Ward Sinclair, “In Miami, the anti–Castro pulse quickens; a heartland of global intrigue,” Washington Post, April 24, 1980, LexisNexis (accessed October 12, 2010). 128. Portes and Stepick, City on the Edge, 26. 129. Zucker and Zucker, Desperate Crossings, 58 –59. 130. Ibid. 131. Fidel Castro, May Day Celebration Speech, May 1, 1980, cited in Portes and Stepick, City on the Edge, 21. 132. Ross Laver, “U.S. fears Castro unleashing criminals, spies,” Globe and Mail, May 1, 1980, Lexis-Nexis (accessed October 12, 2010). 133. “1980 murder statistics for Miami,” Associated Press, December 29, 1980, Lexis-Nexis (accessed Janaury 24, 2009); “A chronology of the Cuban sealift,” United Press International, September 26, 1980, Lexis-Nexis (accessed February 27, 2010). 134. “1980 murder statistics for Miami,” Associated Press. 135. “A chronology of the Cuban sealift,” United Press International, September 26, 1980, Lexis-Nexis (accessed February 27, 2010). One Fort Chaffee detainee was 38-year-old Graciela Quesada Camora, who first defected to the United States in 1966 during the Freedom Flights. Four years later she had become homesick and used a gun to hijack a plane back to Cuba. She came back to the United States during Mariel, still with an outstanding warrant, and turned herself in (“Woman pleads guilty to skyjack 10 years ago,” Associated Press, July 3, 1980, Lexis-Nexis [accessed March 27, 2010]). In some instances, the hijackers’ weapons were bottles of gasoline they smuggled on board. In 2006, British officials uncovered a similar plot in which terrorists planned to use dangerous liquids to take down planes as they crossed the Atlantic. It is also worth noting that the FAA revived the Sky Marshal program, which had ended in 1972. 136. Roper Report 82–4, March 1982, iPOLL Databank, Roper Center for Public Opinion Research, University of Connecticut, ropercenter.uconn.edu.wncln.wncln.org (accessed March 29, 2010). 137. Miami Herald, January 21, 1982, p. 15A, cited in Michelle Marie Cobas, “Mass media ethics vs. ethnic identity: The Cuban American

Notes—Chapter Three National Foundation’s battle with the Miami Herald” (Baton Rouge, December 2001), 23. 138. Peter Michelmore, “From Cuba with hate: The crime wave Castro sent to America,” Reader’s Digest, December 1982, 221–248, 233. 139. Although Scarface is set in Miami, most of the movie was actually shot in California because Miami leaders believed that the character reinforced negative stereotypes of Cubans. 140. Sheila L. Croucher, Imagining Miami: Ethnic Politics in a Postmodern World (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1997), 179. 141. Portes and Stepick, City on the Edge, 161. 142. James Crawford, At War with Diversity: U.S. Language Policy in an Age of Anxiety (Buffalo, NY: Multilingual Matters, 2000), 27. 143. Didion, Miami, 67. 144. Miami News, May 7, 1980, 1, cited in Zucker and Zucker, Desperate Crossings, 55. 145. Charles Whited, “Castro always seems to call the shots here,” Miami Herald, November 24, 1987, NewsBank (accessed May 22, 2010). 146. Aida Thomas Levitan, “Hispanics in Dade County: Their Characteristics and Needs,” Miami Latin Affairs, office of the county manager, Metropolitan Dade County, printed report, Spring 1980, 43, cited in Boswell and Curtis, The Cuban-American Experience, 66 –67; “Latins are now living all over Dade,” Miami Herald, July 2, 1978, p. 22A, cited in Boswell and Curtis, The Cuban-American Experience, 66 –67. 147. Levitan, “Hispanics in Dade County,” Miami, office of county manager, Latin Affairs, Metropolitan Dade County, Spring 1980), 19, cited in Boswell and Curtis, The CubanAmerican Experience, 66–67; Juan M. Clark, “Los Cubanos de Miami: Cuantos Son y de Donde Provienen,” Ideal (January 15, 1973), 17–19, cited in Boswell and Curtis, The Cuban-American Experience, 66 –67. 148. George Lardner Jr., “McDuffie Death: It seemed to be open-shut case,” “Arthur McDuffie’s death: It seemed open-and-shut case,” Washington Post, May 21, 1980, Lexis-Nexis (accessed February 25, 2010). 149. Marvin Dunn, Black Miami in the Twentieth Century (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1997), 269. 150. “Dreams of a new life shattered by alleged police brutality,” Associated Press, December 31, 1979, Lexis-Nexis (accessed February 25, 2010). 151. Dunn, Black Miami in the Twentieth Century, 269. 152. Harris, The Logic of Black Urban Rebellions, 77, 85. Janet Reno was the lead prosecutor. 153. Robert Daniels, “Memories of Liberty City riots fade, but neighborhood bears scars,” Miami Herald, May 16, 2010, www.miamiherald. com (accessed June 5, 2010).

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Chapter Three 1. There were 66 hostages initially taken on November 4. Six diplomats avoided capture and sought refuge with Canadian officials. They eventually escaped Iran by using false identities. On November 19, one white woman and two African American hostages were released. The next day the Iranians released four white women and six black men. The women and black hostages were singled out as minorities who, like the Iranians, had been oppressed by the United States. On July 11, 1980, hostage Richard Queen, who had multiple sclerosis, was sent home so that he could receive medical attention. This left 52 hostages, including one black man and two white women, who remained until January 20, 1981 (Jimmy Carter Library and Museum, “The Hostages and the Casualties,” www.jimmycarterlibrary.gov [accessed December 9, 2010]). 2. In Beyond Hell and Back: How America’s Special Operations Forces Became the World’s Greatest Fighting Unit, authors Zimmerman and Gresham said that the helicopter had a warning light that one of the rotors may have had a leak. According to Zimmerman and Gresham, the indicator turned out to be false. The aircraft was in perfect working condition (Dwight Jan Zimmerman and John Gresham, Beyond Hell and Back: How America’s Special Operations Forces Became the World’s Greatest Fighting Unit (New York: St. Martin’s, 2007), 124). 3. Tommy H. Thomason, Strike from the Sea: U.S. NavyAttack Aircraft from Skyraider to Super Hornet, 1948 –Present (North Branch, MN: Specialty, 2009), 50. 4. Zimmerman and Gresham, Beyond Hell and Back, 127. 5. Joseph B. Treaster, New York Times, June 10, 1977, Lexis-Nexis (accessed October 13, 2010). 6. Richard E. Meyer, Associated Press, August 12, 1977, Lexis-Nexis (accessed May 11, 2007). 7. Linda Robinson, Intervention or Neglect: The United States and Central America Beyond the 1980s (New York: Council on Foreign Relations Press, 1991), 7–8. 8. Ibid., 128. 9. William M. LeoGrande, Our Own Backyard: The United States in Central America, 1977– 1992 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998), 14 –15. 10. LeoGrande, Our Own Backyard, 15; Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman, The Washington Connection and Third World Fascism (Boston: South End, 1979), 284–285. 11. Alan Riding, New York Times, August 16, 1977, Lexis-Nexis (accessed May 11, 2007). 12. Confidential telephone interview by Morris H. Morley with a Department of State official,

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October 3, 1990, cited in Morris H. Morley, Washington, Somoza, and the Sandinistas: State and Regime in U.S. Policy toward Nicaragua, 1969 – 1981 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 78. 13. Steve Frazier, “Political Standoff Stymies Nicaragua,” Wall Street Journal, January 8, 1981, ProQuest (accessed February 27, 2010). 14. Richard R. Fagen, Olga Pellicer de Brody and Adolfo Aguilar Zinser, The Future of Central America: Policy Choices for the U.S. and Mexico (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1983), 26. 15. LeoGrande, Our Own Backyard, 40; Michael R. Little, A War of Information: The Conflict Between Public and Private U.S. Foreign Policy on El Salvador, 1979 –1992 (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1993), 35. 16. Anna Lisa Peterson, Martyrdom and the Politics of Religion: Progressive Catholicism in El Salvador’s Civil War (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1997), 63. 17. “Catholic station defies El Salvador government,” Washington Post, February 2, 1979, Lexis-Nexis (accessed June 6, 2010). 18. “Violence in San Salvador,” Washington Post, February 20, 1980, Lexis-Nexis (accessed June 6, 2010). Romero was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 but finished behind Mother Teresa. 19. Thomas J. Gumbleton, “If you want peace work for justice,” in Romero’s Legacy: The Call to Peace and Justice, ed. Pilar Hogan Closkey and John P. Hogan (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2007), 35. 20. Euclid A. Rose, Dependency and Socialism in the Modern Caribbean: Superpower Intervention in Guyana, Jamaica, and Grenada, 1970 –1985 (Lanham, MD: Lexington, 2002), 289. 21. “GRENADA: The fall of a warlock,” Time, April 2, 1979, Time.com (accessed October 13, 2010). 22. Karen DeYoung, “Flamboyant Grenada leader is reported ousted in bloodless coup,” Washington Post, March 14, 1979, ProQuest (accessed June 6, 2010). 23. Ronald Reagan, Kiron K. Skinner, Annelise Graebner Anderson and Martin Anderson, Reagan’s Path to Victory: The Shaping of Ronald Reagan’s Vision, Selected Writing (New York: Free Press, 2004), xv. 24. “Reagan proposes blockade,” Associated Press, January 28, 1980, Lexis-Nexis (accessed April 4, 2010). 25. Lou Cannon, “Reagan Is Conciliatory in Foreign Policy Statement,” Washington Post, Lexis-Nexis (accessed March 18, 1980). 26. Committee of Santa Fe and Lewis A. Tambs, A New Inter-American Policy for the Eighties (Washington, DC: The Council, 1980), 2. 27. Ibid.

28. Ibid., 53. 29. Ibid., 1. 30. Ibid., 14. 31. Ibid., 45. 32. James Earl Carter, “Presidential Directive NSC-6, Subject: Cuba,” March 15, 1977, National Security Archive, www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv (accessed November 17, 2008). 33. Clifford L. Staten, The History of Cuba (Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan, 2005), 115. 34. Jo Thomas, “Havana releases 33 Americans, and all but three return to U.S.,” New York Times, October 28, 1980, Lexis-Nexis (accessed May 15, 2007); Art Harris, “30 Americans return from Cuban prison; some prisoners return to Cuban families, some to more jail,” Washington Post, October 28, 1980, Lexis-Nexis (accessed May 15, 2007). 35. It was actually 366 days because 1980 was a leap year. Reagan ended up with 43,898,770 votes, or 50.8 percent of the popular vote. Carter had 35,480,948 votes, or 41.0 percent of the popular vote. Carter won the District of Columbia, Georgia, Hawaii, Maryland, Minnesota, Rhode Island, and West Virginia. Independent candidate John Bayard Anderson tallied 5,719,222 votes, or 6.6 percent of the popular vote. 36. LeoGrande, Our Own Backyard, 56 –57. 37. The Associated Press lists Reagan as taking the Oath of Office at 11:57 a.m. EST on January 20, 1981, although the designated time was noon and is listed as such in most sources. AP also lists the hostages as leaving Iranian air space at 1:28 p.m. EST, which technically puts their “departure” from Iran at 91 minutes into the new administration. Reagan’s term in the White House ended at 12:03 p.m. on January 20, 1989, when George H.W. Bush took the Oath of Office. Reagan served roughly eight years and six minutes in the White House. The Iranian Hostage Crisis consumed about 91 of Reagan’s 4,207,686 minutes in office, or about 0.002163 percent of his time as president. 38. Lee Edwards, The Essential Ronald Reagan: A Profile in Courage, Justice, and Wisdom (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2005), 77. 39. Genrikh Aleksandrovich Trofimenko, “Discussant,” in President Reagan and the World, ed. Eric J. Schmertz, Natalie Datlof and Alexej Ugrinsky, 134 –145 (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1997), 135. 40. U.S. Department of State, Office of Public Communication, Communist interference in El Salvador: February 23, 1981 (Washington: U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Public Affairs, Office of Public Communication, Editorial Division, 1981). 41. Lee Lescaze, “U.S. action ‘possible’ in Cuba arms flow, Reagan aide says; Meese warns Cuba of ‘possible’ U.S. action,” Washington Post,

Notes—Chapter Four February 23, 1981, Lexis-Nexis (accessed May 15, 2007). 42. CBS News/New York Times Poll, April 1981, iPoll Databank, Roper Center for Public Opinion Research, University of Connecticut, ropercenter.uconn.edu.wncln.wncln.org (accessed March 22, 2010). 43. Gaeton Fonzi, “Who is Jorge Mas Canosa?” Esquire, January 1993, 867–89, 199 – 122, 121; Larry Rohter, “An Exile’s Empire: A special report, with Voice of Cuban-Americans a Would-Be Successor to Castro,” New York Times, May 8, 1995, Lexis-Nexis (accessed October 15, 2010). 44. John Spicer Nichols, “Cuba: The Congress; the power of the anti–Fidel lobby,” The Nation 247, no. 11 (1988): 389–392, 392. Although NSDD-17 was issued in January 1982, several months after the formation of the CANF in March 1981, one would have to assume that actions to accomplish Reagan’s objectives were well underway by the time he wrote NSDD-17. 45. Miguel A. de la Torre, La Lucha for Cuba: Religion and Politics on the Streets of Miami (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001), 77. 46. Fonzi, “Who is Jorge Mas Canosa?,” 86 – 89,199 –122, 121. 47. Ronald Reagan, “Nomination of Carlos Salman to be a Member of the Board of Directors of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation,” September 21, 1981, American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu (accessed May 15, 2007). 48. Ibid. 49. Fonzi, “Who is Jorge Mas Canosa?,” 867– 89, 199 –122, 121. 50. Eileen Keerdoja, “Brigade 2506,” Newsweek, December 12, 1977, Lexis-Nexis (accessed October 14, 2010). 51. Fonzi, “Who is Jorge Mas Canosa?,” 867– 89, 199 –122, 89. 52. John Newhouse, “Reporter at large: Socialism or death,” New Yorker, April 27, 1992, Lexis-Nexis (accessed May 15, 2007). 53. Alvin A. Snyder, Warriors of Disinformation: American Propaganda, Soviet Lies, and the Winning of the Cold War, an Insider’s Account (New York: Arcade, 1995), 223 –224. 54. Patrick Jude Haney and Walt Vanderbush, The Cuban Embargo: The Domestic Politics of an American Foreign Policy (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2005), 38. 55. Ronald Reagan, “Presidential Commission on Broadcasting to Cuba,” Executive Order 12323, September 22, 1981, American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu (accessed December 6, 2010). 56. Richard V. Allen, “Statement concerning radio broadcasting to Cuba,” September 23, 1981, American Presidecy Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu (accessed February 27, 2010);

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Dean Reynolds, “U.S. to beam broadcasts to Cuba,” United Press International, September 24, 1981, Lexis-Nexis (accessed February 27, 2010). 57. Committee of Santa Fe and Lewis A. Tambs, A New Inter-American Policy for the Eighties (Washington, DC: The Council, 1980), 46. 58. Ibid. 59. Tom Miller, Trading with the Enemy: A Yankee Travels Through Castro’s Cuba (New York: Atheneum, 1992), 268. 60. House Subcommittee of the Committee on Government Operations, International Shortwave Broadcasting and Direct Broadcast Satellites, 97th Cong., 1st sess. (Washington, DC: U.S. GPO, October 23, 1981), 56 –57. 61. “Navy is building anti–Cuba radio,” New York Times, June 17, 1982, Lexis-Nexis (accessed May 16, 2007); “Propaganda station building reported,” Washington Post, June 17, 1982, LexisNexis (accessed May 16, 2007). 62. “Navy is building anti–Cuba radio,” New York Times. 63. Wayne S. Smith, The Closest of Enemies: A Personal and Diplomatic Account of U.S.-Cuban Relations Since 1957 (New York: W.W. Norton, 1987), 248 –249. 64. Wayne S. Smith, “Dateline Havana: Myopic diplomacy,” Foreign Policy, 48 (Autumn 1982): 157–174, 169. 65. Ibid., 157–174, 166 –170. 66. “Cuban liberty, American license,” New York Times, September 27, 1981, Lexis-Nexis (accessed May 6, 2007). 67. “Unloaded; signals to Cuba,” New York Times, October 11, 1981, Lexis-Nexis (accessed May 6, 2007). 68. Chris Chavez, “The bomb failed to detonate,” United Press International, December 31, 1980, Lexis-Nexis (accessed June 6, 2010). 69. A group of U.S. citizens argued that the travel ban could not be reinstated and sued for the right to visit the island. In Regan v. Wald, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5 –4 that the White House had the right to renew the travel ban. 70. United Press International, October 15, 1981, Lexis-Nexis (accessed May 16, 2007). 71. Dick Russell, The Man Who Knew Too Much (New York: Carroll and Graf , 2003), 189. 72. “Tony Cuesta, leader of anti–Castro unit dies at 66 in Miami,” New York Times, December 4, 1992, Lexis-Nexis (accessed May 16, 2007). 73. United Press International, October 15, 1981, Lexis-Nexis (accessed May 16, 2007).

Chapter Four 1. Michael J. Sproule, Propaganda and Democracy: The American Experience of Media

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and Mass Persuasion, Cambridge studies in the history of mass communications (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 131. 2. Ibid., 176. 3. Paul Felix Lazarsfeld, Bernard Berelson and Hazel Gaudet, The People’s Choice: How the Voter Makes Up His Mind in a Presidential Campaign (New York: Columbia University Press, 1968), 94 –95. 4. Paul Felix Lazarsfeld, Bernard Berelson and Hazel Gaudet, The People’s Choice: How the Voter Makes Up His Mind in a Presidential Campaign (New York: Columbia University Press, 1968), 172. 5. Ibid., 150 –158. 6. George N. Gordon, Communications and Media: Constructing a Cross-Discipline, Communication arts books (New York: Hastings House, 1975), 108 (italics in original). 7. Bernard Berelson, “What ‘missing’ the newspaper means,” in Communications Research: 1948 –1949, ed. Paul Felix Lazarsfeld and Frank N. Stanton, 111–129 (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1949), 123. 8. Wilbur Schramm, Television in the Lives of Our Children (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1961), 1. 9. Elihu Katz, Jay G. Blumler and Michael Gurevitch, “Uses and gratifications research,” Public Opinion Quarterly 37, no. 4 (1974): 509 – 523, 510 –511. 10. Brainwashing and mind control techniques are effective ways to cause an individual to respond in a specific way but require more control of the environment, something that Radio Martí would not have. Research on subliminal messages is inconclusive but probably irrelevant when dealing with international radio broadcasting because the signals are often so distorted that the hidden messages are likely to be lost as well. 11. Frank A. Biocca, “Opposing conceptions of the audience: The active and passive hemispheres of mass communication theory,” in Communication Yearbook, ed. James A. Anderson, 51–80 (Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1988). 12. Hadley Cantril, Howard Koch, Hazel Gaudet, Herta Herzog and H.G. Wells, The Invasion from Mars: A Study in the Psychology of Panic (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1940), 47, 58. 13. Gerald D. Feldman, The Great Disorder: Politics, Economics, and Society in the German Inflation, 1914 –1924 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 148. 14. These reparations were finally paid off in 2010. 15. Stanley J. Baran and Dennis K. Davis, Mass Communication Theory: Foundations, Ferment, and Future (Belmot, CA: Wadsworth, 1995), 67.

16. Stanley Milgram, Obedience to Authority; an Experimental View (New York: Harper and Row, 1974), 23. 17. Ibid., 5. 18. Philip G. Zimbardo, The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil (New York: Random House, 2007), 31. 19. Ibid., 105. 20. Ibid., 92–104. 21. Violent crimes were identified as murder and nonnegligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, aggravated assault, property crime, burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft. 22. United States, “Crime in the United States, 2008: Uniform crime reports,” 2008, http://www.f bi.gov/ucr/cius2008/index.html (accessed March 13, 2010). 23. National Safety Council, “Odds of death due to injury,” 2006, http://www.nsc.org (accessed February 10, 2010). 24. National Air Traffic Controllers Association, “Air traffic control: By the numbers,” http://www.nacta.org/mediacenter/by the numbers.msp (accessed February 10, 2010). Although these numbers may be inflated they are still high enough to illustrate the point. 25. VOA actually began during World War II but did not operate as it does today, broad– casting to the entire world, until after the war. 26. Broadcasting Board of Governors, “Voice of America Fact Sheet,” Broadcasting Board of Governors, April 2010, www.bbg.gov/about/documents/VOAFactSheet_04_10.pdf (accessed August 12, 2010). 27. Robert T. Holt, Radio Free Europe (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1958), 11–12. 28. Ibid., 16. 29. Crusade for Freedom, Inc., The Story of the World Freedom Bell (Minneapolis: Nate L. Crabtree, 1952), 33–37, cited in Michael Nelson, War of the Black Heavens: The Battles of Western Broadcasting in the Cold War (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1997), 48. 30. William Griffith, “Policy Review of Voice for Free Hungary Programming, October 23November 23, 1956,” December 5, 1956,” http:// www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB76/ doc10.pdf (accessed November 21, 2010), 6. 31. David Wise and Thomas B. Ross, The Invisible Government (New York: Random House, 1964), 318. 32. Arch Puddington, Broadcasting Freedom: The Cold War Triumph of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2000), 153. 33. Ibid., 195. 34. An original bill to authorize appropriations for fiscal years 1982 and 1983 for the Department of State, the International Communications Agency, and the Board for International Broadcast-

Notes—Chapter Four ing, and for other purposes, S.UP Amendment 166 to S. 1193, 97th Cong., 1st sess., Congressional Record 127 (June 17, 1981): S12757–12758; Edward W. Barrett, “Spoiling Success,” New York Times, July 24, 1982, ProQuest (accessed December 7, 2010). 35. An original bill to authorize appropriations for fiscal years 1982 and 1983 for the Department of State, the International Communications Agency, and the Board for International Broadcasting, and for other purposes: S12758. 36. The ICA was originally going to be called the Agency for International Communication (AIC) but officials rejected the idea after realizing it spelled CIA backwards. 37. Alan L. Heil, Voice of America: A History (New York: Columbia University Press, 2003), 117. 38. John Spicer Nichols, “Wasting the propaganda dollar,” Foreign Policy 56 (1984): 129 – 140, 138. 39. Heil, Voice of America: A History, 199–211. 40. Nichols, “Wasting the propaganda dollar,” 129 –140, 132. 41. Anatol Rapoport and Albert M. Chammah, Prisoner’s Dilemma; a Study in Conflict and Cooperation (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1965). 42. House Committee on Energy and Commerce, Subcommittee on Telecommunications, Consumer Protection, and Finance, Radio Broadcasting to Cuba, 97th Cong., 2nd sess. (Washington, DC: U.S. GPO, May 10, 1982), 206, 211–212. 43. John A. Lent, Case Studies of Mass Media in the Third World (Williamsburg, VA: Department of Anthropology, College of William and Mary, 1980), 6. 44. House Committee on Energy and Commerce, Subcommittee on Telecommunications, Consumer Protection, and Finance, Radio Broadcasting to Cuba, 206, 212. 45. Fidel Castro, Letter to Franklin Delano Roosevelt, November 6, 1940, http://www.the smokinggun.com/archive/castroletter1.html (accessed December 5, 2010). Castro asked Roosevelt for a $10 bill because he had never seen one. He also added that he knew where some iron was in Cuba in case FDR needed it for his ships. 46. Personal Interviews by John Spicer Nichols, cited in Joh Spicer Nichols, Keeping the Flame: Media and Government in Latin America, ed. Robert N. Pierce, 80–95 (New York: Hastings House, 1979); United States Information Agency, Research and Reference Service, The Foreign Broadcast Audience in Cuba Today: Estimates Based on Refugee Reports, R-133 –63 ®, August 1963, 99 –100, cited in Nichols, “Cuba: Right Arm of a Revolution”; “USA’s radio and TV ‘psychological warfare’ discussed, BBC Summary of

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World Broadcasts, October 21, 1994, Lexis-Nexis (accessed May 18, 2010). 47. John Spicer Nichols, “Cuba: Right Arm of a Revolution,” in Keeping the Flame, 80 –95, 92; Jane Franklin, Cuba and the United States: A Chronological History (Melbourne: Ocean, 1997), 191. 48. Nichols, “Cuba: Right Arm of a Revolution,” 83. 49. Lawrence C. Soley and John Spicer Nichols, Clandestine Radio Broadcasting: A Study of Revolutionary and Counterrevolutionary Electronic Communication (New York: Praeger, 1987), 185 –189. 50. Miami Herald, August 7, 1981, 2d. 51. William Labbee, “Cuba Over and Out,” Miami New Times, November 21, 1990, www.miamitimesnews.com (accessed July 15, 2009). 52. María Cristina García, Havana USA: Cuban Exiles and Cuban Americans in South Florida, 1959 –1994 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), 154. 53. Ibid., 153. 54. House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Subcommittee on International Operations and on Western Hemisphere Affairs, Foreign Policy Implications of TV Martí, 100th Cong., 2nd sess. (Washington, DC: U.S. GPO, September 22, 1988), 19. 55. Heil, Voice of America, 114. 56. Robert B. Cialdini, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion (New York: Morrow, 1993), 271. 57. Puddington, Broadcasting Freedom,137– 141. 58. Heil, Voice of America, 114. 59. Eleanor Randolph, “Soviet critiques radio jamming; touring broadcaster airs ‘personal’ views to U.S. conservatives,” Washington Post, June 4, 1986, Lexis-Nexis (accessed October 13, 2010). 60. Andrew Yoder, Pirate Radio Stations: Tuning in to Underground Broadcasts in the Air and Online (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2002), 137. 61. Ibid., 137. A 2009 movie, Pirate Radio, is loosely based on a composite of Radio Caroline and other pirate broadcasters during the 1960s. 62. James Feron, “British pirate radio stations thrive,” New York Times, January 3, 1965, ProQuest (accessed March 9, 2010); “‘Pirate’ radios boast they’ve caught B.B.C.,” New York Times, September 12, 1964, ProQuest (accessed March 9, 2010). 63. Clyde H. Farnsworth, “Britain turns off her pirate radio stations, but one owner won’t give up his ships,” New York Times, August 15, 1967, ProQuest (accessed March 9, 2010). 64. House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Radio Broadcasting to Cuba (Radio Martí), 97th Cong., 2nd sess. (Washington, DC: U.S. GPO, March 3, 4, and 24, 1982), 184. 65. Michael Rau, private communication, June 3, 1982, cited by Nina M. Serafino, Marcia

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S. Smith, and David R. Siddell in CRS Report on Radio Martí (Washington, DC: U.S. GPO, June 28, 1982), 51. 66. Arch Puddington interview with Leinwoll, cited in Puddington, Broadcasting Freedom, 224. 67. Radio Free Europe-Radio Free Liberty, Jamming, no date, reprinted by House Subcommittee of the Committee on Government Operations, International Shortwave Broadcasting and Direct Broadcast Satellites, 97th Cong., 1st Sess. (Washington, DC: U.S. GPO, October 23, 1981), 95 –96, 96. 68. Nina M. Serafino, Marcia S. Smith and David R. Siddell, CRS Report, Radio Martí: Prepared in Response to an Inquiry from the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations (Washington, DC: U.S. GPO, 1982), 59. 69. Miguel A. de la Torre, La Lucha for Cuba: Religion and Politics on the Streets of Miami (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001), 40. 70. John Spicer Nichols, “The U.S. view of radio interference,” in Subject to Solution: Problems in Cuban-U.S. Relations, ed. Wayne S. Smith and Esteban Morales Dominguez, 124 –137 (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1988), 129. 71. CIA, National Foreign Assessment Center, Radio jamming policy in the East Bloc, August 13, 1981, reprinted in Psywar on Cuba: The Declassified History of U.S. Anti-Castro Propaganda, ed. Jon Elliston (Melbourne, Victoria: Ocean, 1999), 216 –217. 72. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Mark-Up—S. 602 and S. 659, Radio Broadcasting to Cuba—Radio Martí (Washington, DC: Alderson Reporting, June 8, 1983), 15. 73. International Telecommunications Union, History, 2008, www.itu.int/aboutitu/overview/ history.html (accessed September 22, 2010). 74. Howard H. Frederick, Cuban-American Radio Wars: Ideology in International Telecommunications (Norwood, NJ: Ablex, 1986), 33. 75. Ibid. 76. Serafino et al., CRS Report, Radio Martí, 55. 77. Central Intelligence Agency, Cuba: Countering Radio Martí, telegram to the Department of State, February 6, 1982, reprinted in Psywar on Cuba, 218.

Chapter Five 1. Howard H. Frederick, Cuban-American Radio Wars: Ideology in International Telecommunications (Norwood, NJ: Ablex, 1986), 27. 2. Jesús Arboleya, The Cuban Counterrevolution (Athens: Ohio University Center for International Studies, 2000), 227; U.S. Department of State, Tirso del Junco, http://www.state.gov/ p/io/unesco/members/48837.htm (accessed October 13, 2010).

3. Patrick Jude Haney and Walt Vanderbush, The Cuban Embargo: The Domestic Politics of an American Foreign Policy (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2005), 28. 4. Stone was supposed to serve until January 3, 1981, but resigned on December 31, 1980. 5. “New concerns about the press,” Fortune, April 1975, 130. 6. James Ledbetter, Made Possible by—: The Death of Public Broadcasting in the United States (London: Verso, 1998), 144. 7. Joanne Omang, “The Heritage Report: Getting the government right with Reagan,” Washington Post, November 16, 1980, Lexis-Nexis (accessed June 7, 2010). 8. Russ Bellant, The Coors Connection: How Coors family Philanthropy Undermines Democratic Pluralism (Boston: South End, 1991), 91. As a member of the board of trustees for a Colorado university, Coors distributed John Birch pamphlets at one meeting (James Ledbetter, Made Possible by —, 101). 9. Donald R. Baucom, The Prigins of SDI, 1944 –1983, Modern war studies (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1992), 146. 10. Senate Committee on Commerce, Subcommittee on Communications, To amend the Communications Act of 1934 to relieve broadcasters of the equal time requirement of Section 315 with respect to the presidential and vice presidential candidates and to amend the Campaign Communications Reform Act to provide a further limitation on expenditures in election campaigns for federal elective office, 93rd Cong., 1st sess. (Washington, DC: U.S. GPO, March 7, 8, 9 and 13, 1973), 319. 11. Katherine Graham, Personal History (New York: Knopf, 1997), 476 –477; Sidney Blumenthal, The Clinton Wars (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003), 91. 12. William Blum, Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions since World War II (London: Zed Books, 2004), 105. 13. Alvin A. Snyder, Warriors of Disinformation: American Propaganda, Soviet Lies, and the Winning of the Cold War: An Insider’s Account (New York: Arcade, 1995), 5. 14. According to the Internet Movie Database, this was the only Stooges film made in color. 15. Richard T. Arndt, The First Resort of Kings: American Cultural Diplomacy in the Twentieth Century (Dulles, VA: Potomac Books, 2005), 526. 16. Parade, March 31, 1985. 17. Earl E.T. Smith, The Fourth Floor: An Account of the Castro Communist Revolution (New York: Random House, 1962), 52. 18. C. David Heymann, American Legacy: The Story of John and Caroline Kennedy (London: Simon and Schuster, 2008), 77–78. 19. One of Pritchett’s friends was journalist

Notes—Chapter Five Dorothy Kilgallen, who interviewed Jack Ruby in 1965. Kilgallen gave her notes of the interview to Pritchett. Five days after saying that she would reveal pertinent information related to the Kennedy assassination, Kilgallen died of an alcohol induced drug overdose. Pritchett died of a brain hemorrhage two days after that. The notes of the Ruby interview were lost. 20. Heymann, American Legacy, 78. 21. Wayne S. Smith, The Closest of Enemies: A Personal and Diplomatic Account of U.S.-Cuban Relations Since 1957 (New York: W.W. Norton, 1987), 14. 22. Wayne S. Smith, “Dateline Havana: Myopic diplomacy,” Foreign Policy 48 (Autumn 1982): 157–174, 161. 23. House Committee on Energy and Commerce, Subcommittee on Telecommunications, Consumer Protection, and Finance, Radio Broadcasting to Cuba, 97th Cong., 2nd sess. (Washington, DC: U.S. GPO, May 10, 1982), 1. 24. Advertisement for Committee for the Free World, New York Times, April 6, 1981, ProQuest (accessed March 5, 2010). 25. Frechette would eventually act as executive director after Landau was named as ambassador to Venezuela. 26. Julius Mader and Mohamed Abdelnabi, Who’s Who in CIA: A Biographical Reference Work on 3,000 Officers of the Civil and Military Branches of Secret Services of the USA in 120 Countries (Berlin: Julius Mader, 1968), 317. According to namebase.org, Who’s Who in CIA may have been written with help from the KGB or Stasi. The site also notes that the book “has a habit of disappearing from U.S. libraries.” 27. Presidential Commission on Broadcasting to Cuba, The Presidential Commission on Broadcasting to Cuba: Final Report: Submitted to the President of the United States and to the Secretary of State on September 30, 1982, Pursuant to Executive Order No. 12323 of September 22, 1981 (Washington, DC: The Commission, 1982), 38. Newman is not listed as a deputy executive director in this source. 28. There was a WHO-FM also in Des Moines but they changed their letters to KLYF. There is also a Des Moines television stations that uses the letters WHO. 29. Kenneth Salomon, interview by Daniel C. Walsh, October 5, 2006. 30. Dow Lohnes and Albertson v. Presidential Commission on Broadcasting to Cuba, 624 F. Supp. 527, U.S. Dist., 1984, Lexis-Nexis (accessed December 13, 2010). 31. Ibid. 32. The bill was H.R. 5427. The Republican cosponsors were Paul Findley and Robert Michel from Illinois and William Broomfield of Michigan. The Democrats were John Bingham of New

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York, Indiana’s Lee Hamilton, and Jim Wright from Texas. 33. House Committee on International Relations, Toward Improved U.S.-Cuban Relations, 95th Cong., 1st sess. (Washington, DC: U.S. GPO, May 23, 1977). 34. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Mark-Up—H.R. 5427, Radio Martí, 97th Cong., 2nd sess. (Washington, DC: Alderson Reporting, September 9, 1982), 58. 35. National Association of Broadcasters, Cuban Interference to United States Broadcast Stations (Washington, DC: NAB, 1982), reprinted in Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Radio Broadcasting to Cuba, 97th Cong., 2nd sess. (Washington, DC: U.S. GPO, July 1, 27, and August 19, 1982), 274 –361 and 277. 36. Brian Crozier, Political Victory: The Elusive Prize of Military Wars (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 2005); J.L. Granatstein and Robert Bothwell, Pirouette: Pierre Trudeau and Canadian Foreign Policy (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005). 37. House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Radio Broadcasting to Cuba (Radio Martí), 97th Cong., 2nd sess. (Washington, DC: U.S. GPO, March 3, 4, and 24, 1982), 17. 38. Ibid., 32. 39. The Associations of Broadcasters from Alabama, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Georgia, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, New Jersey, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Florida, Tennessee, Utah, West Virginia, and Wyoming supported the resolution. The Alaska, California, and Illinois Associations of Broadcasters supported “immediate government action” (Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Radio Broadcasting to Cuba, 97th Cong., 2nd sess. (Washington, DC: U.S. GPO, July 1, 27, and August 19, 1982), 368). 40. Jacob Bernstein, “Twice Exiled; Bernardo Benes helped free hundreds of Cuban political prisoners twenty years ago— Hardliners in Miami hate him for it,” Miami New Times, November 12, 1998, Lexis-Nexis (accessed May 16, 2009). 41. John Lantigua, “He Made Dade; battling cancer, veteran pol Dante Fascell talks of war, Cuba and a lifetime of putting Miami on the map,” Miami New Times, August 20, 1998, LexisNexis (accessed May 16, 2009). 42. Lars Schoultz, That Infernal Little Cuban Republic: The United States and the Cuban Revolution (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2009), 402. 43. Vincent T. Wasilewski, letter to Charles H. Percy, August 19, 1982, reprinted in Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Radio Broadcasting to Cuba, 544 –545.

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44. Robert D. Ray, letter to President Ronald Reagan, March 31, 1982, reprinted in Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Radio Broadcasting to Cuba, 204. 45. Patrick Breheny, letter to General Louis O. Giuffrida, April 16, 1982, reprinted in Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Radio Broadcasting to Cuba, 209. 46. Ibid., 204 –209. 47. House Committee on Energy and Commerce, Subcommittee on Telecommunications, Consumer Protection, and Finance, Radio Broadcasting to Cuba, 97th Cong., 2nd sess. (Washington, DC: U.S. GPO, May 10, 1982), 210; Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Radio Broadcasting to Cuba, 397 and 494; House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Radio Broadcasting to Cuba (Radio Martí), 183. 48. John Spicer Nichols, “Wasting the propaganda dollar,” Foreign Policy 56 (1984): 129 – 140, 135 –136. 49. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Radio Broadcasting to Cuba, 97th Cong., 2nd sess. (Washington, DC: U.S. GPO, July 1, 27, and August 19, 1982), 494. 50. Hazel G. Warlaumont, “Strategies in international radio wars,” Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media 32, no. 1 (1988): 43 –59, 54. 51. House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Radio Broadcasting to Cuba (Radio Martí), 97th Cong., 2nd sess. (Washington, DC: U.S. GPO, March 3, 4, and 24, 1982), 183. 52. Howard H. Frederick, Cuban-American Radio Wars: Ideology in International Telecommunications (Norwood, NJ: Ablex, 1986), 18. 53. Donald Wilson, Memorandum to Ralph A. Dungan, October 14, 1963, reprinted in Psywar on Cuba: The Declassified History of U.S. Anti-Castro Propaganda, ed. Jon Elliston (Melbourne, Victoria: Ocean Press, 1999), 156–157. 54. Elliston, ed., Psywar on Cuba, 153. 55. National Association of Broadcasters, Cuban Interference to United States AM Broadcasters, March 1, 1982, reprinted in Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Radio Broadcasting to Cuba, 97th Cong., 2nd sess. (Washington, DC: U.S. GPO, July 1, 27, and August 19, 1982), 322. 56. Letter from William F. Rust to Sol Taishoff, reprinted in reprinted in Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Radio Broadcasting to Cuba, 97th Cong., 2nd sess. (Washington, DC: U.S. GPO, July 1, 27, and August 19, 1982), 259 – 260. 57. Broadcasting April 5, 1982, reprinted in Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Radio Broadcasting to Cuba, 220 –222, 221. 58. House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Radio Broadcasting to Cuba (Radio Martí), 197. 59. House Committee on Energy and Commerce, Subcommittee on Telecommunications,

Consumer Protection, and Finance, Radio Broadcasting to Cuba, 11. 60. House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Radio Broadcasting to Cuba (Radio Martí), 12. 61. Nicholas John Cull, “Voice of America,” in Propaganda and Mass Persuasion: A historical Encyclopedia, 1500 to the Present, ed. Nicholas John Cull, David Holbrook Culbert and David Welch (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2003): 424 62. House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Radio Broadcasting to Cuba (Radio Martí, 183. 63. Cuban American National Foundation, U.S. Radio Broadcasting to Cuba: Policy Implications (Washington: Cuban American National Foundation, 1984), 16. 64. Board of International Broadcasting, Seventh Annual Report (Washington, DC, BIB: 1981), cited in Cuban American National Foundation, U.S. Radio Broadcasting to Cuba, 15. 65. The Radio Broadcasting to Cuba Act, H.R. 5427, 97th Cong., 1st sess., Congressional Record 128 (August 10, 1982): H20264. 66. The vote was somewhat divided among party lines: YES:109 Republican, 141 Democrat; NO: 32 Republican, 102 Democrat. 67. Donnie Radcliffe, “Nancy Reagan on the road in Iowa; protests and pie for the ‘feature act,’” Washington Post, August 6, 1982, LexisNexis (accessed May 16, 2009). 68. Miller, Judith. “Senators put off Radio Martí Vote,” New York Times, August 21, 1982, Lexis-Nexis (accessed October 27, 2006). 69. George Gedda, “US Raps Cuba Radio Jamming,” Associated Press, September 1, 1982, Lexis-Nexis (accessed January 1, 2010). 70. David Shribman, “Radio finds a place in Reagan’s foreign policy,” New York Times, September 12, 1982, Lexis-Nexis (accessed January 1, 2010). 71. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Radio Broadcasting to Cuba Act: Report Together with Minority Views (to accompany H.R. 5427), S. Rpt. 97–544 (Washington, DC: U.S. GPO, September 15, 1982). 72. An original resolution waiving section 402(a) of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 with respect to the consideration of H.R. 595, S. Res. 250, 96th Cong., 1st sess., Congressional Record 125 (October 3, 1979): S27193. 73. The Radio Broadcasting to Cuba Act, H.R. 5427, 97th Cong., 2nd sess., Congressional Record 125 (December 6, 1982): S28801. 74. Ibid., S28803. 75. Roll Call Vote 424, H. Amdt. 974 to to H.R. 7355, 98th Cong., 2nd sess., Congressional Record 128 (December 8, 1982): H29469. 76. Hawkins’ bill was S.602. On March 3, 1983, Illinois Senator Charles H. Percy introduced S.659, another version of the Radio Broadcasting to Cuba Act. This was eventually consolidated under S.602.

Notes—Chapter Six 77. Charles Grassley, Views of Senator Grassley on the Budget Waiver for Radio Broadcasting to Cuba Act (Washington: GPO, 1982). 78. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Radio Broadcasting to Cuba Act: Report Together with Minority Views (to accompany S. 602), S. Rpt. 98 –156 (Washington, DC: U.S. GPO, June 21, 1983). 79. Ernest Holsendolph, “U.S. lists ‘options’ on Cuban jamming,” New York Times, May 7, 1983, Lexis-Nexis (accessed January 4, 2007). 80. The shoot-down occurred at 1600 Greenwich Mean Time on August 31, 1983. This means that it was 0400 (GMT +12) on September 1 in the Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk time zone where KAL 007 crashed and 1200 on August 31 in the Eastern Time Zone, home of Washington, DC, and most of the U.S. news media. As a result, some sources list the shoot-down as occurring on August 31 and others list the date as September 1. 81. Ronald Reagan, “Radio address to the nation on American international broadcasting,” September 10, 1983, American Presidency Project, www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ (accessed May 16, 2009). 82. Lawton Chiles of Florida, Lowell Weicker of Connecticut, and Tennessee’s Howard Baker were also cosponsors. 83. The Radio Broadcasting to Cuba Act, S. 602, 98th Cong., 1st sess., Congressional Record 129 (September 29, 1983): H26452. 84. The Radio Broadcasting to Cuba Act, S. 602, 98th Cong., 1st sess., Congressional Record 129 (September 29, 1983): H26454. 85. Roll Call Vote 365, 6. 602, 98th Cong., 1st sess., Congressional Record 129 (September 29, 1983): H26456. 86. Ronald Reagan, “Statement on the Radio Broadcasting to Cuba Act,” Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, October 11, 1983, www.reagan. utexas.edu (accessed October 21, 2006).

Chapter Six 1. Grenville Kleiser, Dictionary of Proverbs (New Delhi: S.B. Nangla), 103. 2. Ronald Reagan, “Radio address to the Cuban people on the 25th anniversary of their Revolution,” Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, January 5, 1984, www.reagan.utexas.edu (accessed March 26, 2009). 3. Ibid. 4. Kenneth N. Skoug, The United States and Cuba Under Reagan and Schultz: A Foreign Service Officer Reports (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1996), 56. 5. Peter Ueberroth, Richard Levin and Amy Quinn, Made in America: His Own Story (New York: Ballantine, 1987), 261. 6. Bill Lohman, United Press International,

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June 9, 1984, Lexis-Nexis (accessed August 22, 2007). 7. Ueberroth, Levin and Quinn, Made in America, 261–262. 8. Ibid., 262. 9. In 1976, more than 20 African countries boycotted the Summer Olympics in Montreal to protest the participation of New Zealand, which had a rugby team touring South Africa at the time (even though rugby was not an Olympic sport). South Africa had not competed in the Olympics since 1960 because of its apartheid government. 10. There were 14 countries included in the Soviet-led boycott of the 1984 Summer Olympic Games: Afghanistan, Angola, Bulgaria, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Ethiopia, Hungary, Laos, Mongolia, North Korea, Poland, the Soviet Union, and Vietnam. Libya and South Yemen boycotted for other reasons. In 1983 Iran announced that it would boycott for the United States’ actions in El Salvador. Valerio Montes, El Salvador’s Olympic Committee president, said that it might have to “sadly join the Soviet boycott” if it could not come up with $28,000 for the team’s entry fee. It appealed to the United States, which had just given El Salvador $62 million in military aid. The United States government, which does not fund its own Olympic team, refused. It is also worth noting that Cuba chose to attend the 1987 Pan American Games in Indianapolis but boycotted the 1988 Summer Olympic Games in Seoul, South Korea, along with North Korea and Ethiopia. 11. Skoug, The United States and Cuba Under Reagan and Schultz, 59–64. In spite of the positive outcome, Reagan officials and Miami’s anti–Castro radio stations denounced Jackson’s efforts for generating too much positive publicity for the Cuban leader. Critics claimed the trip was illegal under the Logan Act of 1799, which prohibits private citizens from negotiating with foreign governments. Other excursions are said to have been in violation of the Logan Amendment, including Speaker of the House Jim Wright, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, and Ross Perot. There is no record of anyone ever being prosecuted. 12. Joanne Omang, “U.S., Cuba end 4-year quarrel over refugees,” Washington Post, December 15, 1984, Lexis-Nexis (accessed August 22, 2007). 13. George Gedda, “Station still silent; backers irked,” Associated Press, January 25, 1985, Lexis-Nexis (accessed September 24, 2006); Mark Schwed, “U.S.-Cuba war of words,” United Press International, January 25, 1985, LexisNexis (accessed September 24, 2006). 14. Jacqueline Trescott, “Hawkins and the missing Martí,” Washington Post, February 1, 1985, Lexis-Nexis (accessed September 24, 2006). 15. Tom Miller, “Radio Martí: Another mis-

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sion to Cuba minus air support,” Wall Street Journal, January 31, 1985, 28. 16. Ibid. 17. Kathy Glasgow, “Breach of faith,” Miami New Times, November 16, 1995, http://www.miaminewtimes.com/issues/1995 –11–16/news/feature_4.html (accessed September 24, 2006). 18. United Press International and New York Times, “United States names Radio Martí director,” December 9, 1984, Lexis-Nexis (accessed September 24, 2006); Alfonso Chardy, “Experienced broadcaster will direct Radio Martí,” Miami Herald, December 7, 1984, Lexis-Nexis (accessed May 22, 2010). 19. Trescott, “Hawkins and the missing Martí.” 20. Broadcasting, “The long road for Radio Martí,” February 15, 1985, 62–66. 21. Alvin A. Snyder, Warriors of Disinformation: American Propaganda, Soviet Lies, and the Winning of the Cold War: An Insider’s Account (New York: Arcade, 1995), 225. 22. The Radio Broadcasting to Cuba Act, H.R. 5427, 97th Cong., 2nd sess., Congressional Record 128 (August 10, 1982): H20230. 23. Miller, “Radio Martí,” 28. 24. Ronald Reagan and Douglas Brinkley, The Reagan Diaries (New York: HarperCollins, 2007), 287. 25. Ibid., 294. 26. Skoug, The United States and Cuba Under Reagan and Schultz, 192. 27. Bill McCloskey, “Florida broadcaster eligible for compensation,” Associated Press, March 26, 1985, Lexis-Nexis (accessed March 30, 2010). 28. Robert M. Levine, Secret Missions to Cuba: Fidel Castro, Bernardo Benes, and Cuban Miami (New York: Palgrave, 2001), 164 –165. 29. Ibid., 165. 30. Ibid. 31. Ibid. 32. R.A. Zaldivar, “Radio Martí will start beaming to Cuba Monday, senators say,” Miami Herald, May 19, 1985, NewsBank (accessed May 22, 2010). 33. According to Levine in Secret Missions to Cuba, the betrayed Benes had a chance encounter with Jeb Bush, the vice president’s son, a few years later. Bush had been sitting in the same aisle at the Orange Bowl during a Miami Dolphins game. When Benes passed in front of Bush to leave the aisle, something he had done several times previously, Jeb stood up and remarked, “How are you, Mr. Ambassador?”— an obvious reference to the secret meetings with Castro. 34. Skoug, The United States and Cuba Under Reagan and Schultz, 102. 35. Robert McFarlane, e-mail to John Poindexter, May 14, 1985, reprinted in Psywar on Cuba: The Declassified History of U.S. Anti-Castro Prop-

aganda, ed. Jon Elliston (Melbourne, Victoria: Ocean, 1999), 226. 36. Reagan’s diary entry for May 17, 1985, says that he approved Radio Martí’s start date for May 20 (Ronald Reagan and Douglas Brinkley, The Reagan Diaries (New York: HarperCollins, 2007), 328). Kenneth N. Skoug writes about a May 18, 1985, meeting in which Shultz argued for postponing Radio Martí’s start date but was “cut off ” (Skoug, The United States and Cuba Under Reagan and Schultz, 103). 37. Miller Center of Public Affairs, University of Virginia, Ronald Reagan Oral History Project, transcript of interview with Charles Z. Wick, April 23–24, 2003, http://web1.millercenter.org/ poh/transcripts/ohp_2003_0424_wick.pdf (accessed March 9, 2010). 38. Skoug, The United States and Cuba Under Reagan and Schultz, 103. 39. “Radio Martí Program (U.S.),” Cuba Annual report, 1985 (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 1988), vii. It was three years, seven months, and 28 days (1,336 days) after Reagan issued Executive Order 12323 announcing his intention to create Radio Martí. It took only 60 days to get Radio Swan on the air. 40. John E. Newhagen, “Castro turns up volume on cold war,” United Press International, May 21, 1985, Lexis-Nexis (accessed February 11, 2010). 41. Joseph B. Treaster, “Radio Martí goes on air and Cuba retaliates by ending pact,” New York Times, May 21, 1985, Lexis-Nexis (accessed May 15, 2010). 42. Newhagen, “Castro turns up volume on cold war,” May 21, 1985. 43. Snyder, Warriors of Disinformation, 226. 44. Edward Cody, “Martí wafts time warp to listeners in Havana,” Washington Post, June 3, 1985, Lexis-Nexis (accessed October 13, 2010). 45. Joseph B. Treaster, “Cubans tuning out Radio Martí’s 1950’s sound,” New York Times, June 4, 1985, Lexis-Nexis (accessed September 24, 2006); Cody, “Martí wafts time warp to listeners in Havana.” 46. Dale Russakoff, “Radio Martí to start without fanfare; broadcasts aimed at Cubans, promoting ‘cause of freedom,’” Washington Post, May 20, 1985, Lexis-Nexis (accessed September 24, 2006); “Facts About Radio Martí,” Miami Herald, May 21, 1985, NewsBank (accessed May 22, 2010). 47. Skoug, The United States and Cuba Under Reagan and Schultz, 105. 48. Ibid., 106. 49. Arthur M. Schlesinger, A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1965), 193. The Alliance for Progress failed to achieve most of its goals. It continued after Kennedy’s death but never received a great deal of attention.

Notes—Chapter Six 50. David Talbot, Brothers: The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years (New York: Free Press, 2007), 104. 51. Howard Kurtz, “Reagan ‘interview’ on Cuba had script; advance questions submitted by Radio Martí, changed by NSC,” Washington Post, March 18, 1987, Lexis-Nexis (accessed April 2, 2010). 52. Maria de los Angeles Torres, “The politics of Cuban emigres in the United States,” in Handbook of Hispanic Cultures in the United States: Sociology, ed. Felix M. Padilla, Nicolás Kanellos and Claudio Esteva Fabregat, 133 –150 (Houston: Arte Público, 1994), 144. 53. Jay Mallin, Covering Castro: Rise and Decline of Cuba’s Communist Dictator (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 1994). 54. Jay Mallin, Adventures in Journalism: A Memoir (Washington, DC: Kelbrenjac, 1998), 227. 55. Jorge Pérez, Approaches to the Management of HIV/AIDS in Cuba: Case Study (Geneva: World Health Organization, 2004), 2. 56. Marvin Leiner, Sexual Politics in Cuba: Machismo, Homosexuality, and AIDS, Series in political economy and economic development in Latin America (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1994), 117. 57. Larry Thompson, “AIDS spreads in Latin America: Health officials search for ways to stem the tide,” Washington Post, September 15, 1987, Lexis-Nexis (accessed October 13, 2010). 58. R. Cordoves, “Contra el flagelo mortal (Epidemiologia Cubana) Bohemia, 1989,” 24, 20 –25, cited in Elesio Pérez-Stable, “Commentary: Cuba’s response to the HIV epidemic,” American Journal of Public Health 81, no. 5 (1991): 563 –567, 563. 59. Juan J. Walte, “AIDS out of the shadows in Cuba: Government takes aim at promiscuity,” USA Today, August 15, 1991, Lexis-Nexis (accessed August 23, 2007); Pérez-Stable, “Commentary,” 563 –567, 565. 60. Central Intelligence Agency, CIA World Factbook, www.cia.gov/library/publications/theworld-factbook (accessed December 9, 2010). The term “states” is misleading. Bermuda, Greenland, Puerto Rico and others are included as countries even though they are governed by another state. 61. Ibid. 62. Ibid. 63. Sarah Z. Hoffman, “HIV/AIDS in Cuba: A model for care or an ethical dilemma?,” African Health Sciences 4, no. 3 (December 2004): 208 –209, 208. 64. Pérez, Approaches to the Management of HIV/AIDS in Cuba, 2. 65. In English, sanitarium and sanatorium are often used interchangeably although the former is the more common. The similarity between sanatorio, the common term used in

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Cuba, and sanatorium led the author to use the latter of the two English terms. Some documents might refer to such a facility as a sanitarium. 66. Pérez, Approaches to the Management of HIV/AIDS in Cuba, 2. 67. Rafael del Pino, General del Pino Speaks: An Insight into Elite Corruption and Military Dissension in Castro’s Cuba (Washington, DC: Cuban American National Foundation, 1987), 34. 68. Shawn C. Smallman, The AIDS Pandemic in Latin America (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2007), 41. In the 1990s, after years of criticism from the international community, the Cuban government ended the mandatory quarantine. AIDS patients are required to stay at the sanatoriums long enough to be educated on how to live with the disease. According to Cuban officials, staying at the facility after that period is optional. Cuba sources say that most patients with AIDS choose to stay at the sanatoriums. The practice of confining AIDS patients to the sanatoriums led to a bizarre trend in which young roqueros (rockers) would intentionally inject themselves with HIV tainted blood as a form of political protest. 69. Mark Falcoff, Cuba the Morning After: Confronting Castro’s Legacy (Washington, DC: American Enterprise for Public Policy Research, 2003), 116. 70. Skoug, The United States and Cuba Under Reagan and Schultz, 199. 71. House Committee on International Relations, Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, The Cienfuegos Nuclear Plant in Cuba, 104th Cong., 2nd sess. (Washington, DC: U.S. GPO, August 1, 1995). 72. In 1995, Cuba tried to resume construction but failed to garner enough financial support from foreign investors. 73. Mallin, Adventures in Journalism, 223. 74. Ibid., 227. 75. Ibid., 228. 76. Pino, General del Pino Speaks, i. 77. Ibid., 38. 78. Ibid., 16. 79. Churchill Roberts, “Evaluating Radio Martí,” International Communication Bulletin (Spring 1992): 7–10, 9. 80. Patrick May, “Lightning short-circuits mass— Pope praises S. Florida’s compassion, takes leave,” Miami Herald, September 12, 1987, NewsBank (accessed May 22, 2010). 81. Joseph B. Treaster, “For Cuba’s Radio Martí fans, it’s soap opera not soapbox,” New York Times, August 27, 1985, Lexis-Nexis (accessed January 2, 2010). Treaster points out that the Esmeralda program was about 10 years old when Radio Martí aired it. 82. David Oliver Relin, “How the U.S. fights to win the world’s hearts and minds,” Scholastic

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Update, October 2, 1987, Lexis-Nexis (accessed August 23, 2007). 83. Andrea O’Reilly Herrera, ReMembering Cuba: Legacy of a Diaspora (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2001), 91. 84. Susan Eckstein, Back from the Future: Cuba Under Castro, 2nd ed. (New York: Routledge, 2003), 24 –25. 85. Snyder, Warriors of Disinformation, 228. 86. Ibid. 87. Ibid. 88. “Cruel and unusual banishment,” New York Times, March 12, 1986, Lexis-Nexis (accessed January 2, 2010). 89. “Second thoughts on Radio Martí,” New York Times, March 22, 1986, Lexis-Nexis (accessed January 2, 2010). 90. John Spicer Nichols, “Right the first time on turning off Radio Martí,” New York Times, April 17, 1986, Lexis-Nexis (accessed June 22, 2010). 91. Advisory Board for Radio Broadcasting to Cuba, Report by the Advisory Board for Radio Broadcasting to Cuba (Washington, DC: The Board, 1987), 11. 92. Advisory Board for Radio Broadcasting to Cuba, Report by the Advisory Board for Radio Broadcasting to Cuba (Washington, DC: The Board, 1986), 10. 93. Churchill Roberts, “Evaluating Radio Martí,” International Communication Bulletin (Spring 1992): 7–10, 7. 94. C. Peter Ripley and Bob Shacochis, Conversations with Cuba (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1999), 122. 95. Louis A. Pérez, To Die in Cuba: Suicide and Society (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2005), 363. 96. Terry E. Johnson, David Newell, and Ben Barber, “Adrift: Cuba’s raft people,” Newsweek, July 21, 1986, Lexis-Nexis (accessed January 2, 2010). 97. Ibid. 98. Jay Mallin Sr., interview by Daniel C. Walsh, September 21, 2007. 99. Kurtz, “Reagan ‘interview’ on Cuba.” 100. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Foreign Relations Authorization Act, 100th Cong., 1st sess. (Washington, DC: U.S. GPO, March 17, 19, 24, and April 30, 1987), 42–43. An English transcript of the “interview” can be found in the Congressional Record for June 20, 1986, pp. 14854 –14856. 101. The Departments of Commerce, Justice, and State, the Judiciary, and Related Agencies Appropriation Act, 1986, H.R. 2965, 99th Cong., 1st sess., Congressional Record 131 (July 17, 1985): H19448. 102. Ibid., H19453. 103. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Foreign Relations Authorization Act, 100th Cong.,

1st sess. (Washington, DC: GPO, March 17, 19, 24, and April 30, 1987), 263. 104. Ibid., 261 and 263. 105. Kevin Hillstrom and Laurie Collier Hillstrom, Latin America and the Caribbean: A Continental Overview of Environmental Issues (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2004), 8. 106. The destruction caused by the storm was so great that the name Joan was retired and can no longer be used for any hurricane. 107. “Nicaragua: The check isn’t in the mail,” Time, November 7, 1988, Time.com (accessed May 13, 2010). 108. “Central America Peace Accord,” in Holly Sklar’s Washington’s War on Nicaragua, 401–404 (Cambridge, MA: South End, 1988), 401–404. Oscar Arias won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1987 for his efforts in passing this agreement. 109. Jane Franklin, Cuba and the United States: A Chronological History (Melbourne: Ocean, 1997), 235. 110. Skoug, The United States and Cuba Under Reagan and Schultz, 208. 111. News Advisory, PR Newswire, August 12, 1988, Lexis-Nexis (accessed March 27, 2010); Maria de los Angeles Torres, In the Land of Mirrors: Cuban Exile Politics in the United States (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1999), 130. 112. Voice of America-Radio Martí Program, Office of Research and Policy, United States Information Agency, Cuba Annual Report: 1989, 1992, p. 64.

Chapter Seven 1. Kathryn Johnson, “Capitol Hill awash in sea of gifts,” U.S. News and World Report, July 16, 1984, Lexis-Nexis (accessed March 15, 2010); Paula Schwed, “Senate houses at least 30 millionaires,” United Press International, May 18, 1984, Lexis-Nexis (accessed September 23, 2010). 2. The CANF also tried to defeat Weicker in his 1982 reelection campaign. In the Republician primary it supported Prescott Bush Jr., the vice president’s older brother. Bush dropped out in July, giving the nomination to Weicker. In the general election, the CANF supported Conservative Party candidate Lucien DiFazio. The Democratic candidate was Anthony Moffett. Weicker won with a little more than 50 percent of the vote. The exact numbers were Weicker 545,987; Moffett 499,146; DiFazio 30,212; and Libertarian candidate James A. Lewis 8,163. 3. Joseph I. Lieberman and Michael D’Orso, In Praise of Public Life (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2000), 83. 4. Lieberman (Democrat) had 688,499 votes (49.76 percent); Weicker (Republican) 678,454 (49.04 percent); Howard Avory Grayson,

Notes—Chapter Seven Jr. (Libertarian) 12,409 (0.90 percent); Milissa M. Fisher (New Alliance) 4,154 (0.30 percent); Write-ins 10 (less than 0.01 percent). 5. The word “approximately” is used because there may be different interpretations of a hardline legislative item. The author refers to bills, resolutions, and amendments submitted or voted on in the entire Senate. This does not consider any votes made during committees. It also refers to items that dealt only with Cuba. It excludes any bills that included elements not related to Cuba. For more information see the author’s dissertation, “A Dual Method Analysis of Exchange Theory as Applied to Radio Martí.” 6. Anthony Boadle, “Lieberman a close ally of Miami’s Cuban exiles,” Reuters, August 11, 2000, http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/ 45c/237.html (accessed October 13, 2010). 7. Marco Antonio Sibaja, “United States: Radical exile lobby controls U.S. policy on Cuba,” IPS (Inter Press Service), September 29, 1992, Lexis-Nexis (accessed June 23, 2010). 8. Center for Responsive Politics, “The Cuban connection: Cuban-American money in US elections 1979–2000,” Appendix: Top Recipients of Cuban-American Contributions, 1979 – 2000, opensecrets.org (accessed December 11, 2003). 9. Kevin Coogan and Katrina Vanden Heuvel, “An InterNation story: U.S. funds for Soviet dissidents,” The Nation, 1988, 247 (11): 361 and 378 –381, 361. 10. Ibid., 361, 378 –381, 380. 11. Ibid. 12. David Ignatius, “Innocence abroad: The new world of spyless coups,” Washington Post, September 22, 1991, Lexis-Nexis (accessed March 8, 2010). 13. John Spicer Nichols, “Cuba, the Congress, the power of the anti–Fidel lobby,” The Nation, 1988, 247 (11): 389 –392, 389. 14. Jorge Mas Canosa, deposition from Mas Canosa v. New Republic, Inc., and Ann Louise Bardach, 253, cited in Patrick Jude Haney and Walt Vanderbush, The Cuban Embargo: The Domestic Politics of an American Foreign Policy (Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2005), 43. 15. Nichols, “Cuba,” 389 –392, 392. 16. Dennis Wepman, “Biography of Jorge Mas Canosa,” American National Biography, http://0-www.anb.org (accessed February 5, 2010). 17. “The Lesson of Cuba,” Congressional Record 132 (May 20, 1986): H13674 –13675. 18. Celia W. Dugger, “Leader’s zeal powers exile lobby,” Miami Herald, April 10, 1988, NewsBank (accessed. May 30, 2009). 19. “U.S. Policy Toward Cuban Exiles,” 3, May 1961, Theodore Sorenson Papers, John F. Kennedy Library, Boston, Massachusetts, cited

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in Felix Roberto Masud-Piloto, From Welcomed Exiles to Illegal Immigrants: Cuban Migration to the U.S., 1959 –1995 (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 1996), 48; Hernando Calvo Ospina and Katlijn Declercq, The Cuban Exile Movement: Dissident or Mercenaries?, trans. Mary Todd (Melbourne, Victoria: Ocen, 2000), 8 –9. 20. Alejandro Portes and Alex Stepick, City on the Edge: The Transformation of Miami (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), 127. 21. Godfrey Mwakikagile, Africa and America in the Sixties: A Decade That Changed the Nation and the Destiny of a Continent (Pretoria: New Africa, 2006), 239; Thomas Bodenheimer and Robert Gould, Rollback!: Right-wing Power in U.S. Foreign Policy (Boston: South End, 1989), 33, 60; Gary Webb, Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion (New York: Seven Stories, 1998), 144. 22. Larry Rohter, “Jorge Mas Canosa, 58, dies; exile who led movement against Castro,” New York Times, November 24, 1997, Lexis-Nexis (accessed February 5, 2010). Some odd jobs Mas took were dishwasher, stevedore, milkman, and shoe salesman. 23. Ann Luoise Bardach, Cuba Confidential: Love and Vengeance in Miami and Havana (New York: Vintage, 2003), 138. 24. Interview by Saul Landau with Barandela, Eloy Gutierrez Menoyo, Antonio Veciana, and other former anti–Castro militants, 1994 –96, cited in “No Mas Canosa — the death of Cuban political figure Jorge Mas Canosa,” obituary, Gale Cengage (accessed February 3, 2010). 25. Bardach, Cuba Confidential, 138. 26. Miami Herald, August 20, 1975. 27. Tom Gjelten, Bacardi and the Long Fight for Cuba: The Biography of a Cause (New York: Viking, 2008), 277. 28. Jane Franklin, “The Cuba Obsession,” Progressive (July 1993): 18 –22. 29. Andres Oppenheimer, Castro’s Final Hour: The Secret Story Behind the Coming Downfall of Communist Cuba (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1992), 329. 30. Guillermo Martinez, “Cuban power: The ranking,” Miami Herald Tropic Magazine, January 16, 1983, NewsBank (accessed March 10, 2010). 31. Lee Hockstader and William Booth, “Cuban exiles split on life after Castro; Miami groups in bitter conflict over who might be in charge,” Washington Post, March 10, 1992, LexisNexis (accessed February 11, 2010). 32. Gaeton Fonzi, “Who is Jorge Mas Canosa?,” Esquire (January 1993), 86–89, 119–122, 119. 33. Bardach, Cuba Confidential, 190 –191. 34. Maria de los Angeles Torres, In the Land of Mirrors: Cuban Exile Politics in the United States (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1999), 115.

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35. Helga Silva, “Cubans raise funds for Reagan but miff GOP,” Miami Herald, January 31, 1984, NewsBank (accessed May 22, 2010). 36. R.A. Zaldivar, “Key member quits top Cuban lobby,” Miami Herald, October 3, 1987, NewsBank (accessed May 22, 2010). 37. María Cristina García, Havana USA: Cuban Exiles and Cuban Americans in South Florida, 1959 –1994 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), 149 –150. 38. Hockstader and Booth, “Cuban exiles split on life after Castro; Miami groups in bitter conflict over who might be in charge.” 39. George Volsky, “Conservative Cuban lobbying group opens bitter attack on Miami paper,” New York Times, October 25, 1987, LexisNexis (accessed February 3, 2010). 40. Ibid. 41. Torres, In the Land of Mirrors, 118 –119. 42. Americas Watch Committee (U.S.) and Fund for Free Expression (U.S.), “Dangerous Dialogue: Attacks on freedom of expression in Miami’s Cuban exile community,” (New York, 1992), 9. 43. Ibid., 10. 44. Ibid. 45. Lissette Corsa, “Art to burn,” Miami New Times, April 8, 1999, http://www.miaminewtimes.com/1999 –04 –08/news/art-to-burn/ (accessed March 22, 2010). 46. Reinaldo Ramos, “Exiles in Miami urge Cuban team to defect,” Miami Herald, July 30, 1987, NewsBank (accessed March 11, 2010). 47. Reinaldo Ramos and Richard Wallace, “Young Cuban team leaves Miami amid uproar by exiles,” Miami Herald, July 31, 1987, NewsBank (accessed March 11, 2010). 48. Fred Goodall, Associated Press, August 8, 1987, Lexis-Nexis (accessed September 21, 2007). 49. Ibid. 50. Bert Useem, Camille Graham Camp and George M. Camp, Resolution of Prison Riots: Strategies and Policies (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 31. 51. R.A. Zaldivar, Justin Gillis, and Richard Wallace, “Progress reported,” Miami Herald, November 27, 1987, NewsBank (accessed March 11, 2010). 52. Luis Feldstein Soto, “Exiles decide to embrace Mariel inmates; prisoners go from outcasts to martyrs,” Miami Herald, December 1, 1987, NewsBank (accessed March 11, 2010). 53. Ibid. 54. Celia W. Dugger, “Clique of controlling inmates ‘an ego trip’ says mediator,” Miami Herald, December 2, 1987, NewsBank (accessed May 22, 2010). 55. Soto, “Exiles decide to embrace Mariel inmates.” 56. Useem, Camp and Camp, Resolution of Prison Riots, 34.

57. Fred Grimm, “It Was a Miami story — In Atlanta,” Miami Herald, December 13, 1987, NewsBank (accessed March 11, 2010). 58. “Who’s Carla Dudeck?,” Miami Herald, December 3, 1987, NewsBank (accessed March 11, 2010). 59. Morris S. Thompson, “Group builds support for Cuban detainees; from small vigil in 1984, outside advocates have developed a national network,” Washington Post, December 3, 1987, Lexis-Nexis (accessed March 11, 2010). 60. “Who’s Carla Dudeck?” 61. Luis Feldstein Soto, “Bearing arms many prominent citizens own guns,” Miami Herald, February 12, 1987, ProQuest (accessed March 11, 2010). 62. Soto, “Bearing arms many prominent citizens own guns”; Fonzi, “Who is Jorge Mas Canosa?,” 86 –89, 119 –122, 89. 63. “Police blow up suspicious package sent to Radio Martí official,” Associated Press, March 31, 1987, Lexis-Nexis (accessed May 25, 2010). 64. Larry Rohter, “A rising Cuban-American leader: Statesman to some, bully to others,” New York Times, October 29, 1992, Lexis-Nexis (accessed March 6, 2010). 65. Jon Nordheimer, “Cuban-American leader builds a foundation of power beyond Miami,” New York Times, July 12, 1986, LexisNexis (accessed March 4, 2010). 66. Jose de Cordoba, “A Miami businessman is angling, some say, to succeed Castro,” Wall Street Journal, May 11, 1990, ProQuest (accessed February 3, 2010). 67. “Man ordered to pay younger brother $1.2 million for libel,” Associated Press, October 27, 1990, Lexis-Nexis (accessed February 11, 2010). 68. Elise Ackerman, “Monster Mash: Jorge Mas Canosa answered a journalistic hatchet job with a libel lawsuit. But now everyone is getting cut to the bone,” Miami New Times, June 20, 1996, Lexis-Nexis (accessed February 11, 2010). 69. Bardach, Cuba Confidential, 122. 70. This does not include Pepper’s 14 years as a U.S. Senator. He served in the Senate from November 4, 1936, to January 3, 1951. 71. Reinaldo Ramos, “Martinez touted as ‘star of future’— Hialeah’s popular mayor considered contender for Congress, state office,” Miami Herald, October 1, 1985, NewsBank (accessed May 22, 2010). 72. Guillermo Martinez, “Cuban power: The ranking,” Miami Herald Tropic Magazine, January 16, 1983, NewsBank (accessed March 10, 2010). One could argue that Raul Masvidal, who ranked number one among Cubans and non– Cubans, was a politician. Masvidal was listed as a banker in the 1983 poll. He ran for mayor of Miami in 1985 but was defeated. 73. David Lyons, “Politics fueled probe, Mar-

Notes—Chapter Eight tinez lawyers say,” Miami Herald, November 3, 1990, NewsBank (accessed March 11, 2010). 74. Alphonso Chardy, “Sources: Lehtinen rushed probe after Pepper fell ill,” Miami Herald, February 17, 1991, NewsBank (accessed May 22, 2010). 75. David Lyons, “Lehtinen: Probe wasn’t about politics,” Miami Herald, March 29, 1991, NewsBank (accessed March 11, 2010). 76. David Burnham, Above the Law: Secret Deals, Political Fixes, and Other Misadventures of the U.S. Department of Justice (New York: Scribner, 1996), 283. The Trading with the Enemy Act was passed to deter assistance to unfriendly countries by punishing those who engaged in commerce with those countries. In the years that followed, the law has been used to try to cripple Vietnam, Libya, and North Korea. The law was eventually amended to make it applicable only to countries with which the United States was at war. Cuba and other countries that were included under the law at the time were grandfathered and remained on the list even though the United States was not at war with them. In June 2008, President George W. Bush removed North Korea from the list of states affected by the Trading with the Enemy Act. At the time of this writing, Cuba is the only country to which this law applies. 77. David Burnham interview of Ramon Cernuda, April 17, 1992, cited in Burnham, Above the Law, 283. 78. Richard Cole, “Customs seizes Cuban art allegedly smuggled by U.S. IA worker,” Associated Press, May 10, 1989 Lexis-Nexis (accessed March 30, 2010). 79. Carla Anne Robbins, “Dateline Washington: Cuban-American clout,” Foreign Policy 88 (Autumn 1992): 162–182, 175. In Above the Law, author David Burnham claims that Mas used his political connections in Miami and Washington to push the Bush administration to nominate Lehtinen to the position permanently, which it did two times only to have the Senate avoid voting on it both times. Lehtinen resigned in 1992 after temporarily holding the position for three years (Burnham, Above the Law, 286). 80. Fonzi, “Who is Jorge Mas Canosa?,” 86 – 89, 119 –122, 119. 81. Angelo Figueroa, “Hialeah mayor to sit out race,” Miami Herald, June 22, 1989, NewsBank (accessed March 11, 2010). 82. Rita Beamish, “Bush Sets Conditions for Better Relations with Cuba,” Associated Press, August 16, 1989, Lexis-Nexis (accessed March 6, 2010). 83. United Press International, “Ros-Lehtinen wins Republican primary; Democrats in runoff,” August 2, 1989, Lexis-Nexis (accessed March 6, 2010). 84. ABC News Transcripts, August 28, 1989, Lexis-Nexis (accessed June 9, 2010).

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85. United Press International, “Ros-Lehtinen wins Republican primary; Democrats in runoff.” 86. Bob Minzesheimer, “In Miami, politics of ethnicity; House seat a ‘symbol of their power’; the 18th district,” USA Today, August 28, 1989, Lexis-Nexis (accessed March 6, 2010). 87. Jake Tapper, Down and Dirty: The Plot to Steal the Presidency (Boston: Little, Brown, 2001), 396. 88. Gladys Nieves, “Bush meets Miami legislator,” El Nuevo Herald, September 8, 1989, 1. Cited in Burnham, Above the Law, 286. 89. Fonzi, “Who is Jorge Mas Canosa?,” 86 – 89, 119 –122, 88. 90. Vioorel Urma, “Dictator’s rule left 60,000 dead, Romanians say,” Associated Press, December 26, 1989, Lexis-Nexis (accessed June 9, 2010). 91. Diana West, “The images of Jorge Mas Canosa; creating the base for a new Cuba?” Washington Times, April 11, 1990, Lexis-Nexis (accessed June 9, 2010). 92. 60 Minutes, “Jorge Mas Canosa, self–appointed leader of Cuban community in US,” October 18, 1992, Lexis-Nexis (accessed March 4, 2010). 93. Bruce Boyd, affidavit for the USIA Office of Inspector General, April 21, 1995, reprinted in Psywar on Cuba: The Declassified History of U.S. Anti-Castro Propaganda, ed. Jon Elliston (Melbourne, Victoria: Ocean, 1999), 271. 94. Jay Mallin Sr., in an interview by Daniel C. Walsh, September 21, 2007. 95. Jay Mallin, Adventures in Journalism: A Memoir (Washington, DC: Kelbrenjac, 1998), 234. 96. Ibid. (brackets in original) 97. Mallin, Adventures in Journalism, 234. 98. Paul Anderson, “Ousted Martí chief takes shot — says Mas seeks political clout,” Miami Herald, March 20, 1990, NewsBank (accessed May 22, 2010); Andres Viglucci and Sandra Dibble, “Director says he was forced out of Radio Martí,” Miami Herald, March 13, 1990, NewsBank (accessed May 22, 2010). 99. Patrick J. Kiger and John Kruger. Squeeze Play: The United States, Cuba, and the HelmsBurton Act (Washington, DC: Center for Public Integrity, 1997), 70.

Chapter Eight 1. R. Zaldivar, “18 Florida lawmakers urge Reagan: Slap Castro harder,” Miami Herald, December 6, 1985, NewsBank (accessed November 3, 2007). 2. “Chiles: Beam TV to Cuba,” Miami Herald, May 29, 1986, NewsBank (accessed November 3, 2007). 3. Alvin A. Snyder, Warriors of Disinformation: American Propaganda, Soviet Lies, and the

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Winning of the Cold War: An Insider’s Account (New York: Arcade, 1995), 229 –230. 4. “Game on video in Havana,” New York Times, September 30, 1954, ProQuest (accessed March 30, 2010). 5. J.P Shanley, “Cuban TV: Big business in rhumba tempo,” New York Times, November 20, 1955, ProQuest (accessed March 30, 2010). 6. National Security Council, Discussion at the 441st Meeting, April 14, 1960, reprinted in Psywar on Cuba: The Declassified History of U.S. Anti-Castro Propaganda, ed. Jon Elliston (Melbourne, Victoria: Ocean, 1999), 29 –31. 7. Donald Wilson, “Broadcasting to Cuba,” memo to Brig. Gen. Edward Lansdale, September 11, 1962, reprinted in Psywar on Cuba, 118. 8. Snyder, Warriors of Disinformation, 232. 9. Zaldivar, “18 Florida lawmakers urge Reagan: Slap Castro harder.” 10. Bill Summary and Status, H. Con. Res. 180, Library of Congress, 1987, http://thomas. loc.gov (accessed December 12, 2010). 11. R. Wallace, “Democrats propose ‘TV Martí,’” Miami Herald, August 8, 1987, NewsBank (accessed. November 3, 2007). 12. Center for Responsive Politics, “The Cuban connection: Cuban-American money in US elections 1979 –2000,” opensecrets.org (accessed November 9, 2007). 13. Bill Summary and Status, H.R. 2763, Library of Congress, 1987, http://thomas.loc.gov (accessed December 12, 2010). 14. Bill Summary and Status, H.J.Res. 395, Library of Congress, 1987, http://thomas.loc.gov (accessed December 12, 2010). 15. House Committee on Appropriations, Making Further Continuing Appropriations for the Fiscal Year Ending Sept. 30, 1988 (to accompany H.J.Res. 395), H.Rep. 100–498 (Washington, DC: U.S. GPO, 1987) 16. President’s Advisory Board for Radio Broadcasting to Cuba, Minutes of meeting, November 17, 1988, reprinted in Psywar on Cuba, 242–244. 17. Chris Adams, “Senate panel votes funds for TV Martí,” Washington Post, June 28, 1988, Lexis-Nexis (accessed November 9, 2007). 18. Deborah Mesce, “U.S. broadcasters claim ‘political deal’ on TV Martí,” Associated Press, June 16, 1988, Lexis-Nexis (accessed November 19, 2007). 19. Tom Bowman, States News Service, May 9, 1986, Lexis-Nexis (accessed June 9, 2010). 20. Philip J. Klass, “Tethered balloon begins flight tests,” Aviation Week and Space Technology, September 17, 1981, Lexis-Nexis (accessed March 27, 2010); “Another Air Force radar-carrying balloon lost,” Associated Press, May 22, 1982, LexisNexis (accessed March 27, 2010). 21. “Air Force shoots down AWOL balloon,” United Press International, August 12, 1981,

Lexis-Nexis (accessed October 14, 2010); “Balloon dragged fishing boat during escape,” Associated Press, August 12, 1981, Lexis-Nexis (accessed October 14, 2010). 22. “Runaway surveillance balloon shot down,” Associated Press, August 11, 1981, LexisNexis (accessed October 14, 2010). 23. President’s Advisory Board for Radio Broadcasting to Cuba, minutes of meeting, November 17, 1988, reprinted in Psywar on Cuba, 242–244. 24. Tom Bowman, statement of February 19, 1987, States News Service, Lexis-Nexis (accessed November 19, 2007). 25. Doug Halonen, “Q and A: Charles Wick; America’s general in the worldwide ‘war of ideas,’” Electronic Media, March 14, 1988, LexisNexis (accessed November 19, 2007). 26. Snyder, Warriors of Disinformation, 232, 238. 27. House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Subcommittee on International Operations and on Western Hemisphere Affairs, Foreign Policy Implications of TV Martí, 100th Cong., 2nd sess. (Washington, DC: U.S. GPO, September 22, 1988), 5–8; Peter LaBarbera, “Leftists get lecture on Cuba,” Washington Times, September 22, 1989, Lexis-Nexis (accessed November 19, 2007). 28. T. Holder, “Caribbean Broadcasters Express Concern Over Proposed Operation of TV Martí: Letter to NAB,” Washington, DC: National Association of Broadcasters, cited in Lurien Alexandre, “Television Martí: Open skies over the south,” in Beyond National Sovereignty: International Communication in the 1990s, ed. Kaarle Nordenstreng and Herbert L. Schiller, 343 –367 (Norwood, NJ: ABLEX, 1993), 361. 29. NAB News, 1988, Broadcasters of the U.S., Canada, Mexico Unite on Common Social, Economic and Technical Issues, Washington, DC: National Association of Broadcasters, cited in Lurien Alexandre, “Television Martí: Open skies over the south,” in Beyond National Sovereignty, 361. 30. Snyder, Warriors of Disinformation, 222. 31. Kenneth N. Skoug, The United States and Cuba Under Reagan and Schultz: A Foreign Service Officer Reports (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1996), 202. 32. Bill Summary and Status, H.R. 4782, Library of Congress, 1988, http://thomas.loc.gov (accessed December 9, 2010). 33. House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Subcommittee on International Operations and on Western Hemisphere Affairs, Foreign Policy Implications of TV, 1. 34. International Telecommunications Union, International Telecommunications Convention: First protocol, additional protocols, optional protocols, resolutions, recommendations and options,

Notes—Chapter Eight Vols. 99 –4, in Senate Treaty Documents (Washington, DC: GPO, 1982). 35. Ibid. 36. House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Subcommittee on International Operations and on Western Hemisphere Affairs, Foreign Policy Implications of TV Martí, 19. 37. John Spicer Nichols, “A word of caution about TV Martí,” Broadcasting, July 25, 1988, p. 24. 38. Ron Word, “Confessed video pirate given probation, $5,000 fine,” Associated Press, August 26, 1986, Lexis-Nexis (accessed June 9, 2010). 39. “Playboy Channel sentencer is sentenced,” Washington Post, December 8, 1990, Lexis-Nexis (accessed June 9, 2010). 40. “FCC Investigating; video pirate picks on WTTW and WGN-TV Chicago,” Communications Daily, November 25, 1987, Lexis-Nexis (accessed June 9, 2010); Robert J. Murphy, “Video pirate breaks into regular programming,” United Press International, November 24, 1987, Lexis-Nexis (accessed June 9, 2010). 41. Bill McCloskey, “FCC investigates jamming of satellite TV signals,” Associated Press, December 2, 1985, Lexis-Nexis (accessed May 17, 2010). 42. Most satellite signals are now protected by encryption that prohibits such interference. 43. House Committee on Appropriations, Departments of Commerce, Justice, and State, the Judiciary, and Related Agencies Appropriation Bill, 1989: Report (to accompany H.R. 4782) (Washington, DC: U.S. GPO, 1988). 44. Bill Summary and Status, H.R. 4782, Library of Congress, 1989, http://thomas.loc.gov/ (accessed December 9, 2010). 45. Bill Summary and Status, H.R. 1487, Library of Congress, 1989, http://thomas.loc.gov/ (accessed December 9, 2010). H.R. 1487 was an appropriations bill for the Department of State. 46. C. Reidy, “Bill keeps $32 million for TV Martí— hopes rise for airing democracy to Cubans,” Orlando Sentinel, March 24, 1989, NewsBank (accessed November 3, 2007). 47. Richard E. Welch, Response to Revolution: The United States and the Cuban Revolution, 1959 –1961 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1985), 113; Claiborne Pell, The United States and Cuba: Time for a New Beginning: Report of a Trip to Cuba, November 24 –28, 1988: A Report to the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate (Washington: GPO, 1988), 1. 48. Warren Hinckle and William W. Turner, The Fish Is Red: The Story of the Secret War Against Castro (New York: Harper and Row, 1981), 318. 49. Pell, The United States and Cuba, 1. 50. TV Martí Deserves Proper Congressional Consideration, H.R. 4782, 100th Cong., 2nd

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sess., Congressional Record 134 (June 24, 1988): S15916. 51. R. Zaldivar, “TV Martí funding fight gears up,” Miami Herald, May 11, 1989, NewsBank (accessed November 3, 2007). 52. Ibid. 53. Fonzi, “Who is Jorge Mas Canosa?,” 86 – 89, 119 –122, 119; Robert M. Levine, Secret Missions to Cuba: Fidel Castro, Bernardo Benes, and Cuban Miami (New York: Palgrave, 2001), 225. 54. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, The Fiscal Year 1990 Foreign Relations Authorization Act: Report Together with Additional Views (to accompany S. 1160) (Washington: U.S. GPO, 1989). 55. Jacquelyn Swearingen, statement of November 22, 1989, States News Service, LexisNexis (accessed November 19, 2007). 56. Bill Summary and Status, H.R. 3792, 1989, http://thomas.loc.gov (accessed December 9, 2010). 57. M. Whitefield, “Cuba warns it will retaliate if TV Martí goes on the air,” Miami Herald, December 15, 1989, NewsBank (accessed November 3, 2007). 58. House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Subcommittee on International Economic Policy and Trade and International Operations, H.R. 5406 — the Free Trade in Ideas Act of 1992, 102nd Cong., 2nd sess. (Washington, DC: U.S. GPO, September 16, 1992), 66. 59. TV Martí: A Bad Idea, 101st Cong., 2nd sess., Congressional Record 136 (March 12, 1990): H4240. 60. Chris McGreal, “TV Wars 1: Castro threatens to wash out US soap with flood of words,” Independent, February 11, 1990, LexisNexis (accessed May 17, 2010). 61. George H.W. Bush, “Statement on signing the Foreign Relations Authorization Act, Fiscal Years 1990 and 1991,” February 16, 1990, American Presidency Project, www.presidency. ucsb.edu (accessed March 30, 2010). 62. Television Broadcasting to Cuba Act, 1990, Public Law 101–246, 101st Cong., 2nd sess. (February 16, 1990). 63. TV Martí, 101st Cong., 2nd sess., H4241. 64. Ibid., H4240 –4241. 65. “TV Martí awaits full use of channel 13,” Miami Herald, December 6, 1990, NewsBank (accessed November 3, 2007). 66. United States General Accounting Office, TV Martí: Costs and Compliance with Broadcast Standards and International Agreements, May 1992, GAO/NSIAD 92–199 (Gaithersburg, MD: US GAO, 1992); R. Zaldivar, “New Cuba signal may be a problem for TV Martí,” Miami Herald, September 20, 1989, NewsBank (accessed November 3, 2007). 67. United States General Accounting Office, TV Martí, 11.

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68. Snyder, Warriors of Disinformation, 237. 69. United Nations, Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948; U.S. Department of State, “Report to Congress on TV Martí test broadcasts to Cuba 1990,” http://www.state.gov/documents/ organization/28512.pdf (accessed October 18, 2010). 70. U.S. Department of State, “Report to Congress on TV Martí test broadcasts to Cuba 1990,” http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/28512.pdf (accessed October 18, 2010). 71. V.V. Kozlov, letter to the State Department’s Bureau of International Communications and Information Policy, September 3, 1990, reprinted in Psywar on Cuba, 246 –249. 72. U.S. General Accounting Office, Broadcasts to Cuba TV Martí Surveys Are Flawed: Report to the Chairman, Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, Committee on Energy and Commerce, House of Representatives, GAO/ NSIAD 90 –252 (Washington, DC: U.S. GAO, August 1990). 73. Ibid., 4. 74. U.S. General Accounting Office, Broadcasts to Cuba TV Martí Surveys Are Flawed. 75. U.S. Department of State, “Report to Congress on TV Martí test broadcasts to Cuba 1990.” 76. Ibid. 77. Marlin Fitzwater, “Statement by Press Secretary Fitzwater on the continuation of United States television broadcasting to Cuba,” August 27, 1990, American Presidency Project, www.presidency.ucsb.edu (accessed December 12, 2010). 78. M. Whitefield, “Cost of jamming TV Martí minimal, Cuban official says,” Miami Herald, September 11, 1990, NewsBank (accessed November 3, 2007). 79. House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Subcommittee on International Operations and on Western Hemisphere Affairs, Foreign policy implications of TV Martí, 100th Cong., 2nd sess. (Washington, DC: U.S. GPO, September 22, 1988), 16. 80. H.L. Rosenberg, prod., 60 Minutes, “TV Martí,” CBS, October 13, 1996. 81. Joseph Lieberman, “TV Martí could open many Cuban eyes,” New York Times, June 24, 1989, Lexis-Nexis (accessed March 6, 2010). 82. Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions, 101st Cong., 1st sess., Congressional Record 135 (February 8, 1989): S1323. 83. Snyder, Warriors of Disinformation, 241. 84. Eric Weiner, “Loss of balloons hinders drug vigil,” New York Times, February 9, 1990, Lexis-Nexis (accessed March 6, 2010). 85. In 1993, a Cuban MiG pilot defected to the United States but was not detected by the aerostat until the last minute. 86. Laura Parker, “TV Martí off the air as blimp breaks loose,” Washington Post, January

18, 1991, Lexis-Nexis (accessed November 19, 2007). 87. “Question of news; TV Martí returning to air despite contract dispute,” Communications Daily, March 29, 1991, Lexis-Nexis (accessed June 9, 2010). 88. Michael M. Phillips, “House approves $14.2 million for TV Martí,” States News Service, June 13, 1991, Lexis-Nexis (accessed June 24, 2010). 89. Susan B. Epstein and Mark P. Sullivan, Radio and Television Broadcasting to Cuba Background and Current Issues (Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress, 1994). 90. Foreign Broadcast Information Service, Daily Report, Latin America, June 6, 1991, pp. 6 –7, NewsBank (accessed October 20, 2010). 91. Susan B. Epstein and Mark P. Sullivan, Radio and Television Broadcasting to Cuba Background and Current Issues (Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress, 1994). 92. Jay Mallin, Adventures in Journalism: A Memoir (Washington, DC: Kelbrenjac, 1998), 239. 93. “‘Defector’ says he spied on CIA, FBI and infiltrated TV Martí,” Associated Press, July 2, 1991, Lexis-Nexis (accessed June 9, 2010). 94. Snyder, Warriors of Disinformation, 241. 95. Bill Summary and Status, H. Amdt. 529 to H.R. 5021, 1990, http://thomas.loc.gov (accessed December 12, 2010). 96. United States General Accounting Office, TV Martí: Costs and Compliance with Broadcast Standards and International Agreements, May 1992, GAO/NSIAD 92–199 (Gaithersburg, MD: US GAO, 1992), 10. 97. United States General Accounting Office, TV Martí: Costs and Compliance with Broadcast Standards and International Agreements, May 1992, GAO/NSIAD 92–199 (Gaithersburg, MD: US GAO, 1992), 8. 98. Ibid., 1. 99. Bill Summary and Status, H. Amdt. 778 to H.R. 5678, 1992, http://thomas.loc.gov (accessed December 12, 2010). 100. Jim Drinkard, “Incumbents feeling election-day heat from check overdrafts,” Associated Press, May 27, 1992, Lexis-Nexis (accessed November 23, 2007). 101. Douglas Farah, “TV dishes signal change for Cubans,” Washington Post, April 7, 1994, Lexis-Nexis (accessed May 18, 2010). 102. Tom Carter, “Martí’s jammed but pirated cable a hit,” Washington Times, October 12, 1993, Lexis-Nexis (accessed May 17, 2010).

Chapter Nine 1. Orrin Hatch, Square Peg: Confessions of a Citizen Senator (New York: Basic, 2003), 177.

Notes—Chapter Nine 2. Joseph McBride, “The man who wasn’t there: ‘George Bush,’ C.I.A. operative,” Nation, 1988, 247 (2): 37 and 41. 3. Ibid. 4. Michael Benson, Who’s Who in the JFK Assasination: An A-to-Z Encyclopedia (Secaucus, NJ: Carol, 1993), 66. 5. David Miller, The JFK Conspiracy (San Jose, CA: Writers Club, 2002), 188. 6. Michael R. Beschloss, “George Bush: 1989 –1993,” in Character Above All: Ten Presidents from FDR to George Bush, ed. Robert A. Wilson (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995), 228. 7. Ibid., 229. 8. Juan José López, Democracy Delayed: The Case of Castro’s Cuba (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002), 17; “Castro warns against U.S. invasion of Cuba,” United Press International, March 14, 1991, Lexis-Nexis (accessed June 10, 2010). 9. Alfonso Chardy, “U.S. offers new initiative on Cuba — Bush outlines conditions for improved relations,” Miami Herald, May 21, 1991, NewsBank (accessed May 22, 2010). 10. Maria Puente, “Cuban exiles’ harsh terms protested,” USA Today, January 13, 1992, LexisNexis (accessed October 20, 2010). 11. Lizette Alvarez, “Exiles in Miami question motive of raider in Cuba,” Miami Herald, January 15, 1992, NewsBank (accessed March 11, 2010). 12. Maria Ojito, “Would-be raiders praise Revolution,” Miami Herald, January 15, 1992, NewsBank (accessed March 11, 2010). 13. Gerardo Reyes, el Tiempo, January 19, 1992, cited in Clara Nieto and Chris Brandt, Masters of War: Latin America and United States Aggression from the Cuban Revolution through the Clinton Years (New York: Seven Stories, 2003), 510. Nieto also mentions a January 9, 1992, incident in which a group of seven Cubans killed three soldiers in an escape attempt. 14. Jane Franklin, Cuba and the United States: A Chronological History (Melbourne: Ocean, 1997), 234. 15. Ann Luoise Bardach, Cuba Confidential: Love and Vengeance in Miami and Havana (New York: Vintage Books, 2003), 131–132. 16. “Bad Strategy on Cuba,” Miami Herald. January 18, 1992, NewsBank (accessed May 30, 2010). 17. Bill Summary and Status, H.R. 4168, 1992, http://thomas.loc.gov (accessed December 12, 2010). 18. Christopher Marquis, “Torricelli Cuba bill source of bad blood with Ros-Lehtinen,” Miami Herald, April 14, 1992, NewsBank (accessed March 11, 2010). 19. Dante Alighieri, The Inferno, trans. James

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Romanes Sibbald (Edinburgh: David Douglas, 1884), 91. 20. Andres Reynaldo, “Las arpias,” El Nuevo Herald, January 18, 1992, NewsBank (accessed May 30, 2009). 21. Michelle Marie Cobas, “Mass media ethics vs. ethnic identity: The Cuban American National Foundation’s battle with the Miami Herald,” Louisana State University Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Library, December 2001, http://etd.lsu.edu/docs (accessed October 15, 2010), 37. 22. Americas Watch Committee (U.S.) and Fund for Free Expression (U.S.), “Dangerous Dialogue: Attacks on freedom of expression in Miami’s Cuban exile community” (New York, 1992), 130. 23. Larry Rohter, “Miami journal; when a city newspaper is the enemy,” New York Times, March 19, 1992, Lexis-Nexis (accessed June 10, 2010). 24. Robert Pear, “The Cuba Missile Crisis: Kennedy left a loophole,” New York Times, January 7, 1992, Lexis-Nexis (accessed October 15, 2010). 25. George Gedda, “U.S. warns Cuban exiles against violence,” Associated Press, January 24, 1992, Lexis-Nexis (accessed October 15, 2010). 26. George H.W. Bush, “Statement on actions to support democracy in Cuba,” April 18, 1992, American Presidency Project, www.presidency. ucsb.edu (accessed March 4, 2010). 27. Ibid. 28. George Gedda, “Castro foes seek to kayo communism in Cuba,” Associated Press, April 9, 1992, Lexis-Nexis (accessed October 15, 2010). 29. Christopher Connell, Associated Press, April 18, 1992, Lexis-Nexis (accessed January 15, 2010). 30. Clara Nieto and Chris Brandt, Masters of War: Latin America and United States Aggression from the Cuban Revolution through the Clinton Years (New York: Seven Stories, 2003), 513. 31. Karen Ball, “Political notebook: Brown’s Good Friday lesson,” Associated Press, April 17, 1992, Lexis-Nexis (accessed January 3, 2008). 32. William M. LeoGrande, “From Havana to Miami: U.S. Cuba policy as a two-level game,” Journal of Inter-American Studies and World Affairs 40, no. 1 (1998): 67–86, 73. 33. Ariana Hernandez-Reguant, Cuba in the Special Period: Culture and Ideology in the 1990s (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), 4 –5. 34. Louis A. Perez Jr., Cuba: Between Reform and Revolution, 4th ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 294. 35. Miguel A. de la Torre, La Lucha for Cuba: Religion and Politics on the Streets of Miami (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001), 72. 36. The Cuban Democracy Act was actually

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passed as part of H.R. 5006, an appropriations bill for the Department of Defense, Department of Energy, and other projects. 37. Peter Slevin, “Bush signs law aimed at Castro,” Miami Herald, October 23, 1992, NewsBank (accessed May 22, 2010). 38. Larry Rohter, “A rising Cuban-American leader: Statesman to some, bully to others,” New York Times, October 29, 1992, Lexis-Nexis (accessed March 6, 2010). 39. Tom Fiedler and Ivan Roman, “ClintonMas meeting shocks Cuban Miami,” Miami Herald, October 29, 1992, NewsBank (accessed May 22, 2010). 40. Ibid. 41. Ibid. 42. Tom Fiedler, “Mas’ statement,” Miami Herald, October 28, 1992, NewsBank (accessed May 22, 2010). 43. Spencer Reiss and Peter Katell, “After Fidel, a deluge of deals,” Newsweek, June 29, 1992, Lexis-Nexis (accessed October 15, 2010); Rohter, “An Exile’s Empire”; Peter H. Stone, “Cuban Clout,” National Journal, February 20, 1993, Lexis-Nexis (accessed October 15, 2010); Georgie Anne Geyer, Guerilla Prince: The Untold Story of Fidel Castro (Kansas City, MO: Andrews McMeel, 2001), 400. 44. Rohter, “An Exile’s Empire.” 45. Geyer, Guerilla Prince, 400. 46. Donald E. Schulz, “Can Castro survive?,” Jounral of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs 35, no. 1 (1993): 89 –117, 109. 47. Malcolm S. Forbes Jr., “Soon to come: Capitalist Cuba,” Forbes, September 17, 1990, Ebsco Host (accessed February 5, 2010). 48. Clara Nieto and Chris Brandt, Masters of war: Latin America and United States Aggression from the Cuban Revolution through the Clinton Years (New York: Seven Stories, 2003), 506. 49. Don Kowet, “Radio Martí head: Tuning into wrong frequency?” Washington Times, December 19, 1991, Lexis-Nexis (accessed June 10, 2010). 50. Ibid. 51. Rolando E. Bonachea and Nelson P. Valdes, preface in Revolutionary Struggle: 1946 – 1958, vol. 1 of The Selected Works of Fidel Castro, ed. Rolando E. Bonachea and Nelson P. Valdes (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1972), xiv. 52. Jay Mallin, Adventures in Journalism: A Memoir (Washington, DC: Kelbrenjac, 1998), 238. 53. Don Kowet, “Partisan? Maverick? Mismanaged? Critics turn up their volume as Cubans appear to tune out Radio Martí,” Washington Times, December 18, 1991, Lexis-Nexis (accessed June 10, 2010). 54. Augustin Alles Soberón, “Interview with Fidel Castro, May 22, 1955,” in Revolutionary Struggle: 1946 –1958, 238.

55. “Los Primeros Periodistas Cubanos en la Sierra Maestra,” Bohemia, February 11, 1959, cited in Michael Brian Salwen, Radio and Television in Cuba: The Pre–Castro Era (Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1994), 106. 56. Rolando Bonachea, memo to Richard Carlson, January 28, 1991, reprinted in Psywar on Cuba: The Declassified History of U.S. AntiCastro Propaganda, ed. Jon Elliston (Melbourne, Victoria: Ocean, 1999), 280. 57. Psywar on Cuba, 279. 58. Bruce Boyd, affidavit for the USIA Office of Inspector General, April 21, 1995, reprinted in Psywar on Cuba, 279. While covering the 1991 Latin American summit in Guadalajara, Mexico, Castro recognized Alles and called out to him, “How are you?” Alles said he was representing Radio Martí, alerting Castro’s entourage, who tightened their presence around the Cuban leader (Ana E. Santiago. “Castro sees, recalls old acquaintance,” Miami Herald, July 20, 1991). 59. Psywar on Cuba, 279; “Argentina Armed Forces selling real estate holdings,” Miami Herald, November 21, 1991, NewsBank (accessed May 22, 2010). 60. Christopher Marquis, “’Employees’ testimony cites troubles at Radio Martí,” Miami Herald, May 25, 1996, NewsBank (accessed May 22, 2010). 61. Steven Greenhouse, “Top Cuban-Americans misuses U.S. broadcasts, officials say,” New York Times, July 22, 1995, Lexis-Nexis (accessed January 28, 2010). 62. Herald Wire Services, “Panama U.S. denies Bush was warned on trip’s danger,” Miami Herald, June 16, 1992, NewsBank (accessed May 22, 2010); Jane Franklin, Cuba and the United States: A Chronological History (Melbourne: Ocean, 1997), 298. 63. Ana Santiago, “Canadian held in Cuba admits taking materials sent by exiles to dissidents,” Miami Herald, June 30, 1992, NewsBank (accessed May 22, 2010). 64. Alfonso Chardy, “Exiles dismiss U.N. embargo vote,” Miami Herald, November 26, 1992, NewsBank (accessed May 22, 2010). 65. Ibid. 66. Tom Miller, Trading with the Enemy: A Yankee Travels through Castro’s Cuba (New York: Atheneum, 1992), 49. 67. Ibid., 240. 68. Ibid., 59 –60. 69. Ann-Marie O’Connor, “Trying to set the agenda in Miami,” Columbia Journalism Review 31, no. 1 (May 1992): 42–43, 43. 70. “Four days with Fidel: A Havana Diary,” New York Review of Books, March 26, 1992, cited in Americas Watch Committee (U.S.) and Fund for Free Expression (U.S.), “Dangerous Dialogue: Attacks on freedom of expression in Miami’s Cuban exile community” (New York, 1992), 5.

Notes—Chapter Nine 71. Andres Oppenheimer, Castro’s Final Hour: The Secret Story Behind the Coming Downfall of Communist Cuba (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1992), 328. 72. Juan José López, Democracy Delayed: The Case of Castro’s Cuba (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002), 105. 73. Sergio Lopez-Miro, “Will Sanchez’s cry for Cuban sanity fall on deaf ears?,” Miami Herald, August 10, 1989, NewsBank (accessed May 22, 2010). 74. Juan J. Walte, “U.S. may pull plug on telecast,” USA Today, August 3, 1992, Lexis-Nexis (accessed October 15, 2010). 75. Jo Thomas, “The last days of Castro’s Cuba,” New York Times, March 14, 1993, LexisNexis (accessed October 20, 2010). 76. House Ways and Means Committee, Subcommittee on Select Revenue Measures and Subcommittee on Trade, H.R. 2229, Free Trade with Cuba Act, 103rd Cong., 2nd sess., March 17, 1994, Lexis-Nexis (accessed June 11, 2010). 77. Jose R. Cardenas, “Media take Castro’s cues on Cuban dissent,” Washington Times, October 20, 1992, Lexis-Nexis (accessed May 14, 2010). 78. Ann Louise Bardach, “Our man in Miami,” New Republic, January 9, 1994, LexisNexis (accessed January 9, 2007). 79. Anne-Marie O’Connor, “Exile leaders as dictatorial as Castro, critics say; but controversial in Miami activist has clout in U.S.,” Atlanta Journal and Constitution, December 1, 1991, LexisNexis (accessed October 20, 2010). 80. Jose de Cordoba, “A Miami businessman is angling, some say, to succeed Castro,” Wall Street Journal, ProQuest (accessed May 11, 1990). 81. Bardach, “Our man in Miami.” 82. Adam Nagourney, “Clinton: I did try marijuana,” USA Today, March 30, 1992, LexisNexis (accessed October 15, 2010). Clinton’s mother, Virginia Kelley, said that Clinton did not inhale because Bill was “allergic to smoke” (“Mom tells why Bill didn’t inhale,” Associated Press. July 15, 1992, Lexis-Nexis [accessed October 20, 2010]). 83. Kenneth Starr and Phil Kuntz, The Starr Report: The Evidence (New York: Pocket Books, 1998), 373. 84. Patrick J. Kiger and John Kruger, Squeeze Play: The United States, Cuba and the Helms Burton-Act (Washington, DC: Center for Public Integrity, 1997), 42. 85. Alfonso Chardy and Mirta Ojito, “Sisterly advice,” Miami Herald, September 19, 1994, NewsBank (accessed March 11, 2010); Tom Fiedler and Alfonso Chardy, “Clinton’s Florida ‘in’ crowd,” Miami Herald, November 8, 1992, NewsBank (accessed March 11, 2010). 86. Interview with Richard Nuccio by Morris H. Morley and Chris McGillon, cited

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in Morris H. Morley and Chris McGillon, Unfinished bsuiness: America and Cuba After the Cold War, 1989 –2001 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 90. 87. “U.S. eases rules governing telephone links with Cuba,” New York Times, July 23, 1993, Lexis-Nexis (accessed October 15, 2010). 88. Douglas Farah, “U.S.-Cuban Ties: Slight Warming but Both Sides Doubt Massive Shift; Castro, Thwarted by Economic Embargo, Pins Hopes on Clinton,” Washington Post, July 31, 1992, Lexis-Nexis (accessed May 27, 2010). 89. Jay Mallin, Covering Castro: Rise and Decline of Cuba’s Communist Dictator (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 1994), 189; Howard W. French, “Cuban groups seek lifting of U.S. embargo,” New York Times, May 9, 1993, LexisNexis (accessed October 15, 2010). 90. Howard W. French, “Cuban dissident, in the U.S., says embargo is a mistake,” New York Times, August 3, 1993, Lexis-Nexis (accessed October 18, 2010). 91. Betty Cortina, “Gov. Chiles urges Cubans to protest,” Miami Herald, February 25, 1993; Jane Franklin, Cuba and the United States: A Chronological History (Melbourne: Ocean, 1997), 310 –311. 92. Psywar on Cuba, 273. 93. Richard Planas, statement to the Advisory Panel on Radio and TV Martí, March 1994, reprinted in Psywar on Cuba, 283 –295. 94. Patrick J. Kiger and John Kruger, Squeeze Play: The United States, Cuba, and the Helms-Burton Act (Washington, DC: Center for Public Integrity), 71. 95. Steven A. Holmes, “A Cold War icon comes under siege,” New York Times, February 21, 1993, Lexis-Nexis (accessed October 15, 2010). 96. Kiger and Kruger, Squeeze Play, 70. In 1985, Mas was appointed to a three-year term and was never formally reappointed. Different sources list this as different dates. 97. Christopher Marquis, “Merger won’t affect U.S. broadcasts to Cuba,” Miami Herald, June 16, 1993. 98. Ros-Lehtinen had 56,364 votes (60.37 percent) and Anscher had 36,978 votes (39.62 percent). There was one write-in candidate. 99. “Ros-Lehtinen ducks debate in House race,” Miami Herald, October 30, 1990. 100. Clifford Krauss, “Candidates feel force of anti–Castro voters,” New York Times, November 1, 1992, Lexis-Nexis (accessed May 15, 2010). 101. Dan Holly, “Newcomer battling odds to unseat Ros-Lehtinen,” Miami Herald, October 13, 1992. 102. Clifford Krauss, “Candidate feels force of anti–Castro voters,” New York Times, November 1, 1992, Lexis-Nexis (accessed February 25, 2010).

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103. Ibid. 104. Maralee Schwartz, Anne Day and Thomas W. Lippman, “Language as factor in Florida debates,” Washington Post, November 1, 1992, Lexis-Nexis (accessed October 9, 2009). 105. Ros-Lehtinen had 104,755 votes (66.77 percent). Davis had 52,142 votes (33.23 percent). 106. The name “The White Rose” came from one of Jose Martí’s most famous poems. 107. In addition to the Diaz-Balarts living in the United States and opposing the revolution, Castro’s sister Juanita and illegitimate daughter Alina Revuelta also live in Miami and have been very outspoken about the revolution. 108. Ricardo Chavira, “Capitalism’s hard-liners; critics say Cuban exiles aim to topple Castro to install own tyranny,” Dallas Morning News, November 28, 1992, Lexis-Nexis (accessed June 23, 2010). 109. Peter Kornbluh and Jon Elliston, “Will Congress kill TV Martí?,” The Nation, August 22, 1994: 194 –196, 194. 110. Bill Summary and Status, H.R. 2519, 1993, http://thomas.loc.gov (accessed December 9, 2010). 111. Susan B. Epstein and Mark P. Sullivan, Radio and Television Broadcasting to Cuba Background and Current Issues (Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress, 1994). 112. Radio and TV Martí Funding, 103rd Cong., 1st sess., Congressional Record 139 (July 1, 1993): H15092. 113. Jim DeFede, “Mr. Diaz-Balart goes to Washington: When an unsuspecting Colorado congressman tries to cut funding to Radio and TV Martí, the freshman lawmaker gives a taste of exile politics, Miami- style,” Miami New Times, July 14, 1993, Lexis-Nexis (accessed January 15, 2010). 114. Radio and TV Martí Funding, 103rd Cong., 1st sess. 115. Christopher Chazin, “Skaggs’ efforts results in $7M cut from Cuba programs,” States News Service, October 13, 1993, Lexis-Nexis (accessed June 23, 2010). 116. The days were August 31, September 1, 2, 3, 6, 7, 8, 10, 12, 13, and 14 in 1993. 117. U.S. Interests Section, Havana, TV Martí monitoring report, October 6, 1993, reprinted in Psywar on Cuba, 258 –260. 118. U.S. Interests Section, Havana, TV Martí monitoring report, 258 –260. 119. “U.S. Experts to assess value of keeping Radio Martí, TV,” St. Louis Post Dispatch, December 26, 1993, Lexis-Nexis (accessed October 15, 2010). 120. Marci McDonald, Gary Cohen, Betsy Streisand, “Lewinsky’s stepfather and the president’s pal,” U.S. News and World Report, May 11, 1998, Lexis-Nexis (accessed May 13, 2010).

121. Ernesto Betancourt, statement to the Advisory Panel on Radio and TV Martí, March 1994, cited in Patrick Jude Haney and Walt Vanderbush, The Cuban Embargo: The Domestic Politics of an American Foreign Policy (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2005), 81. 122. Richard Planas, statement to the Advisory Panel on Radio and TV Martí with attachments, March 1994, reprinted in Psywar on Cuba: The Declassified History of U.S. Anti-Castro Propaganda, ed. Jon Elliston (Melbourne, Victoria: Ocean, 1999), 283 –295. 123. Christopher Marquis, “Panel backs TV Martí despite small audience — Suggests $1 million switch to UHF mode,” Miami Herald, April 1, 1994. 124. Ibid. 125. Ibid. 126. Saul Landau, “No Mas Canosa — the death of Cuban political figure Jorge Mas Canosa,” obituary, Monthly Review, March 1999, http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/exile/canosa. htm (accessed October 15, 2010). 127. Jim DeFede, “Tube or Not Tube; TV Martí’s limp blimp sets sail once again for the halls of Congress,” Miami New Times, July 20, 1994, Lexis-Nexis (accessed September 16, 2010). 128. Bill Summary and Status, S. Amdt. 2365 to H.R. 4603, Library of Congress, 1994, http:// thomas.loc.gov (accessed December 12, 2010). 129. Bill Summary and Status, S. Amdt. 2366 to H.R. 4603, Library of Congress, 1994, http:// thomas.loc.gov (accessed December 12, 2010). 130. U.S. General Accounting Office, U.S. Information Agency: Options for Addressing Possible Budget Reductions, GAO/NSIAD-96–179 (Washington, DC: U.S. GAO, September 1996), 58. 131. Francisco Garcia Azuero, “Ex-WTVJ manager to oversee Radio and TV Martí,” Miami Herald, February 10, 1994, NewsBank (accessed March 11, 2010). All officials holding appointed positions in the Bush administration had been asked to resign. Navarro’s resignation was consistent with this idea (“FRONT: Cuba broadcasting director resigns,” Miami Herald, January 23, 1993, NewsBank [accessed March 11, 2010]). 132. House Ways and Means Committee, Subcommittee on Select Revenue Measures and Subcommittee on Trade, H.R. 2229, Free Trade with Cuba Act, 103rd Cong., 2nd sess., March 17, 1994, Lexis-Nexis (accessed June 11, 2010). 133. Jim DeFede, “Ethics in exile,” Miami New Times, June 13, 1996, Lexis-Nexis (accessed June 10, 2010). 134. Advisory board for Broadcasting to Cuba, Report by the Advisory Board (Washington, DC: GPO, 1989), 22. 135. Ibid., 29. 136. United States General Accounting Office, U.S. Information Agency: Issues related to Reinvention Planning in the Office of Cuba Broad-

Notes—Chapter Ten casting, GAO/NSIAD-96–110 (Washington, D.C: U.S. GAO, 1996), 2. 137. Ibid., 18. 138. Christopher Marquis, “Arbitrator: Radio Martí actions were OK,” Miami Herald. November 2, 1996. 139. Kristin Juffer, Affidavits for the USIA Office of Inspector General, amendment to affidavit, December 13, 1994, reprinted in Psywar on Cuba, 304 –311, 310. 140. Ibid., 304 –311, 306. 141. Ibid., 297–303, 300. 142. Ibid., 304 –311, 311.

Chapter Ten 1. Stephen R. Covey, 1989, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People (New York: Free Press, 2004), 70. 2. Antonio Raluy, “Cubans in ambassador’s resident reject dialogue,” Agence France Presse, Lexis-Nexis (accessed January 22, 2010). 3. The embassy occupations ended peacefully on June 30 when Cuba agreed to allow the asylum seekers to leave without retribution (Carlos Batista, “Cuba: Embassy occupations end peacefully,” IPS (Inter Press Service), July 2, 1994, Lexis-Nexis (accessed October 15, 2010). 4. Spencer Rich, “Cubans hurt as attack at sea is reported; refugees say Castro’s troops fired at them; four taken to U.S. hospitals,” Washington Post, June 5, 1994, Lexis-Nexis (accessed January 24, 2010); Will Lester, “Coast Guard picks up Cuban refugees wounded after boat fired on,” Associated Press, June 4, 1994, Lexis-Nexis (accessed January 24, 2010). 5. Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, Report No. 47/96, Case 11.436, Victims of the Tugboat “13 de Marzo” vs. Cuba, October 16, 1996, http://www.cidh.oas.org/annualrep/ 96eng/Cuba11436.htm (accessed October 20, 2010). Different sources list different numbers of people on the tugboat at the time of the incident. 6. Amnesty International, Cuba: The Sinking of the “13 de Marzo” Tugboat on 13 July 1994, Amnesty International, International Secretariat, 1997, http://www.amnesty.org (accessed January 23, 2010). 7. Amnesty International, Cuba: The Sinking of the “13 de Marzo” Tugboat on 13 July 1994; House Committee on International Relations, Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, The Cuban “March 13” Tugboat Incident, 104th Cong., 1st sess. (Washington, DC: U.S. GPO, January 25, 1995); Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, Victims of the Tugboat “13 de Marzo” vs. Cuba. 8. House Committee on International Relations, Subcommittee on the Western

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Hemisphere, The Cuban “March 13” Tugboat Incident. 9. Ibid. 10. Ibid. 11. Ibid. 12. Ibid. 13. Ibid. 14. Amnesty International, Cuba: The Sinking of the “13 de Marzo” Tugboat on 13 July 1994. 15. Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, Victims of the Tugboat “13 de Marzo” vs. Cuba; Amnesty International, Cuba: The Sinking of the “13 de Marzo.” 16. Amnesty International, Cuba: The Sinking of the “13 de Marzo.” 17. John Rice, “Cubans leave boat, says government,” Associated Press Worldstream, August 15, 1994, Lexis-Nexis (accessed January 24, 2010). 18. Holly Ackerman, The Balsero Phenomenon 1991–1994, vol. 26 of Cuban Studies, ed. Jorge I. Dominguez (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1996), 171. 19. David Hancock, “Dos exilados traen a familia de la isla tras arriesgada travesta,” El Nuevo Herald, July 28, 1994, NewsBank (accessed May 22, 2010). 20. “14 Cubans fly into Florida aboard a crop duster,” Agence France Press-English, August 10, 1994, Lexis-Nexis (accessed January 24, 2010); “Cubans reach Florida Keys in Cuban aircraft, Associated Press, August 10, 1994, Lexis-Nexis (accessed January 24, 2010). 21. Eddie Dominguez, “Castro, on live TV, blames U.S. for hijackings,” Associated Press, August 12, 1994, Lexis-Nexis (accessed January 24, 2010). 22. Alfredo Antonio Fernández, Adrift: The Cuban Raft People (Houston: Arte Publico, 2000), 55. 23. Ackerman, The Balsero Phenomenon, 171. 24. Ibid., 175. 25. Fernández, Adrift: The Cuban Raft People, 71. 26. Ackerman, The Balsero Phenomenon, 171. 27. In the early 1600s, two native Cubans and a slave were near the copper mining town of El Cobre (“the copper”) when they found a clay statue floating on a board. It was the Virgin Mary holding the infant Jesus and included a message that said, “I am the Virgin of Charity.” She eventually found a permanent home in a sanctuary in Cobre, which was designated as a basilica by Pope Paul VI in 1977. Visitors to the basilica where the statue is kept have left offerings to the Virgin of Charity including flowers, clumps of hair, and models of rafts. Lina Ruz González, mother of Fidel and Raul Castro, left a golden statue of a guerilla fighter when her sons were in the Sierra Maestra fighting a guerilla war against Batista. Cuban

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runner Ana Fidelia Quirot left her track uniform as an offering. Ernest Hemmingway offered the Nobel Prize for Literature he won for writing The Old Man and the Sea. The basilica is also one of the only forums in Cuba where individuals can openly oppose the Castro government. Some offerings to the Virgin of Charity call for the release of political prisoners. 28. Arturo Cobo, interview with Common Ground, March 10, 1998, http://commongroundradio.org/transcpt/98/9810.html (accessed February 18, 2010). 29. Douglas A. Boyd, Richard R. Cole, Terry L. Haines, and John S. Nichols, “Independent study of the effectiveness of Radio and TV Martí,” 4 –5, unpublished report sponsored by the Cuban American Research and Education Fund, March 31, 1994, cited in John Spicer Nichols, “Effects of international propaganda on U.S.-Cuban relations,” in Communication in Latin America: Journalism, Mass Media and Society, ed. Richard R. Cole (Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, 1996), 95. 30. Debra Everson, “Clinton has opportunity to act wisely on Cuba,” New York Times, September 7, 1994, ProQuest (accessed March 26, 2010). 31. House Committee on International Relations, Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, The Cuban “March 13” Tugboat Incident, 104th Cong., 1st sess. (Washington, DC: U.S. GPO, January 25, 1995). 32. Fernández, Adrift, 103. 33. Bill J. Clinton, My Life (New York: Knopf, 2004), 276. 34. Carl Bernstein, A Woman in Charge: The Life of Hillary Rodham Clinton (New York: Knopf, 2007), 158; David Maraniss, First in His Class: The Biography of Bill Clinton (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996), 379; Brandt Goldstein, Storming the Court: How a Band of Yale Law Students Fought the President — and Won (New York: Scribner, 2005), 200. 35. Republican Winthrop Rockefeller served from 1967 to 1971. The last Republican before him was Elisha Baxter, who left office at the end of 1874. In 1974, while teaching at the University of Arkansas Law School, 28-year old Clinton ran for Arkansas’ Third District in the U.S. House of Representatives. He lost to John Paul Hammerschmidt, 89,324 to 83,030 votes. 36. Clinton, My Life, 615. 37. William J. Clinton, “President’s News Conference,” August 19, 1994, American Presidency Project, www.presidency.ucsb.edu (accessed February 18, 2010). 38. Ibid. 39. Ibid. 40. “Cuba refugees: Only six bodies have been found, government says,” IPS (Inter Press Service), September 15, 1994, Lexis-Nexis (accessed February 18, 2010); Greg Pierce, “U.S. expands

broadcasts to foil Castro,” Washington Times, August 24, 1994, Lexis-Nexis (accessed February 18, 2010). 41. “Flight from Cuba: On the air; Radio Martí pleads with Cubans to stay home,” New York Times, August 22, 1994, Lexis-Nexis (accessed June 11, 2010); Greg Pierce, “U.S. expands broadcasts to foil Castro,” Washington Times, August 24, 1994, Lexis-Nexis (accessed March 12, 2010). 42. Nichols, “Effects of international propaganda on U.S.-Cuban relations,” 96. 43. House Committee on International Relations, Subcommittee on International Operations and Human Rights, An Assessment of Cuba Broadcasting—Voice of Freedom, Serial No. 107– 94, 107th Cong., 2nd sess. (Washington, DC: U.S. GPO, June 6, 2002), 61. 44. Mandalit DelBarco, “Spanish radio stations provide news to Cuban-Americans,” All Things Considered, NPR, September 2, 1994, Lexis-Nexis (accessed June 11, 2010). 45. Silvia Pedraza, Political Disaffection in Cuba’s Revolution and Exodus (New Yok: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 189. 46. “Cuba, U.S. reach agreement on migration,” United Press International, September 9, 1994, Lexis-Nexis (accessed March 12, 2010). 47. Nichols, “Effects of international propaganda on U.S.-Cuban relations,” 92; Human Rights Watch/Americas, Cuba: Repression, the Exodus of August 1994, and the U.S. Response (New York: Human Rights Watch/Americas, 1994), 7. 48. Richard Planas to John Sinclair, Office of the Inspector General, U.S. Information Agency, February 13, 1995, cited in Patrick J. Kiger and John Kruger, Squeeze Play: The United States, Cuba, and the Helms-Burton Act (Washington, DC: Center for Public Integrity, 1997), 73. 49. “Balseros regresan a Guantanamo,” El Nuevo Herald, February 2, 1995, 1, cited in Planas to Sinclair. 50. Christopher Marquis, “Raising the heat on Cuba, proposed law aims at investors,” Miami Herald, February 10, 1995, NewsBank (accessed May 22, 2010). 51. Jesse Helms, “Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act,” Congressional Press Releases, February 9, 1995, Lexis-Nexis (accessed June 11, 2010). 52. Kiger and Kruger, Squeeze Play, 47. 53. House Committee on International Relations, Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, The Cuban “March 13” Tugboat Incident, 28. 54. Ibid., 29. 55. Ibid., 9. 56. House Committee on International Relations, Subcommittee on the Western Hemi-

Notes—Chapter Ten sphere, Cuba and U.S. Policy, 104th Cong., 1st sess. (Washington, DC: U.S. GPO, February 23, 1995), 14 –29. 57. Daniel Williams and Ann Devroy, “Clinton may ease sanctions on Cuba,” Washington Post, March 7, 1995, Lexis-Nexis (accessed October 17, 2010). 58. “Press Briefing by Mike McCurry,” March 7, 1995, American Presidency Project, www.presidency.ucsb.edu (accessed January 23, 2010). 59. Senate Committee on Armed Services, Situation in Cuba, 103rd Cong., 2nd sess. (Washington, DC: U.S. GPO, August 25, 1994), 20. The $14 a day was based on how much it cost to house Haitian refugees at the Guantanamo facility. 60. Mireya Navarro, “Cuban refugees looking for doors to U.S.,” New York Times, April 30, 1995, Lexis-Nexis (accessed January 28, 2010). 61. Ibid. 62. Fernández, Adrift, 172. 63. Fabiola Santiago, “New sign of Guantanamo despair: ‘Suicide gestures,’” Miami Herald, February 6, 1995, NewsBank (accessed March 11, 2010). 64. Mireya Navarro, “Cuban refugees looking for doors to U.S.,” New York Times, April 30, 1995, Lexis-Nexis (accessed January 28, 2010); Fernández, Adrift, 171. 65. Fernández, Adrift, 146. 66. Ibid., 151. 67. International Campaign to Ban Landmines; Human Rights Watch, Landmine Monitor: Toward a Mine-free World: Executive Summary (Washington, DC, 1999). 68. “Report Says Cuban Rafter Killed by Mine Trying to Flee Guantanamo,” Associated Press, September 19, 1994, Lexis-Nexis (accessed October 19, 2009). 69. Ron Fournier, “Cuban refugees at Guantanamo to come to U.S.; new boat people excluded,” Associated Press, May 2, 1995, LexisNexis (accessed January 28, 2010). 70. William J. Clinton, “Joint statement with the Republic of Cuba on normalization of migration,” May 2, 1995, American Presidency Project, www.presidency.ucsb.edu (accessed October 19, 2010). 71. Will Lester, “Cuban-Americans excoriate new U.S. policy on refugees,” Associated Press, May 2, 1995, Lexis-Nexis (accessed January 28, 2010). 72. Lizette Alvarez and Andres Viglucci, “Coast Guard takes on 13 Cubans— rafters may be first returned to Cuba,” Miami Herald, May 6, 1995, NewsBank (accessed May 22, 2010). 73. “Gritos de ‘¡Clinton traidor!’ en Miami,” El País, May 10, 1995. 74. Joseph Duffey, letter to Richard Lobo, May 19, 1995, reprinted in Psywar on Cuba, 314. 75. Richard Lobo, “Radio Martí advances no

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agenda on Cuba,” New York Times, May 20, 1995, Lexis-Nexis (accessed May 30, 2010). 76. United States General Accounting Office, U.S. Information Agency: Issues Related to Reinvention Planning in the Office of Cuba Broadcasting, GAO/NSIAD-96 –110 (Washington, D.C: U.S. GAO, 1996), 18. 77. Steven Greenhouse, “U.S. inquiry said to fault Radio Martí,” New York Times, July 27, 1995, Lexis-Nexis (accessed January 28, 2010). 78. Christopher Marquis, “Radio Martí shake-up considered — Board members may be replaced,” Miami Herald, August 9, 1995, NewsBank (accessed May 22, 2010). 79. Different sources have conflicting information on when Mas’ term should have expired. In Squeeze Play: The United States, Cuba, and the Helms-Burton Act, Kiger says 1988 (p. 70). In Radio and Television Broadcasting to Cuba: Background and Current Issues, Epstein and Sullivan say that Mas was appointed or reappointed on October 15, 1986 (p. 7), placing the end of his term at October 12, 1989. 80. Baltimore Sun report, “Clinton may shake up Radio Martí board; move apparently aimed at Cuban exile leader Mas,” Tampa Tribune, August 8, 1995, Lexis-Nexis (accessed May 23, 2010). 81. Richard Nuccio, “Prospects for a peaceful, democratic transition in Cuba: A U.S. perspective, remarks to the West Point Society of South Florida,” September 8, 1995, http://dosfan.lib. uic.edu/ERC/bureaus/lat/1995/950908Nuccio Cuba.html (accessed January 28, 2010). 82. Ibid. 83. Kiger and Kruger, Squeeze Play, 50. 84. Newspapers that published editorials calling for an end to the embargo included the Palm Beach Post (July 10), Christian Science Monitor (July 12), Greensboro News and Record (July 14), Washington Post (July 14), Arkansas Democrat Gazette (August 2), Austin American-Statesman (August 9), San Francisco Chronicle (August 15), St. Louis Post Dispatch (August 18 and September 26), San Jose Mercury News (August 30), Charleston Post and Courier (August 31), Pittsburgh Post Gazette (September 10), Syracuse Post Standard (September 17), Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (September 28), Wisconsin State Journal (October 12), Lakeland (Florida) Ledger (October 25), Oregonian (October 28), Tampa Tribune (October 28), South Bend Tribune (October 28), and San Diego Union Tribune (October 28). The Columbus Dispatch (August 3), Boston Globe (September 5) St. Petersburg Times (September 25) and Chattanooga Free Press (October 6) published editorials that opposed Helms-Burton but did not necessarily denounce the embargo. The Washington Times (August 18) and Miami Herald (September 10) published editorials supporting the embargo. The Chattanooga Free Press

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(September 25) supported the Helms-Burton Act. 85. Steven Greenhouse, “Allies of U.S. seek to block bill on Cuba,” New York Times, April 13, 1995, Lexis-Nexis (accessed October 17, 2010). 86. Mimi Whitefield, “Stakes high in Cuba claims bill,” Miami Herald, October 2, 1995, NewsBank (accessed May 22, 2010). 87. William M. LeoGrande, “A politics driven policy: Washington’s Cuba agenda is still in place—for now,” NACLA Report on the Americas 34, no. 3 (2000): 35 –41, 56 –57, 36. 88. Tim Golden, “A year after boat exodus, threat to Castro dissipates,” New York Times, August 15, 2010, Lexis-Nexis (accessed January 28, 2010). 89. Ann Devroy, “Clinton to ease controls on travel to Cuba, other exchanges,” Washington Post, October 6, 1995, Lexis-Nexis (accessed March 25, 2010). 90. Ibid. 91. Ibid. 92. Kiger and Kruger, 1997. Squeeze Play, 41. 93. Carl Nagin, “Annals of diplomacy backfire,” New Yorker, January 26, 1998: 30 –35, 32. 94. Tom Carter, “Clinton aide denies vetofor-prisoners promise; charge centers on bill tightening Cuban sanctions,” Washington Times, November 11, 1995, Lexis-Nexis (accessed May 18, 2010). 95. Cynthia Corzo, “Radio Martí observer questions fairness of investigation,” Miami Herald, July 26, 1995, NewsBank (accessed May 22, 2010). 96. Jane Franklin, Cuba and the United States: A Chronological History (Melbourne: Ocean, 1997), 372; Christopher Marquis, “Probe stonewalled by Radio Martí officials,” Miami Herald, November 21, 1995, NewsBank (accessed May 22, 2010); “Jorge Mas Canosa, probes of Radio-TV Martí are witch hunts,” Miami Herald, December 26, 1995, Lexis-Nexis (accessed May 30, 2010). 97. H.L. Rosenberg, prod., 60 Minutes, “TV Martí,” CBS, October 13, 1996. 98. Ibid. 99. F.I. Rodriguez and J. Weisman, Shadow Warrior (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1989), 109. 100. Ibid. 101. Hernando Calvo Ospina and Katlijn Declercq, The Cuban Exile Movement: Dissident or Mercenaries?, trans. Mary Todd (Melbourne, Victoria: Ocean, 2000), 33; Andres Viglucci, “From guns to leaflets over Cuba—activist seeks peaceful change,” Miami Herald, January 20, 1996, NewsBank (accessed May 22, 2010). 102. Gail Epstein Nieves, “Basulto testifies on role as anti–Castro operative,” Miami Herald, March 13, 2001, NewsBank (accessed May 22, 2010).

103. Ibid. 104. Rodriguez and Weisman, Shadow Warrior, 111; Warren Hinckle and William Turner, interview with Kyman B. Kirkpatrick Jr., Providence, Rhode Island, April 26, 1974, cited in Warren Hinckle and William W. Turner, The Fish Is Red: The Story of the Secret War Against Castro (New York: Harper and Row, 1981), 132; Gail Epstein Nieves, “Basulto testifies on role as anti–Castro operative,” Miami Herald, March 13, 2001, NewsBank (accessed May 22, 2010). 105. Ospina and Declercq, The Cuban Exile Movement, 37–38. 106. Fernández, Adrift, 86; Leon Harris, “Experts describe perils faced by Cuban rafters,” CNN Transcript, August 25, 1994, Lexis-Nexis (accessed March 25, 2010). The study was titled “Cuban Roulette: Crossing the Florida Straits.” 107. Tom Carter, “Cubans on rafts keep rescuers busy; Fla. pilots group has picked up 270,” Washington Times, July 23, 1992, Lexis-Nexis (accessed October 17, 2010). 108. Interview with Jose Basulto, cited in Kiger and Kruger, Squeeze Play, 9; Jefferson Motley, “Shoot down,” Washington Post, May 25, 1997, Lexis-Nexis (accessed January 23, 2010). 109. House Committee on International Relations, Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere The Shootdown of the Brothers to the Rescue — What Happened?, 104th Cong., 2nd sess. (Washington, DC: U.S. GPO, September 18, 1996), 40. 110. Brian Cabell, “‘Brothers to the Rescue’ urges Cuban to stay in Cuba,” CNN Transcript, August 29, 1994, Lexis-Nexis (accessed March 25, 2010). 111. Fidel Castro, “Castro Views U.S. Ties, Emigration Crisis,” Speech of August 15, 1994, Fidel Castro Speech Database http://lanic. utexas.edu/project/castro/db/1994/19940825.htm l (accessed October 17, 2010). 112. Mireya Navarro, “U.S. policy a ‘betrayal,’ Cuban exiles protest,” New York Times, May 8, 1995, Lexis-Nexis (accessed October 17, 2010). 113. Gail Epstein Nieves, “Basulto testifies on role as anti–Castro operative,” Miami Herald, March 13, 2001, NewsBank (accessed May 22, 2010). 114. Interview with Jose Basulto, cited in Kiger and Kruger, Squeeze play, 5. 115. Herald Staff, “Bad place for good intent,” Miami Herald, July 15, 1995, NewsBank (accessed May 22, 2010); Elaine De Valle, “‘Brothers’ pilot may be suspended,” Miami Herald, September 2, 1995, NewsBank (accessed May 22, 2010). 116. Nieves, “Basulto testifies on role as anti– Castro operative.” 117. Nagin, “Annals of diplomacy backfire,” 30–35, 32. 118. John Dorschner, “Brothers unrescued,”

Notes—Chapter Ten Miami Herald Tropic, February 16, 1997, NewsBank (accessed May 22, 2010). 119. Andres Viglucci, “From guns to leaflets over Cuba — activist seeks peaceful change,” Miami Herald, January 20, 1996, NewsBank (accessed May 22, 2010). 120. John Lantigua, “Cuba’s answer to airborne leafletters: Searchlight, gun,” Miami Herald, August 7, 1995, NewsBank (accessed May 22, 2010). 121. House Committee on International Relations, Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere The Shootdown of the Brothers to the Rescue — What Happened?, 48. 122. Thomas W. Lippman and Guy Gugliotta, “U.S. data forced Cuba to retreat on shooting; Basulto bragged of buzzing Havana previously,” Washington Post, March 16, 1996, Lexis-Nexis (accessed June 13, 2010). 123. Ibid. 124. Interview with Jose Basulto, cited in Kiger and Kruger, Squeeze Play, 9; Jefferson Motley, “Shoot down,” Washington Post, May 25, 1997, Lexis-Nexis (accessed January 23, 2010). Tamayo is also known for being Cuba’s first cosmonaut. In the late 1970s, the Soviet Union launched the Intercosmos program in which men from other countries served as cosmonauts. Tamayo is credited with being the first Hispanic and black person in space. 125. John Dorschner, “Clear and present danger,” Tropic, February 16, 1997, NewsBank (accessed May 22, 2010). 126. Cynthia Corzo, “‘Brothers’ gives money to democratic groups in Cuba,” Miami Herald, February 14, 1996, NewsBank (accessed May 22, 2010). 127. Fernández, Adrift, 198. 128. House Committee on International Relations, Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere The Shootdown of the Brothers to the Rescue — What Happened?, 69. 129. Ibid. 130. Ibid. 131. Fernández, Adrift, 199 –200. 132. Kiger and Kruger, Squeeze Play, 7. 133. Excerpt of the conversation between Brothers to the Rescue pilots and Cuban air traffic controllers, February 24, 1996, http:// www2.fiu.edu/~fcf/shootdown.html (accessed October 17, 2010). 134. House Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Crime, Shoot-Down of the Brothers to the Rescue Planes, 106th Cong., 1st sess. (Washington, DC: U.S. GPO, July 15, 1999), 27; Dorschner, “Clear and present danger.” 135. House Committee on International Relations, Shoot Down of U.S. Civilian Aircraft by Castro Regime, 104th Cong., 2nd sess. (Washington, DC: U.S. GPO, February 29, 1996), 3. 136. Nagin, “Annals of diplomacy backfire,”

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30 –35, 34; John Dorschner. “Brothers unrescued,” Miami Herald Tropic, February 16, 1997, NewsBank (accessed May 22, 2010). 137. House Committee on International Relations, Shoot Down of U.S. Civilian Aircraft by Castro Regime, 3. 138. Excerpt of the conversation between Brothers to the Rescue pilots and Cuban air traffic controllers. 139. David Lyons, “Cuban spy indictment charges filed in downing of exile fliers— Castro agents in Miami cited by U.S. grand jury,” Miami Herald, May 8, 1999, NewsBank (accessed May 22, 2010). 140. Jefferson Motley, “Shoot down,” Washington Post, May 25, 1997, Lexis-Nexis (accessed January 23, 2010). 141. Tim Padgett, “The spy who raped me,” Time, July 2, 2001, www.time.com (accessed November 14, 2010). 142. Mireya Navarro, “Wife remembers a spy with love and disbelief,” New York Times, March 2, 1996, Lexis-Nexis (accessed January 30, 2010); Dorschner, “Brothers unrescued.” 143. Navarro, “Wife remembers a spy with love and disbelief”; interview with Ana Margarita Martinez on BlogTalk Radio, January 7, 2008, http://virginiamargarita.wordpress.com/2010/ 05/20/blogtalkradio-share–show-widget (accessed June 23, 2010). 144. Lucia Newman, “Roque says Brothers to the Rescue was ‘terrorist,’” CNN, February 28, 1996, Lexis-Nexis (accessed June 13, 2010). 145. Navarro, “Wife remembers a spy with love and disbelief.” 146. Gail Epstein Nieves, “Messages may have warned of shoot down,” Miami Herald, December 23, 2000, NewsBank (accessed May 22, 2010). The Cuban Air Force had simulated MiG attacks on slow-moving aircraft just days before the shootdown. The FBI did not discover this until later. 147. Gail Epstein Nieves, “Messages may have warned of shoot down,” Miami Herald, December 23, 2000, NewsBank (accessed May 22, 2010). 148. Ibid. 149. Ibid. 150. Nieves, “Messages may have warned of shoot down.” 151. Frida Ghitis, The End of Revolution: A Changing World in the Age of Live Television (New York: Algora, 2001), 51. Passengers aboard the Royal Caribbean cruise ship Majesty of the Seas and a tuna fishing boat, Tri-Liner, saw the two shootings. Witnesses on the ships contended that the shootings occurred in international waters, contradicting the Cubans’ claim that the attacks were justified because the two planes had entered Cuban airspace. Neither of the destroyed aircraft had entered Cuban airspace, although Basulto, piloting the only plane of the three that survived, had.

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152. William J. Clinton, “Remarks announcing sanctions against Cuba following the downing of American civilian aircraft,” February 26, 1996, American Presidency Project, www.presidency.ucsb.edu (accessed April 1, 2010). 153. Although one would think that the two votes were similar, there were many differences in the 74 –24 vote to pass Helms-Burton on October 19 and the 74 –22 vote to pass it on March 5. Changing their votes from nay to yea were Robert Byrd (D–WV), Diane Feinstein (D–CA), John Bennett Johnston, Jr. (D–LA), and David Pryor (D–AR). Changing their votes from yea to nay were Kit Bond (R–MO), Bob Kerrey (D– NE), and John Kerry (D–MA). Changing their votes from yea to no vote were Richard Lugar (R–IN) and William Roth (R–DE). Changing their votes from nay to no vote were Daniel Inouye (D–HI) and Sam Nunn (D–GA). 154. William J. Clinton, “Remarks on signing the Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity (LIBERTAD) Act of 1996,” March 12, 1996, American Presidency Project, www.presidency. ucsb.edu (accessed March 20, 1996; William J. Clinton, “Statement on Signing the Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity (LIBERTAD) Act of 1996,” March 12, 1996, American Presidency Project, www.presidency.ucsb.edu (accessed October 17, 2010). These are two different documents given on the same day that happen to have very similar names. 155. Morris H. Morley and Chris McGillon, Unfinished Business: America and Cuba After the Cold War, 1989–2001 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 105 (brackets in original). 156. “Europeans agree on steps to retaliate for U.S. Cuba curbs,” New York Times, July 16, 1996, Lexis-Nexis (accessed October 17, 2010). 157. Clyde H. Farnsworth, “In Canadians’ retort on trade, politics of the absurd,” New York Times, July 28, 1996, Lexis-Nexis (accessed October 19, 2010). 158. Patrick J. Haney and Walt Vanderbush, “Clinton’s other infidelity: Signing, ignoring, and then disobeying Helms-Burton,” in Executing the Constitution: Putting the President Back into the Constitution, ed. Christopher S. Kelley (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2006). 159. Wayne S. Smith, “PIRATING RADIO MARTÍ,” Nation, 1997, 264 (3): 21. 160. Guy Gugliotta, “Moving the Martís, despite static,” Washington Post, July 16, 1996, Lexis-Nexis (accessed October 17, 2010). 161. Richard L. Shiffrin, memorandum for David W. Burke, chairman, Broadcasting Board of Governors, May 21, 1996, http://www.usdoj. gov/olc/broadcub.2.htm (accessed October 17, 2010). 162. Statement of William J. Clinton during presidential debate in Hartford, October 6, 1996,

American Presidency Project, www.presidency. ucsb.edu (accessed April 1, 2010). 163. Clinton Received 2,546,870 (48.03 percent) votes. Dole received 2,244,536 (42.32 percent) votes. Reform Party candidate Ross Perot received 483,870 (9.12 percent) votes. Libertarian Party candidate Harry Browne received 23,326 (0.44 percent) votes. There were 4,552 (0.09 percent) write-in candidates. 164. William M. LeoGrande, “Enemies evermore: U.S. policy towards Cuba after HelmsBurton,” Journal of Latin American Studies 29, no. 1 (1997): 211–221, 213. 165. Clinton, My Life, 727. 166. Ibid., 701. 167. Jorge Mas Canosa and Ricardo Alarcón, 1996, “Debate between Jorge Mas Canosa and Ricardo Alarcón” (Miami, FL: Endowment for Cuban American Studies), 16; Herald Staff, “Alarcon-Mas debate — two men, two worlds, two Cuban realities,” Miami Herald, September 6, 1996, NewsBank (accessed May 22, 2010). 168. Pablo Alfonso, “Cuban dissident, Mas hold talks,” Miami Herald, January 6, 1997, NewsBank (accessed May 22, 2010). 169. Teresa Huerta and Asieh Namdar, “Tourism overtakes sugar as new cash crop in Cuba,” CNN, January 26, 1997, Lexis-Nexis (accessed January 30, 2010). 170. “Journalist Bardach issues statement on ‘diplomatic assurances’ on torture before House panel,” US Fed News, November 15, 2007, LexisNexis (accessed June 23, 2010). 171. Ann Louise Bardach and Larry Rohter, “A bomber’s tale: Taking aim at Castro; key Cuba foe claims exiles’ backing,” New York Times, July 12, 1998, ProQuest (accessed March 6, 2010). 172. Ann Louise Bardach and Larry Rohter, “A plot on Castro spotlights a powerful group of exiles,” New York Times, May 5, 1998, LexisNexis (accessed January 21, 2010). 173. Ann Louise Bardach, Cuba Confidential: Love and Vengeance in Miami and Havana (New York: Vintage, 2003), 215. 174. Ann Louise Bardach, Without Fidel: Death Foretold in Miami, Havana, and Washington (New York: Scribner, 2009), 148. 175. Ibid., 148. 176. Ibid., 149. 177. Bardach and Rohter, “A plot on Castro spotlights a powerful group of exiles.” 178. Gail Epstein Nieves, “Accused spies leaked exile’s illness,” Miami Herald, January 20, 2001, NewsBank (accessed May 30, 2009). 179. Rui Ferreira, “Radio y Televisión Martí demoraron en dar noticia,” El Nuevo Herald, November 25, 1997, NewsBank (accessed May 30, 2009). 180. “MIAMI — New Leader,” Associated

Notes—Chapter Eleven Press Worldstream, November 23, 1997, LexisNexis (accessed February 5, 2010).

Chapter Eleven 1. Himlice Novas, Everything You Need to Know About Latino History (New York: Plume, 2003), 210. 2. Kathy Glasgow, “Miami’s Voice,” Miami New Times, October 22, 1998, www.miaminewtimes.com (accessed March 20, 2010). 3. Pope John Paul II, “Farewell address in Havana,” January 25, 1998, http://ordendemaltacuba.com/farewell.aspx (accessed June 20, 2009). The papal visit to Cuba received limited coverage in the regular media because the Monica Lewinsky scandal broke during this same time. 4. William J. Clinton, “Statement on Cuba,” March 20, 1998, American Presidency Project, www.presidency.ucsb.edu (accessed March 28, 2010). More than a year later, the White House announced that scholars, journalists, and human rights workers could travel to Cuba from cities other than Miami (George Gedda, “Direct Flights to Cuba from New York, Los Angeles approved,” Associated Press State and Local Wire, August 3, 1999, Lexis-Nexis [accessed March 28, 2010]). 5. Jim Moret, Joie Chen, Realph Begleiter, Lucia Newman, John Zarella, Bill Press, Pat Buchanan, Bruce Morton, “U.S. and Cuba: Shifting relations,” CNN Live Event/Special, March 21, 1998, Lexis-Nexis (accessed March 28, 2010). 6. “News Conference on Cuba Policy—Senator Jesse Helms (R–NC) and Senator Bob Graham (D–FL)— The Capitol Senate Radio-TV Gallery — Washington DC,” Federal News Service, May 14, 1998, Lexis-Nexis (accessed March 28, 2010). 7. George Gedda, “Helms backs Cuba aid proposal,” Associated Press Worldstream, January 30, 1998, Lexis-Nexis (accessed March 28, 2010). 8. William M. LeoGrande, “A politics driven policy: Washington’s Cuba agenda is still in place—for now,” NACLA Report on the Americas 34, no. 3 (2000): 35 –41, 56 –57, 40. 9. Cynthia Corzo, “Herminio San Roman jura como director de Radio y TV Martí,” El Nuevo Herald, March 18, 1997, ProQuest (accessed February 5, 2010). 10. Kathy Glasgow, “Radio Free Miami; welcome to the new Radio Martí, dragged into the swirl of local exile politics, more quarrelsome than ever, and growing increasingly irrelevant,” Miami New Times, June 4, 1998, Lexis-Nexis (accessed June 4, 1998). 11. Juan O. Tamayo, “U.S. study blasts Radio

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Martí management lax, programs unfair, report concludes,” Miami Herald, February 11, 1999, NewsBank (accessed May 30, 2009); Andrew Paxman, “Momentum at Martí,” Variety, August 31, 1998, Lexis-Nexis (accessed May 19, 2009). 12. Kathy Glasgow, “Voice of a nation,” Miami New Times, April 19, 2001, www.miaminewtimes.com (accessed June 2, 2009). 13. David Adams, “On the air, but under fire,” St. Petersburg Times, March 27, 2001, http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/sptimes/access (accessed June 1, 2009); Kathy Glasgow, “Voice of a nation,” Miami New Times, April 19, 2001, www.miaminewtimes.com (accessed June 2, 2009). 14. Ibid. 15. Tamayo, “U.S. study blasts Radio Martí management lax, programs unfair, report concludes.” 16. Departments of Commerce, Justice, and State, and Judiciary, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 1999, H.R. 4276, 105th Cong., 2nd sess., Congressional Record, 144 (August 4, 1998): H7115. 17. Tamayo, “U.S. study blasts Radio Martí management lax, programs unfair, report concludes.” 18. Kathy Glasgow, “Hot air waves,” Miami New Times, July 17, 1997, www.miaminewtimes. com (accessed June 1, 2009). 19. Karen Branch, “Politics mars wake; Radio Martí exec. exile in fight,” Miami Herald, January 5, 1999, NewsBank (accessed May 22, 2010). 20. Andrew Paxman, “Momentum at Martí,” Variety, August 31, 1998, Lexis-Nexis (accessed May 19, 2009). 21. Al Kamen, “Waiting for station identification,” Washington Post, May 25, 1998, LexisNexis (accessed May 19, 2009). 22. “Board asks President to fire head of Office of Cuba Broadcasting,” Associated Press State and Local Wire, October 8, 1998, LexisNexis (accessed May 25, 2010). 23. Paxman, “Momentum at Martí.” 24. Cynthia Corzo, “Tension splits Cuba broadcasting overseas,” Miami Herald, April 18, 1998, NewsBank (accessed May 30, 2009). 25. Andrew Paxman, “Panel knocks TV Martí topper,” Variety, November 2, 1998, Lexis-Nexis (accessed May 19, 2009); Rui Ferreira, “Panel: Fire Cuba Broadcasting chief,” Miami Herald, October 8, 1998, NewsBank (accessed May 30, 2009). 26. Corzo, “Tension splits Cuba broadcasting overseas.” 27. Kathy Glasgow, “No Mas, No Meet,” Miami New Times, July 22, 1999, www.miaminewtimes.com (accessed June 2, 2009). 28. Ibid. 29. John Maggs, “Weakening signal from Radio Martí,” National Journal, April 29, 2000,

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vol. 32, issue 18, pp. 1356–1357, Lexis-Nexis (accessed May 29, 2009). 30. Sarah Rose, “Radio Martí doubles power of Cuban broadcasts,” Miami Herald, November 10, 1999, Lexis-Nexis (accessed January 30, 2010). 31. “Government radio station to boost signal to Cuba,” Associated Press State and Local Wire, November 9, 1999, Lexis-Nexis (accessed May 15, 2009). 32. Ibid. 33. Anita Snow, “Sick Cuban child leaves for United States with Illinois Governor,” Associated Press, October 27, 1999, Lexis-Nexis (accessed September 19, 2010). 34. Rosa Miriam Elizalde and Luis Baez, The Dissidents: Cuban State Security Agents Reveal the True Story (La Habana: Editora Politica, 2003), http://dccofc.org/Cuba/Disidents/index.html (accessed October 19, 2010), 111–113. 35. Chuck Strouse, “Riptide,” Miami New Times, December 16, 1999, Lexis-Nexis (accessed June 2, 2009). 36. Estate of Alejandre v. the Republic of Cuba, United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida, 996 F. Supp. 1239, 1997, LexisNexis (accessed April 6, 2009). The judgment was for $49,927,911 in compensatory damages and $137,700,000 for punitive damages for a total of $187,627,911. 37. Christopher Marquis, “Families win Cuban money in pilots’ case,” New York Times, February 14, 2001, Lexis-Nexis (accessed March 28, 2010). Henri E. Cauvin, “Families of downed pilots sue Cuba,” Miami Herald, November 1, 1996, NewsBank (accessed May 22, 2010). Ironically, Clinton signed the 1996 Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, which allowed the pilots to sue Cuba. 38. Anita Snow, “Cuba sues United States for dlrs 181 billion,” Associated Press State and Local Wire, July 6, 1999, Lexis-Nexis (accessed January 30, 2010). 39. Daniel P. Erikson, The Cuba Wars: Fidel Castro, the United States and the Next Revolution (New York: Bloomsbury, 2008), 164. 40. Tim Golden, “5 Cuban exiles charged with plotting to kill Castro are acquitted,” New York Times, December 9, 1999, Lexis-Nexis (accessed October 14, 2010). 41. Ruth Ellen Wasem and Barbara A. Salazar, “Elian Gonzalez: Chronology and issues,” Congressional Research Service, August 21, 2000. Different sources list different numbers of passengers. In Cuba Confidential: Love and Vengeance in Miami and Havana, Ann Louise Bardach lists 15 people in the initial group. The boat returned to Cuba and one passenger left the group and remained on the island. The remaining passengers then left again. 42. Bardach, Cuba Confidential, 9 –10. 43. Bill Hutchinson, “Survivors tell tale of

hope and terror at sea,” New York Daily News, Lexis-Nexis (accessed January 30, 2010). 44. Juan Miguel Gonzalez, Elian’s father, was the son of Juan Gonzalez, brother of Lazaro. 45. Tim Golden, “Just Another Cuban Family Saga,” New York Times, April 23, 2000, LexisNexis (accessed October 19, 2010). 46. Roberto Cespedes, “Mystical power of Elián,” New York Times, April 4, 2000, ProQuest (accessed June 23, 2010). 47. Hanna Rosin, “Little Havana’s ‘El Milagro’; in 6-year-old Elian, many Miami Cubans see divine intervention,” Washington Post, January 22, 2000, Lexis-Nexis (accessed March 14, 2010). 48. Juan O. Tamayo, “Castro ultimatum — return boy in 72 hours or migration talks at risk,” Miami Herald, December 6, 1999, NewsBank (accessed May 22, 2010); Wilfredo Cancio Isla, “Little rafter celebrates birthday,” Miami Herald, December 6, 1999, NewsBank (accessed May 22, 2010). 49. Anita Snow, “Castro attends Cuban boy’s birthday party; protesters march,” Associated Press, December 6, 1999, Lexis-Nexis (accessed October 19, 2010). 50. Jeffrey Toobin, Too Close to Call: The Thirty-Six-Day Battle to Decide the 2000 Election (New York: Random House, 2001), 141. 51. Manny Garcia, “‘I want to stay,’ Elian says amid family, media,” Miami Herald, December 8, 1999, NewsBank (accessed May 22, 2010). 52. Ibid. 53. Carol Rosenberg, “Where should rafter boy live? S. Florida split,” Miami Herald, December 12, 1999, NewsBank (accessed May 30, 2009). 54. Gallup/CNN/USA Today Poll, April 1981, iPoll Databank, Roper Center for Public Opinion Research, University of Connecticut, ropercenter.uconn.edu (accessed March 25, 2010). 55. “Elian poll signals wake-up call,” Miami Herald, April 12, 2000, NewsBank (accessed May 22, 2010). 56. Andres Oppenheimer, “Latin media lean toward dad’s point,” Miami Herald, January 12, 2000, NewsBank (accessed May 22, 2010). 57. “Congress should stay out of Elian’s case; making the Cuban child a U.S. citizen subverts the process,” Greensboro News and Record, January 29, 2000, Lexis-Nexis (accessed May 25, 2009). 58. Anita Snow, “Cuba preparing Elian’s dad for trip,” Associated Press Online, April 3, 2000, Lexis-Nexis (accessed May 28, 2000). 59. Bardach, Cuba Confidential, 87. 60. Philip Peters, “Radio Martí’s shrinking audience and what to do about it,” Lexington Institute, June 6, 2002, http://www.lexingtoninstitute.org/radio-Martís-shrinking-audience-and-

Notes—Chapter Eleven what-to-do-about–it?a=1andc=1182 (accessed October 17, 2010). 61. Alan Diaz, “Account of events of April 22, 2000,” Associated Press, April 22, 2000, LexisNexis (accessed March 28, 2010). 62. Ibid. 63. Judy Woodruff, Patty Davis, Susan Candiotti, “INS officer in charge defends raid that retrieved Elian Gonzalez,” CNN Transcripts, Lexis-Nexis (accessed March 5, 2010); “Seized raid returns Elian to father,” Miami Herald, April 23, 2000, NewsBank (accessed May 30, 2009). 64. Kathy Glasgow, “Broadcast blunder,” Miami New Times, August 31, 2000, http:// www.miaminewtimes.com/2000 –08 –31/news/ broadcast-blunder/1 (accessed May 29, 2009). 65. John Maggs, “Weakening signal from Radio Martí,” National Journal 32, no. 18 (April 29, 2000), 1356–1357, Lexis-Nexis (accessed May 29, 2009). 66. Maggs, “Weakening signal from Radio Martí.” 67. Maggs, “Weakening signal from Radio Martí”; Howard Kurtz, “The Leo interview: Why hardly anyone cares,” Washington Post, May 1, 2000, Lexis-Nexis (accessed May 29, 2009). 68. Al Gore, “Statement by Al Gore About Elian Gonzalez,” U.S. Newswire, March 30, 2000, Lexis-Nexis (accessed February 11, 2009). 69. Robert M. Levine, Secret Missions to Cuba: Fidel Castro, Bernardo Benes, and Cuban Miami (New York: Palgrave, 2001), 224. 70. After Hurricane Andrew, Radio Martí set up 1–800 –77-MARTÍ to allow exiles to send messages to loved ones in Cuba letting them know that they were all right. 71. Michael Grunwald, The Swamp: The Everglades, Florida, and the Politics of Paradise (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2006), 309. 72. Ralph Nader, Crashing the Party: Taking on the Corporate Government in an Age of Surrender (New York: Thomas Dunne/St. Martin’s, 2002), 275. 73. Michael Grunwald, The Swamp: The Everglades, Florida, and the Politics of Paradise (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2006), 313. 74. Albert Gore, Earth in the Balance: Ecology and the Human Spirit (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1992), 340. 75. Washington Post political staff, Deadlock: The Inside Story of America’s Closest Election (New York: PublicAffairs, 2001), 144. 76. “Alex Penelas: Sexiest politician,” People, November 15, 1999, p. 104. 77. Kevin A. Hill and Dario Moreno, “Battleground Florida,” in Muted Voices: Latinos and the 2000 Elections, ed. Rodolfo O. De la Garza and Louis DeSipio (Lanham, MD: Roman and Littlefield, 2005), 218. 78. Washington Post political staff, Deadlock, 44.

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79. “A selection of comments on the custody battle over Elian Gonzalez with US-Cuban boy,” Associated Press, March 30, 2000, Lexis-Nexis (accessed July 11, 2009). 80. Michael Grunwald, The Swamp: The Everglades, Florida, and the Politics of Paradise (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2006), 347. 81. David Karp, “Nader pounds corporate politics,” St. Petersburg Times, October 14, 2000, Lexis-Nexis (accessed May 27, 2010). 82. Bill Summary and Status, S. 2796, Library of Congress, 2005, http://thomas.loc.gov (accessed December 12, 2010). 83. Center for Responsive Politics, “Cuban American Contributions to Presidential Candidates (by Cycle),” http://www.opensecrets.org/ pubs/cubareport/presrecipts.asp (accessed June 10, 2004); also cited in Patrick Jude Haney and Walt Vanderbush, The Cuban Embargo: The Domestic Politics of an American Foreign Policy (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2005), 131. 84. Toobin, Too Close to Call, 146. 85. Ibid., 143. 86. Andrés Oppenheimer, “Growing Hispanic vote among the big election winners,” Miami Herald, November 8, 2000, NewsBank (accessed May 22, 2010); Rosenberg, “Where should rafter boy live?” 87. When it became obvious that the race would be very close, several environmental organizations ended their support of Nader and urged him to help Gore by dropping out. When Nader refused, the groups changed their support to Gore. In this case, Gore may have actually stolen votes from Nader although this amount probably did not exceed the initial number that Gore lost to Nader due to the Homestead decision and other reasons (“Nader allies urge him to drop out Groups want candidate to yield field to Gore,” Florida Times-Union, November 3, 2000, Lexis-Nexis [accessed March 25, 2010]). 88. David Espo, “Ending recount blows Gore’s chances,” Associated Press Online, November 22, 2000, Lexis-Nexis (accessed June 8, 2009). 89. Both candidates were unopposed in these races (Evan Thomas and Mark Hosenball with Michael Isikoff and Joseph Contreras, “Cubans at the wheel,” Newsweek, December 11, 2000, Lexis-Nexis [accessed June 8, 2009]). 90. Ken Thomas, “Florida Sens. Graham, Nelson come to candidate Penelas’ defense over Gore comments,” Associated Press State and Local Wire, June 7, 2004, Lexis-Nexis (accessed October 19, 2009). 91. Bardach, Cub, 329. 92. Ibid., 105. 93. Ibid., 329. 94. Ibid. 95. Different sources give different numbers

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of floors for the Freedom Tower. The U.S. Department of the Interior lists the Freedom Tower as having 17 floors. 96. United States Department of Interior, National Park Service, “National Historic Landmark Nomination: Freedom Tower,” http:// www.nps.gov/history/nhl/designations/samples/fl/FreedomTower.pdf (accessed October 17, 2010). 97. Fabiola Santiago, “Historic Freedom Tower getting new life, identity,” Miami Herald, May 13, 2001, NewsBank (accessed May 22, 2010). 98. Dana Canedy, “Heir to a Cuban exile leader is finding his own voice,” New York Times, September 2, 2001, Lexis-Nexis (accessed March 5, 2010). 99. Gail Epstein Nieves, “Agent: CANF leaders offered cash for blasts,” Miami Herald, April 11, 2001, NewsBank (accessed May 30, 2009). 100. United States of America v. Ruben Campa, a.k.a. John Doe 3, etc., Rene Gonzalez, a.k.a. Iselin, etc., Gerardo Hernandez, a.k.a. Giro, etc., Luis Medina, a.k.a. Oso, etc., Antonio Guerrero, a.k.a. Rolando Gonzalez-Diaz, etc. and United States of America v. Gerardo Hernandez, a.k.a. Giro, etc., Luis Medina, a.k.a. Oso, etc., Rene Gonzalez, a.k.a. Iselin, etc., Antonio Guerrero, a.k.a. Rolando Gonzalez-Diaz, etc., Ruben Campa, a.k.a. John Doe 3, etc., 419, F.3d, 1219, 11thCir., 2005, http://uniset.ca/other/cs5/419F3 d1219.html (accessed October 17, 2010). 101. Gail Epstein Nieves and Alfonso Chardy, “Cuban spies convicted — sweeping espionage verdices include murder of fliers— exiles call for Castro’s indictment in air deaths,” Miami Herald, June 9, 2001, NewsBank (accessed May 22, 2010). 102. “Cuban American opposition forces Junior Pan Am Games to move,” Associated Press Worldstream, June 22, 1999, Lexis-Nexis (accessed May 17, 2009). 103. Elaine de Valle and Carol Rosenberg, “CANF ignites Cuban media,” Miami Herald, July 25, 2001, NewsBank (accessed May 30, 2009). 104. Elaine De Valle, “Former members of CANF regroup,” Miami Herald, October 10, 2001, NewsBank (accessed May 30, 2009). 105. Elaine De Valle, “CANF’s Voice to Cuba to be muted,” Miami Herald, September 22, 2001, NewsBank (accessed May 30, 2009). 106. Departments of Commerce, Justice, and State, the Judiciary, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2002, H.R. 2500, 107th Cong., 1st sess., Congressional Record 147 (September 13, 2001): S9359. 107. Vivian Sequera, “Cuba faces challenge after Hurricane Michelle batters island,” Associated Press State and Local Wire, November 6, 2001, Lexis-Nexis (accessed May 26, 2009).

108. Dalia Acosta, “Cuba-U.S.: 40-year-old embargo lifted for emergency shipments, IPS (Inter Press Service), December 17, 2001, LexisNexis (accessed May 28, 2001). 109. Scott W. Carmichael, True Believer: Inside the Investigation and Capture of Ana Montes, Cuba’s Master Spy (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2007), 156 –162.

Chapter Twelve 1. Ronald Reagan, Speaking My Mind: Selected Speeches (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1989), 32. 2. Tim Padgett, “Cuba’s Catholic dissident: The saga of Oswaldo Payá,” America, 2003, 189 (12): 11–14, 12. 3. Ibid. 4. Daniel P. Erikson, The Cuba Wars: Fidel Castro, the United States and the Next Revolution (New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2008), 69. 5. Padgett, “Cuba’s Catholic dissident: The saga of Oswaldo Payá,” America, October 20, 2003, http://www.americamagazine.org/content/article.cfm?article_id=3227 (accessed October 21, 2010). 6. Luis Leal and Ilan Stavans, A Luis Leal Reader, Latino Voices (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2007), 128. Varela did not flee from Cuba to the United States. He was actually in Cádiz, Spain, when he signed a document that called for Ferdinand to relinquish control of the Americas. It was then that he and the other signatories were sentenced to death. 7. The 2002 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Jimmy Carter. Payá was nominated the following year but lost to Iranian human rights activist Shirin Ebadi. 8. The 13 senators who did not vote on S. Res. 672, the resolution supporting the Varela Project, were Joe Biden (D–DE), Jon Corzine (D–NJ), Michael Crapo (R–ID), Thomas Harkin (D–IA), Jesse Helms (R–NC), Asa Hutchinson (R–AR), Edward Kennedy (D–MA), Joe Lieberman (D–CT), John McCain (R–AZ), Barbara Mikulski (D–MD), Ben Nelson (D–NE), Robert Torricelli (D–NJ), and George Voinovich (R– OH). 9. “Talking About Payá,” Miami Herald, January 14, 2003, NewsBank (accessed May 22, 2010). 10. Jeff Jacoby, “The U.S. embargo and Cuba’s future,” Boston Globe, March 21, 2002, Lexis-Nexis (accessed May 21, 2009). 11. Jimmy Carter, Beyond the White House: Waging Peace, Fighting Disease, Building Hope (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2007), 81. 12. Jimmy Carter, Remarks by Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter at the University of Havana, Cuba, May 14, 2002, www.cartercenter.

Notes—Chapter Twelve org/news/documents/doc517.html (accessed May 15, 2010). 13. Jimmy Carter, Beyond the White House: Waging Peace, Fighting Disease, Building Hope (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2007), 84. 14. Juan Orlando Perez, “The media in Castro’s Cuba,” in The Media in Latin America, ed. Jairo Lugo-Ocando, 116 –130 (Maidenhead, Berkshire: McGraw Hill/Open University Press, 2008), 128. 15. House Committee on International Relations, Subcommittee on International Operations and Human Rights, An Assessment of Cuba Broadcasting—Voice of Freedom, Serial No. 107– 94, 107th Cong., 2nd sess. (Washington, DC: U.S. GPO, June 6, 2002), 40. 16. Paul Brinkley Rogers, “New direction is planned for troubled Radio Martí,” Miami Herald, July 19, 2001, Sun Guard Higher Education (accessed December 17, 2008). 17. Ibid. 18. Miami Herald, March 4, 1984, Lexis-Nexis (accessed June 15, 2010). 19. William Wilbanks, Forgotten Heroes: Police Officers Killed in Dade County, 1895 –1995 (Paducah, KY: Turner, 1996), 180. 20. “Reaction from the Latin community,” Miami Herald, February 17, 1988, NewsBank (accessed May 22, 2010). 21. United States Department of State and the Broadcasting Board of Governors Office of Inspector General, Review of the Effectiveness and Implementation of Office of Cuba Broadcasting’s New Program Initiatives, IBO-A-03 –01 (Washington, DC: Office of Inspector General, January 2003), 3; House Committee on International Relations, Subcommittee on International Operations and Human Rights, An Assessment of Cuba Broadcasting— Voice of Freedom. 22. Kathy Glasgow, “Incessant static,” Miami New Times, March 28, 2002, www.miaminewtimes.com/2002–03 –28/news/incessant-static/ (accessed May 28, 2010). 23. United States Department of State and the Broadcasting Board of Governors Office of Inspector General, Review of the Effectiveness and Implementation of Office of Cuba Broadcasting’s New Program Initiatives, IBO-A-03 –01 (Washington, DC: Office of Inspector General, January 2003), 5, 16, 23, and 33. 24. Glasgow, “Incessant static.” 25. United States Department of State and the Broadcasting Board of Governors Office of Inspector General, Review of the Effectiveness and Implementation of Office of Cuba Broadcasting’s New Program Initiatives, 23. 26. Ibid., 34. 27. Leyla Linton, “Cuban asylum-seekers crash stolen bus into Mexican embassy grounds,” Independent, March 1, 2002, Lexis-Nexis (accessed May 21, 2009).

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28. Ibid. 29. Vivian Sequera, “Cubans hide in Mexico embassy,” Associated Press Online, Lexis-Nexis (accessed October 13, 2009). 30. “Cuban-Americans call Mexican boycott,” United Press International, March 4, 2000, Lexis-Nexis (accessed May 21, 2009). One cannot help but wonder what might have been if President Bush had chosen Alberto Mora, the CANF endorsed candidate, to head the Office of Cuba Broadcasting rather than Lew. Instead of the OCB, Bush appointed Mora general counsel to the Department of the Navy. Mora was in the Pentagon on the morning of September 11, 2001, when American Airlines Flight 77 hit the building. In 2002, he wrote a memo that revealed the Bush administration’s policy of using torture to interrogate prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. For taking this position Mora earned a Profile in Courage award from the John F. Kennedy Library in 2006. 31. Jeff Flake Biography, http://flake.house. gov/Biography (accessed January 11, 2009). 32. Interest Group Ratings for William Delahunt, Project VoteSmart, www.votesmart. org/ issue_rating_category.php?can_id=1017 (accessed February 19, 2010). 33. Ibid. 34. House Committee on International Relations, Amending the Microenterprise for Self-Reliance Act of 2000 and the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, increasing assistance for the poorest people in developing countries under microenterprise assistance programs under those acts, and for other purposes; and the Freedom Promotion Act of 2002, 107th Cong., 2nd sess. (Washington, DC: U.S. GPO, April 25, 2002), 132. 35. Ibid., 141. 36. Ibid., 131. 37. Ibid., 133 –134. 38. Ibid., 143. 39. House Committee on International Relations, Subcommittee on International Operations and Human Rights, An Assessment of Cuba Broadcasting — Voice of Freedom, 3. 40. Ibid., 135. 41. Jacob Bernstein and John Lantigua, “Foundation follies: The Cuban American National Foundation sues its enemies again, but this time they’re fighting back,” Miami New Times, November 19, 1998, Lexis-Nexis (accessed October 18, 2010). In 1996, Smith lost a defamation suit against the CANF for statements he made in a 1992 documentary. He later won on appeal. 42. Daniel W. Fisk, “The end of an era,” Washington Quarterly (2001): 93 –107, 104. 43. House Committee on International Relations, Subcommittee on International Operations and Human Rights, An Assessment of Cuba Broadcasting — Voice of Freedom, 20. 44. House Committee on International Rela-

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tions, Subcommittee on International Operations and Human Rights, An Assessment of Cuba Broadcasting—Voice of Freedom, 50. It is also interesting to note that Delahunt and Lincoln Diaz-Balart had an interesting exchange in which the Florida representative said that, unlike Cuba, “we do have elections every two years in South Florida.” Delahunt said that the Department of Justice “has some issues with the most recent elections in Florida,” a reference to the controversial 2000 presidential election. This is ironic considering that there were disputed votes due to punch card ballots that worked to Delahunt’s favor when he was elected in 1996. No one drew attention to this during the hearing. 45. House Committee on International Relations, Subcommittee on International Operations and Human Rights, An Assessment of Cuba Broadcasting— Voice of Freedom, 51. 46. Ibid. 47. Ibid. 48. Ibid. 49. Ibid., 52. 50. Ibid., 73. 51. Oscar Corral and Andres Viglucci, “Dissident makes progress in building consensus,” Miami Herald, January 14, 2003, NewsBank (accessed May 22, 2010). 52. Committee on International Relations, Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, Overview of Radio and Television Martí, 108th Cong., 1st sess. (Washington, DC: U.S. GPO, June 11, 2003), 23. 53. Corral and Viglucci, “Dissident makes progress in building consensus.” 54. Ibid. 55. Ian Arthur Bremmer, The J Curve: A New Way to Understand Why Nations Rise and Fall (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2006), 48. 56. Vanesa Bauzá, “Dissident sees Radio Martí as important tool for change,” Orlando Sentinel, June 10, 2002, NewsBank (accessed May 30, 2009). 57. Human Rights First, Oscar Espinosa Chepe, www.humanrightsfirst.org/ (accessed June 15, 2010). 58. Carlos Lauria, Monica Campbell and María Salazar, “Cuba’s long Black Spring,” Committee to Protect Journalists, March 18, 2008, http://cpj.org/reports/ (accessed March 31, 2010). 59. Jennifer Babson, Lisa Yanez and William Yardley, “Cuban plane flown to U.S.; six arrested in hijacking,” Miami Herald, March 20, 2003, NewsBank (accessed May 22, 2010). 60. Anita Snow, “Talks on with man claiming to be armed with grenades who attempted to hijack Cuban plane to United States,” Associated Press, April 1, 2003, Lexis-Nexis (accessed June 15, 2010). 61. Jennifer Babson, “Hijacked Cuban plane

lands in Key West; man taken into custody,” Miami Herald, April 1, 2003. 62. Renato Perez, “Cuban ferry commandeered to Florida now drifting in Straits,” Miami Herald, April 2, 2003. 63. Anita Snow, “Top American diplomat in Havana warns Cubans not to hijack any more planes or boats,” Associated Press Worldstream, April 3, 2003, Lexis-Nexis (accessed February 5, 2010). 64. Alfonso Chardy, “Cuba executes 3 hijackers,” Miami Herald, April 11, 2003. 65. Marc Frank, “Cuba foils new airline hijacking, blames U.S.,” South Florida Sun– Sentinel, April 11, 2003. 66. Elaine de Valle, Jacqueline Charles, and Tim Johnson, “President Bush nominates Miami lawyer to head Radio, TV Martí,” Miami Herald, April 2, 2003, Ebsco Host (accessed February 5, 2010). 67. Ibid. 68. Pablo Bachelet, “Plane may help overcome Cuba’s ‘news blockade,’” Miami Herald, January 3, 2006, NewsBank (accessed May 22, 2010). 69. Nancy San Martin, “U.S. won’t redeploy plane broadcasting to Cuba, official says,” Miami Herald, June 23, 2005, Ebsco Host (accessed February 5, 2010). 70. “U.S. Air Force Special Operations Command, Public Affairs Office, EC-130J COMMANDO SOLO Fact Sheet,” http://www.af.mil/ information/factsheets/factsheet.asp?id=182 (accessed February 6, 2010). 71. Bart Jones, ¡Hugo!: The Hugo Chávez Story from Mud Hut to Perpetual Revolution (New Hanover, NH: Steerforth, 2007), 150 –151. 72. Ibid., 157. 73. Ibid. 74. “Castro meets failed Venezuelan coup leader,” Associated Press, December 14, 1994, Lexis-Nexis (accessed October 27, 2009). 75. Bill Cormier, “Latin American conservatives dwindle as ‘bishop of the poor’ takes Paraguay’s presidency,” Associated Press Worldstream, April 21, 2008, Lexis-Nexis (accessed March 6, 2010). 76. Peter Wallsten, “Feuding exiles could cause political pain for president Bush,” Miami Herald, July 25, 2003, NewsBank (accessed May 10, 2010); Oscar Corral, “CANF outraged by return of Dozen Cubans,” Miami Herald, July 27, 2003, NewsBank (accessed May 10, 2010). 77. Wallsten, “Feuding exiles could cause political pain for president Bush.” 78. Ken Thomas, “Lieberman urges Bush to apply pressure on Cuba,” Associated Press, May 8, 2003, Lexis-Nexis (accessed June 11, 2009). 79. David Lightman, “Appearances shift presidential candidate Joe Lieberman into higher gear,” Hartford Currant, May 15, 2003, LexisNexis (accessed June 11, 2009).

Notes—Chapter Twelve 80. Joshua Kurlantzick, “Castr-ated: The Bush administration’s aversion to dealing with Cuba is reducing our influence on the island — just when there’s a chance to encourage change,” Washington Monthly, April 1, 2007, Lexis-Nexis (accessed June 18, 2009). 81. Mas Castro, “Triumph of the zealots: A small cadre of exile fanatics now controls the Bush administration’s Cuba policy, and Fidel couldn’t be happier,” Miami New Times, July 29, 2004, Lexis-Nexis (accessed June 18, 2009). 82. “U.S. seeks to subvert presidential succession in Cuba,” USA Today, May 6, 2004, www. usatoday.com (accessed February 6, 2010). 83. Ibid. 84. Office of Senator Max Baucus, “Sen. Baucus calls Bush’s Cuba Policy ‘Absurd,’” US Fed News, May 6, 2004, Lexis-Nexis (accessed February 26, 2010). 85. Kurlantzick, “Castr-ated.” 86. Kirk Nielsen, “Politics and policy — With its severe new Cuba regulations, the Bush administration alienated some Miami exiles, but not the ones who matter,” Miami New Times, July 29, 2004, Lexis-Nexis (accessed June 18, 2009). In July the House voted 221 to 194 in favor of a Flake amendment that called for the reinstatement of items that had been eligible for gift parcels before the CAFC limitations: clothing, personal hygiene items, seeds, fishing equipment, soap-making equipment and veterinary medicine and supplies. The text was dropped in later versions of the bill. 87. Bush’s relations with Cuban Americans improved in August of 2004. Panamanian president Mireya Moscoso pardoned Luis Posada and three other Cubans less than a week before she left office. The four men were detained in 2000 for attempting to assassinate Castro at the IberoAmerican Summit in Panama City. The Bush administration allowed the men to enter the United States without penalty. Her actions caused Cuba to terminate relations with Panama. 88. Soraya Castro Mariño, “The Cuba-United States conflict: Notes for reflection in the context of the War against Terrorism,” in Foreign Policy toward Cuba: Isolation or Engagement?, ed. Michele Zebich-Knos and Heather N. Nicol (Lexington, 2005), 214. 89. Daniel C. Walsh, “A Dual Method Application of Exchange Theory as Applied to Radio Martí” (PhD diss., University of South Carolina, 2008). 90. Al Kamen, “Quick, form the box office,” Washington Post, January 29, 2003, Lexis-Nexis (accessed June 16, 2009). 91. Lars Schoultz, That Infernal Little Cuban Republic: The United States and the Cuban Revolution (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2009), 548. 92. Vanessa Arrington, “U.S. mission ignores

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Cuban warning over Christmas decorations,” Associated Press, December 15, 2004, LexisNexis (accessed May 19, 2010). 93. “Cuba puts up massive billboard showing Iraqi prisoner abuse in front of U.S. mission in Havana,” Associated Press, December 17, 2004, Lexis-Nexis (accessed May 19, 2010). 94. Bill Summary and Status, S. Amdt. 284 to S. 600, Library of Congress, 2005, http:// thomas.loc.gov (accessed December 9, 2010). 95. Foreign Affairs Authorization Act, Fiscal Years 2006 and 2007, S. 600, 109th Cong., 1st sess., Congressional Record 151 (April 5, 2005): S 3191. 96. David Adams, “With loss of a blimp over Keys, TV Martí takes another hit,” St. Petersburg Times, August 26, 2005, Lexis-Nexis (accessed May 19, 2010). 97. Bill Summary and Status, S. Amdt. 1294 to H.R. 3057, Library of Congress, 2005, http:// thomas.loc.gov (accessed December 9, 2010). 98. Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Appropriations Act, 2006, H.R. 3057, 109th Cong., 1st sess., Congressional Record 151 (July 19, 2005): S8464. 99. Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Appropriations Act, 2006, H.R. 3057, 109th Cong., 1st sess., Congressional Record 151 (July 19, 2005): S8466. 100. Jon Corzine (D–NJ) voted against tabling the debate on TV Martí in April and voted against terminating funding for TV Martí (allowing the station to continue) in July. Mary Landrieu (D–LA) voted against tabling the debate on TV Martí in April and was registered as a no vote in July. 101. Michael Enzi (R–WY) and John Sununu (R–NH) voted to terminate funding for TV Martí, as did Jim Jeffords (I–VT). 102. Frances Robles, “TV Martí broadcasts slashed by damage to blimps,” Miami Herald, August 20, 2005, Lexis-Nexis (accessed October 13, 2009). 103. Florencia Copley, “Telesur is constructing another view,” Venezuela Analysis, December 14, 2005, www.venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/1527 (accessed June 16, 2009). 104. Nikolas Kozloff, “Chavez launches hemispheric, ‘anti–hegemonic’ media campaign in response to local TV networks anti–government bias,” Memorandum to the Press 05.47, Council on Hemispheric Affairs, April 28, 2005, www. coha.org (accessed June 16, 2009); Florencia Copley, “Telesur is constructing another view.” 105. Nikolas Kozloff, Hugo Chávez: Oil, Politics and the Challenge to the United States (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), 127. 106. Katie Harr, “Radio and TV Martí: Washington guns after Castro at any cost,” Council on Hemispheric Affairs, www.coha.org (accessed October 13, 2009).

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107. Nancy San Martin, “U.S. won’t redeploy plane broadcasting to Cuba, official says,” Miami Herald, June 23, 2005, Academic OneFile (accessed March 25, 2010). 108. Manuel Roig-Franzia, “Havana’s 148 flags prove mightier than the billboard; in U.S.Cuba War of Ideas, Castro blocks envoys’ sign,” Washington Post, May 13, 2006, Lexis-Nexis (accessed May 19, 2010). 109. Ibid. 110. In this calculation, the start date for Fidel Castro assuming power is January 8, 1959, the day he arrived in Havana. Other sources will say the Castro regime started on January 1, the day Batista left Cuba. 111. Schoultz, That Infernal Little Cuban Republic, 443. 112. Oscar Corral, “10 Journalists get U.S. money for anti–Castro shows; PUBLISHER: ‘SACRED TRUST’ HURT,” Miami Herald, reprinted in the San Jose Mercury News, September 9, 2006, Lexis-Nexis (accessed June 15, 2010). 113. Ibid. 114. Oscar Corral, “At least 10 Miami journalists found to take U.S. payments,” Miami Herald, September 8, 2006, Ebsco Host (accessed February 5, 2010). 115. Martin Merzer, “Herald publisher will resign: The publisher of the Miami Herald and el Nuevo Herald will step down today and reverse recent firings of writers at el Nuevo Herald,” Miami Herald, October 3, 2006, Ebsco Host (accessed February 5, 2010). 116. Christina Hoag, “Newsroom philosophies differ,” Miami Herald, October 4, 2006, NewsBank (accessed May 22, 2010). 117. United States Department of State and the Broadcasting Board of Governors Office of Inspector General, Report of Inspection — Office of Cuba Broadcasting, ISP-IB-07–35 (Washington, DC: Office of Inspector General, June 2007). 118. Ibid., 10. 119. Vanessa Bauza, “TV Martí signal weak in Cuba, broadcast specialist says,” South Florida Sun–Sentinel, July 31, 2007, Lexis-Nexis (accessed March 5, 2010). 120. The contract with Radio Mambi was for about $183,000 for six months. The contract with TV Azteca was for about $464,900 per year. 121. United States General Accountability Office, Broadcasting to Cuba weaknesses in contracting practices reduced visibility into selected award decisions : report to the Chairman, Subcommittee on International Organizations, Human Rights, and Oversight, Committee on Foreign Affairs, House of Representatives, GAO-08 – 764 (Washington, DC: U.S. GAO, July 2008). 122. “Former Director of Programs for TV Martí pleads guilty to acting in conflict of interest,” States News Service, February 13, 2007, Lexis-Nexis (accessed June 18, 2009).

123. “TV Martí executive sentenced to 27 months for kickbacks,” Voice of America News: English Service, April 19, 2007, Lexis-Nexis (accessed March 27, 2010); Jean-Guy Allard, “Sobornos en Radio/TV Martí: El ‘Chema’ Miranda confiesa,” Granma Internacional, February 15, 2007, www.granma.cu/espanol/2007/ febrero/juev15/8chema.html (accessed March 27, 2010). 124. David Ovalle, “Freedom, then tragic end to 3 lives: The untimely deaths of three Mariel refugees— released last year after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling — illustrate the struggles they endured readjusting,” Miami Herald, October 11, 2006, Ebsco Host (accessed February 6, 2010). Daniel Benitez, “one of the plaintiffs in the case that granted the Marielitos their freedom, died of a heart attack six months after being released; obituaries in the News,” Associated Press, March 28, 2005, Lexis-Nexis (accessed October 9, 2010). 125. Keith O’Brien, “Six weeks after Cuban refugees were ordered released, many remain locked up. For some wardens that’s good, because housing them means big bucks,” New Orleans Times-Picayune, March 3, 2005, LexisNexis (accessed November 18, 2010).

Chapter Thirteen 1. Wayne S. Smith, “It is not impossible to deal with Castro— Realism is required,” New York Times, September 5, 1982, ProQuest (accessed September 29, 2010). 2. This was new for the 110th Congress under the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. 3. Christina Hoag and Oscar Corral, “Congress to investigate Radio, TV Martí,” Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News, December 19, 2006, Lexis-Nexis (accessed March 28, 2010). 4. ABC News/Washington Post Poll, January 2007, iPoll Databank, Roper Center for Public Opinion Research, University of Connecticut, ropercenter.uconn.edu.wncln.wncln. org (accessed March 25, 2010). 5. Carrie Budoff Brown, “Obama’s Cuba, Latin America policy,” May 23, 2008, www. Politico.com (accessed March 8, 2010). 6. Barack Obama, “Our Main Goal: Freedom in Cuba,” Miami Herald, August 21, 2007, Academic OneFile (accessed March 25, 2010). 7. Ibid. 8. John McCain and Mark Salter, Faith of My Fathers (New York: Random House, 1999), 319. 9. Reuters, “McCain a liar, Castro says; claim Cubans tortured him as a POW at issue,” National Post, February 12, 2008, Lexis-Nexis (accessed November 18, 2010). 10. Gerardo Reyes, “Obama’s camp distances

Notes—Chapter Thirteen self from Che flag,” Miami Herald, February 16, 2008, NewsBank (accessed May 22, 2010). 11. Ibid. 12. George Bennett, “McCain accused of ‘reversal’ after assailing Obama’s stance on Cuba,” Palm Beach Post, May 21, 2008, LexisNexis (accessed June 15, 2010). 13. “Sen. Barack Obama delivers remarks at a campaign event,” CQ Transcripts, May 28, 2008, Lexis-Nexis (accessed September 23, 2010). 14. “Key GOP senator calls Cuba embargo ineffective,” CNN.com, February 23, 2009, Lexis-Nexis (accessed March 28, 2010). 15. Google search conducted by the author January 1, 2009. Additional searches found 107,000 Web pages for “Radio Martí” and 93,000 Web pages for “TV Martí.” These are different in that the search engine will look for the specific terms between the quotation marks. Using Radio Martí without the quotation marks will look for the two terms anywhere on the page. The author did not include these because he thought the phrase “Cuba 50-year anniversary” would be unlikely to come up in that exact order. 16. U.S. Government Accountability Office, Broadcasting to Cuba actions are needed to improve strategy and operations: report to the Chairman, Subcommittee on International Organizations, Human Rights, and Oversight, Committee on Foreign Affairs, House of Representatives, GAO-09–127 (Washington, DC: U.S. GAO, January 2009), 18 (footnote omitted). 17. Ibid. 18. Committee on Foreign Relations, U.S. Senate, Cuba: immediate action is needed to ensure the survivability of Radio and TV Martí, 111th Congress, 2nd Session, April 29, 2010 (Washington, DC: U.S. GPO, 2010), 7. 19. U.S. Government Accountability Office, Broadcasting to Cuba Actions, 18. 20. Ibid., 23. 21. Ibid. 22. Ibid. 23. Ibid., 28 –29. 24. Ibid., 24. 25. Ibid., 19. 26. Ibid., 41. 27. Cuban American National Foundation, “Office of Cuba Broadcasting should be restructured to effectively promote its original objectives,” Press Release, February 4, 2009, www. canf.org/ (accessed June 23, 2010). 28. Cuban American National Foundation: A New Course for U.S.-Cuba Policy, Advancing People-Driven Change, http://graphics8.ny times.com/packages/pdf/national/20090409 cuba_CANF_paper.pdf (accessed October 19, 2010), 12. 29. Ibid. 30. Ibid., 13.

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31. David Adams, “$2.4M cut may hit broadcasts to Cuba,” St. Petersburg Times, May 14, 2009, Lexis-Nexis (accessed April 1, 2010). 32. Jim Lobe, “U.S.-Cuba: Senate body says Radio-TV Martí have been useless,” IPS (Inter Press Service), May 4, 2010, Lexis-Nexis (accessed June 17, 2010). 33. “US turns off message board at Havana mission, Voice of America News, July 27, 2009, Lexis-Nexis (accessed June 17, 2010). 34. House Subcommittee on International Organizations, Human Rights, and Oversight or the Committee on Foreign Affairs, TV Martí: A Station in Search of an Audience?, 111th Congress, 1st Session (Washington, DC: GPO, June 17, 2009), 2. 35. Ibid., 28. 36. Ibid., 38. 37. “Research and markets: In January 2009 Cuba’s network Etecsa stated that it intended to add a further 250,000 mobile subscribers during 2009,” Business Wire, June 18, 2009, Lexis-Nexis (accessed June 16, 2010). 38. Tim Elfrink and Vanessa Grisalez, “Cuba’s black market moves online with Revolico.com,” Miami New Times, October 1, 2009, Lexis-Nexis (accessed June 16, 2010). 39. Nick Miroff, “Teaching Twitter in Havana,” GlobalPost, April 21, 2010, Lexis-Nexis (accessed June 16, 2010). 40. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Cuba: Immediate Action Is Needed to Ensure the Survivability of Radio and TV Martí, 111th Cong., 2nd sess. (Washington, DC: U.S. GPO, April 29, 2010). 41. Patrick Leahy, Committee on Appropriations, Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Operations Bill, 2010, Report to Accompany S. 1434, S. Rpt. 111–44 (Washington, DC: U.S. GPO, July 9, 2009), 24. 42. Nita Lowey, Committee on Appropriations, State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Operations Bill, 2010, Report together with minority views to accompany H.R. 3081, H. Rpt. 111–187 (Washington, DC: U.S. GPO, June, 26, 2009), 31. 43. “LeMieux ‘encouraged’ as Radio TV/ Martí escape a sharp budget knife,” Miami Herald blog, http://miamiherald.typepad.com (accessed June 25, 2010). 44. “Feingold unveils major bill to slash the deficit, curb wasteful spending; Bill’s 40-plus proposals would cut deficit by one half trillion dollars,” Capitol Hill Press Releases, October 20, 2009, Lexis-Nexis (accessed March 28, 2010). 45. Sen. Russell D. Feingold, News Release, “Feingold launches ‘spotlight on spending’ series,” Congressional Documents and Publications, November 23, 2009, Lexis-Nexis (accessed March 28, 2010). 46. United States Department of State and the

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Broadcasting Board of Governors Office of Inspector General, Report of Inspection, the International Broadcasting Bureau’s Greenville, North Carolina, Transmitting Station, ISP-IB-05 –69 (Washington, DC: Department of State OIG, August 2005), 3. 47. “Professor: VOA station was communications post for spies,” Associated Press State and Local Wire, March 7, 1999, Lexis-Nexis (accessed March 26, 2010). 48. United States Department of State and the Broadcasting Board of Governors Office of Inspector General, Report of Inspection, 9. 49. Ginger Livingston, “Budget cuts may quiet Voice of America,” Daily Reflector, February 3, 2010, www.reflector.com/ (accessed March 26, 2010); shortwave central, http://mt-shortwave. blogspot.com (accessed March 26, 2010). 50. Laura Wides-Munoz, “US Cuba broadcasts work with VOA Spanish service,” Associated Press Worldstream, February 10, 2010, Lexis-Nexis (accessed April 1, 2010). 51. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, U.S. International Broadcasting, Is Anybody Listening?: Keeping the U.S. Connected, 111th Cong.,

2nd sess., June 9, 2010 (Washington: U.S. GPO), 10. 52. Ibid., 47 (footnote omitted). 53. Ros-Lehtinen had 140,617 votes (57.87 percent). Taddeo had 102,372 votes (42.13 percent). 54. Lincoln Diaz-Balart had 137,226 votes (57.90 percent). Martinez had 99,776 votes (42.10 percent). 55. Mario Diaz-Balart had 130,891 votes (53.05 percent). Garcia had 115,820 votes (46.95 percent). 56. Lincoln Diaz-Balart, “Congressman Lincoln Diaz-Balart announces he will not seek 10th term in U.S. Congress,” February 11, 2010, http://diaz-balart.house.gov (accessed October 19, 2010). 57. Donna Rich Kaplowitz, Anatomy of a Failed Embargo: U.S. Sanctions Against Cuba (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1998), 97. 58. David Nowak, “Report: Cuba, Venezuela could host Russian bombers,” Associated Press, March 14, 2009, Lexis-Nexis (accessed June 16, 2010).

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Index abortion debate 58 Abrams, Elliott 120 Abu Ghraib 196 Accumulative Student Index 18 accusatory journalism 74 Aché 186, 188 Actions Are Needed Report see “Broadcasting to Cuba: Actions Are Needed to Improve Strategy and Operations” Advisory Board for Cuba Broadcasting 86, 95, 98, 106, 115, 118, 120, 126, 140, 145, 156, 167, 170 –1, 176 Advisory Panel on Radio Martí and TV Martí 142– 5 Aero Martí 199 –200, 209 aerostats 118 –9, 126, 196 affirmative action 75 Afghanistan, Soviet invasion of 47, 49 Agency of Information Reporters (AIP) 136 Aguero, Ares Rivero 8 –9 Ahmadinejad, Mahmoud 209 AIDS, Radio Martí’s coverage of 95 –6, 185 Alabama Air National Guard 23, 25 Alarcón, Ricardo 165 Alcoa 75 Alejandre, Armando 161–2, 172 Alexander, Bill 128 Alhurra 210 –1 Al Jazeera 197, 211 Allen, George 116 Allen, Richard 48 –51, 69 Alles, Augustin 136, 140, 145 –6, 156 Alliance for Progress 94

Alonso, Jose 146 Alonso-Pujol, Guillermo, Jr. 92 Alvarez Pedroso, Pedro de la Caridad 131 America (magazine) 184 America Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) 169, 187, 200 American Airlines 159 American Airways Charters (AAC) 53 American Broadcasting Company (ABC) 67, 202 American Committee for Liberation from Bolshevism 63 American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) 50 American Revolution 164 American Right to Life Committee 58 American Telephone and Telegraph (AT&T) 101, 169, 171 Americans for Humanitarian Trade with Cuba 169 Amnesty International 44, 149 Angola, Cuba’s involvement in 48, 79, 95, 97, 101, 107, 136, 153, 185 Anscher, Bernard 141 Anti-Castro Exile Groups 20, 27, 34 –8, 50, 53 –4, 67–8, 102, 105 –7, 172, 182 Araujo, Richard H. 94 Arbenz Guzman, Jacobo 13 – 6 Arcos Bergnes, Sebastian 161 Ardnt, Richard T. 76 Arias, Maria 139 Arias, Oscar 100 Armas, Carlos Castillo 14 –6

293

Armory, Robert 21 Army of Education 18 Associated Press 36, 175 Asylum seekers in Cuba, at embassies 39, 148, 187 Atlanta prison riot 109 –10, 201 Bacardi Rum 135 balsero crisis, 1994 150 –2, 155 –6, 159 –60, 165, 183 balseros (rafters) 98 –9 bandwagon effect; see social proof Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs 100 Baran, Stanley 59 –9 Barcelo, Oscar 170 Bardach, Ann Louise 107, 180 Barron, Abe 84 Base Trax 20 –1 Basulto, Jose 159 –163 Batista, Fulgencio 5 –10, 20, 35, 62; departure from Cuba 9, 28, 35, 76, 94 –95, 105, 205 Baucus, Max 145, 195 Bay of Pigs Invasion 22–7, 31, 33 –4, 36, 39, 49 –50, 54, 63, 72, 74, 90, 97, 105, 109, 116, 123, 130, 134, 137, 157, 159, 166, 172, 181–2, 189; see also Brigade 2506 Bayer, William Bourne 74, 77–8 The Beatles 69 Bedell, Berkley 86 Belen Jesuit Preparatory School 31 Bell, Leo Francis 25 BellSouth 135 Benes, Bernardo 37–8, 79, 92–3, 177 Bennett, Marion 158 –9

294 Benson, Michael 130 Berelson, Bernard 55 Berger, Sandy 163 Berlin Wall 92, 113, 126 Betancourt, Ernesto 94, 97, 99, 114, 120, 132, 135–7, 143 Biden, Joe 197 Bingham, John 78 Biscayne Bank 50 Biscayne National Park 177 Bishop, Maurice 86, 88 Bissell, Richard 22 Bliley, Thomas 128 Blue Valley Dictator 7 Board for International Broadcasting (BIB) 63, 74, 79, 82, 86, 140 Bohemia (magazine) 136 Boland Amendment 85 Bolívar, Simón 193 Bolivarism 193, 213 Bolten, Joshua 77 bombing campaign in Cuba, 1997 166, 172 Bonachea, Rolando 114, 135 –6, 144 –6, 156, 158, 169, 214 Bonsal, Philip W. 21 Bosch, Orlando 186 Boyd, Bruce 114, 136 Bradley, Bill 177 Breheny, Patrick 79 Brenner, Phillip 132 Brigade 2506 20 –26, 30, 32, 36 –7, 39, 49, 97, 105, 159, 191 OR 192 British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) 69, 125 British Invasion 69 Broadcasting (magazine) 81, 91, 121, 124 Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) 86, 140, 164 –5, 180, 199, 207 Broadcasting Publications, Inc. 80 –1 Brothers to the Rescue 159 – 63, 172, 183 –4 Brotón, Elizabet 172–3 Brown, Jerry 139 Brown, Timothy 77 Budd, Zola 89 Bureau of Inter-American Affairs 77 Bureau of the Census 120 Burke, Arleigh 24 Burke, David L. 164 Burns, George 198 Burton, Dan 154, 158 Bush, George H.W. 50, 101, 112, 120, 123 –4, 126, 130 –1,

Index 133 –4, 137, 140, 145, 165, 180, 194 Bush, George W. 176, 178 – 80, 182–3, 189, 191, 193 –5, 197–9, 202–3, 212 Bush, Jeb 112, 134, 176 Cabrera, Lillian 146 California Republican Party 74 Calzon, Frank 90, 108 Camarioca Boatlift 30, 34, 39, 150 Captain Midnight 121–2 Carazo, Rodrigo 39 Cardona, José Miró 24 –5 Caribbean Broadcasting Union 120 Carmichael, Scott W. 183 Carollo, Joe 110 Carter, James Earl (Jimmy) 37–9, 43 –4, 48, 79, 151, 214; foreign policy of 44 – 5, 47–8, 52–3, 63, 64, 212– 3; trip to Cuba 185, 187 Casin, Jose 161 Cason, James 191 Castañeda, Jorge 187 Castro, Fidel 15, 66–7, 69, 74, 96–8, 103, 106–8, 112– 3, 123–4, 126, 132, 135–6, 141, 143, 145, 167, 171, 180 – 1, 184, 186–7, 196, 198, 203, 207, 213; anticipated downfall 101, 113–5, 128, 132, 134–5, 137–9, 153, 173, 182, 194–5, 198–9; assuming control of Cuban government 10–1, 28, 88, 116, 184; Barack Obama 203–4; Bay of Pigs 16–27; Bill Clinton 133–4, 139 –40, 151–9, 163–5, 168, 176; Brothers to the Rescue 160 –1; censorship of media 10, 188–9; Committee of 75 38; dissidents in Cuba 137–8, 185, 190 –1, 195, 198; early propaganda campaigns against 32–4; Elian Gonzalez 173, 176; Fulgencio Batista 5–10, 62, 94, 135; George H.W. Bush 130–4, 137; George W. Bush 183, 189, 191, 194–5; influence in Western Hemisphere 46–7, 49, 53, 68, 100 –1; Jimmy Carter 39–40, 47–8, 185, 187; march to Havana 10, 95; Mariel Boatlift 39–40, 48,

150 –1, 186; nationalization of property 10–1, 79, 157, 169; 1994 balsero crisis 150; plots against 32, 35, 37, 94, 106, 131–2, 136–7, 140, 166, 172, 194–5; relationship with Hugo Chávez 192–3; relationship with Soviet Union 11; Ronald Reagan 49–53, 88–94, 99–101; threat to interfere with broadcasting in the United States 70–3, 77–81, 84–5, 88–91, 94, 100, 120; transfer of power to Raul Castro 198–9, 204; transformation of Miami 28–32, 41–2; turning people against him 76, 88, 94, 126, 162, 191; use of U.S. policy to his advantage 72, 81, 116, 133, 137, 144, 150, 157–8, 168–9, 188 Castro, Fidelito 19 Castro, Juanita 32, 36 Castro, Raul 6, 19, 97, 198 – 9, 204, 209, 213; Barack Obama 204 –5, 213 Castro Countdown 128 Catholic Church: in Cuba 19; in El Salvador 45 La Causa 35 –38, 50, 53, 108, 111, 132, 134, 142, 145, 153, 159,176, 180, 181, 186, 195, 200, 212, 214, CBS Telenoticias 165 Ceau£escu, Elena 113 Ceau£escu, Nicolae 113 Center for Responsive Politics 104 Centers for Disease Control 139 Central Intelligence Agency 13 –26, 33, 35 –7, 63, 68, 70 –1, 73, 75, 87, 92, 104, 120, 127, 138 –9, 210, 214; operatives in Cuba 16, 23, 32, 159; support of anti– Castro exile operations 31–2, 50, 94, 105, 107 Cernuda, Ramon 111–2, 138 Chammah, Albert M. 64 Chamorro, Violeta 101 Charlando con Chepe 191 Chávez, Hugo 192–3, 197–8, 213 Chepe, Oscar Manuel Espinosa 191 Chernobyl 96, 185 Chevron Oil 159 Chibas, Raul 101 chicken, game 65 –6

Index Chiles, Lawton 90, 93, 116 – 8, 127, 140 Christian Broadcasting Network 122 Christian Liberation Movement 184, 190 Christopher Columbus Quincentenary Jubilee Commission 120 –1 Church, Frank 37 Church and Tower 50, 106, 110 Church Committee 37, 75, 130 Churchill, Sir Winston 75 CIA World Factbook 95 –6 Cialdini, Robert B. 59, 68 Ciancio, Sam 173 Cita Con Cuba (Rendezvous with Cuba) 34 Citizens Against Government Waste 187 Citizens of Dade United 41 civil disobedience: in Cuba, calls for from the United States 33, 140, 159 –60; in the United States, calls for from Cuba 33 Clark Amendment 106, 107 clear channel broadcasting stations 77, 80 Clinton, Bill 130, 143, 152, 153, 163, 168, 180, 188, 204; Advisory Board for Cuba Broadcasting 170 –1; Cuban Democracy Act 133, 139, 154, 158; Cuban Liberty and Solidarity (LIBERTAD) Act 157, 163 –5; Elian Gonzalez 174 –8; 1994 balsero crisis 151–2, 154; relationship with Cuban exiles 165, 176 –7 Clinton, Hillary 197, 202–4 CMQ-TV 116 CNN 129, 159, 163, 168, 174, 206 Coalition to Support Cuban Detainees 110 Coca-Cola 11, 18, 153, 157, 169 cognitive dissonance 57–9, 62 Cold War ideology 44, 65 – 6, 138 Colgate and Colgate-Palmolive 18, 153 Collado, Jose Pepe 171 Colón Cemetery 19 Columbia Broadcasting Sys-

tem (CBS) 35, 49, 67, 143, 159 Commander David 67 Commando Solo 192, 194, 198 Commentary (magazine) 51 Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba (CAFC) 194 –5, 200 Committee for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR) 23 Committee for the Free World 51, 76 Committee of Santa Fe; see Council for Inter-American Security Committee of 75 38 –9, 53, 79, 92 Communist Interference in El Salvador 49, 53, 75 Communist Youth 184 Concilio Cubano (Cuban Council) 161–3, 184 Conde, Yvonne 19 Congressional Budget Act of 1974 84 –5 Coniff, Brian 190 Continental National Bank 38 Contras 85, 100, 107, 123, 131, 153, 159, 166, 183, 213 Cooper, Gary 198 Coordination of United Revolutionary Organizations (Coordinación de Organizaciones Revolucionarios Unidas) (CORU) 37 Coors, Joseph 75, 77 Coors Brewing Company 75 Costa, Carlos 161–2 Council for Inter-American Security (Committee of Santa Fe or Santa Fe Committee) 47, 101 Coursen, Christopher 170 – 2, 176 crime rates in the United States 61 Crockett, George 121–3 La Cronica 38 Crosby, Bing 62 Crusade for Freedom 62 Cruz Leon, Raul Ernesto 166 Cruz Varela, Maria Elena 137 Cuba Confidential: Love and Vengeance in Miami and Havana 107, 180 Cuba: independence from Spain 51; fishing agree-

295 ment with the United States 48; influence in the Western Hemisphere 44 – 6, 49, 53, 69 –70; nationalism in 81; negotiations with to resolve interference problems 70 –1, 91, 101; normalization of relations with the United States 48, 52, 90, 92–3, 106, 120, 153, 158, 165, 167, 202, 205; publications in the United States 53; relationship with Soviet Union 51, 89, 95 –7, 113, 133 –4, 143 Cuba Independiente y Democratica (CID) 67–8 Cuban Adjustment Act 31, 155 Cuban-American Coalition 120 Cuban-American Committee 108, 120 Cuban-American Committee for Family Rights 120 Cuban American Foundation 50 –1, 159 Cuban American National Foundation (CANF) 49 – 51, 54, 67, 75, 79, 81, 90, 92–5, 101, 103 –6, 108, 138 – 9, 162, 166, 169, 180, 184, 189, 192; assistance to Contras 107, 166; becoming more moderate 180 –2, 193, 207, 212, 214; coalition building on Capitol Hill 104, 110, 115, 117, 123, 128, 131, 142, 153; efforts to get Cubans to defect 109; Elian Gonzalez 173, 181; feud with Miami Herald 108, 132; getting TV Martí on the air 116, 120, 123; image of by island Cubans 137; influence over broadcasts to Cuba 128, 158; as leaders of post–Castro Cuba 113, 138, 158, 169; plans to re–build post–Castro Cuba 134 –5; relationship with Clinton administration 134, 138, 140, 156, 158; relationship with Ileana Ros-Lehtinen 113, 115; supporting actions within Cuba 166, 181, 189 Cuban Commission for Human Rights and

296 National Reconciliation 137 Cuban Decree-Law 54, 96 Cuban Democracy Act 131– 4, 137–8, 143, 154, 158, 176 Cuban Election Commission 140 Cuban Espionage in the United States 32, 37, 40, 127, 131, 163, 167, 172, 181, 183 Cuban Exiles, comparison to other ethnic groups 40; anti–Castro radio broadcasts 37, 67, 77, 131, 138, 152; exile-on-exile violence 34, 50, 90, 108–9; paramilitary groups and actions 35, 131–2, 166–7, 172, 181 Cuban Five 172, 181 Cuban Interests Section in the United States 48 Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity (LIBERTAD) Act 153 –4, 157–8, 163 –5, 169, 203 –4 Cuban Liberty Council 182, 192 Cuban Literacy Campaign 18 –9 Cuban Ministry of the Interior 32 Cuban Missile Crisis 19, 30, 49, 80, 132 Cuban Museum of Arts and Culture 108 –9, 111 Cuban National AIDS Commission 96 Cuban Refugee Program 29 Cuban Revolutionary Council 20, 22, 24, 30 Cuban Solidarity Act 168 –9 Cubana flight 455 107, 186 Cudjoe Key site 118 –9, 122, 125, 127, 197–8 Cuesta, Tony 53, 105 cultivation theory 61–2 cults 59 Dade Metro Zoo 41 Dalrymple, Donato 173, 175 Dante’s Inferno 132 Davies, James C. 29 –30, 39, 72, 134 Davis, Dennis 58 –9 Davis, Magda Montiel 141 Decter, Midge 51, 76 Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) 183 Delahunt, William 187–9, 192, 202, 208 –9

Index de la Peña, Mario 161–2 de la Torriente, Jose Elias 35 del Junco, Tirso 74, 77, 101 del Pino, Rafael 97 Democracy NOW! 36 Department of Energy 75 Dialoguero Movement 37, 49, 53 Diario de la Marina 10 –1 Diario de las Americas 35 Diaz, Alan 175 Diaz, Jesus, Jr. 199 Diaz-Balart, Lincoln 141–3, 145, 148, 154, 165, 169, 171–2, 179 –80, 185, 190, 193, 195, 203, 212, 214 Diaz-Balart, Mario 212, 214 Diaz-Balart, Mirta 141 Diaz-Balart, Rafael 141, 180, 187, 212 Diaz Betancourt, Eduardo 131 Directorio Revolucionario 6 –7 DirecTV 200 Disney Channel 129 dissidents 137–8, 140, 169, 184, 188, 190, 194, 207; Black Spring190 –1 Dr. Who 122 Dodd, Chris 197 Dole, Bob 158, 164 –5, 177 Dominguez, Jorge 139 –40 Dorgan, Byron 182, 196 –7, 203 Dos Rios, battle of 51 Drew, Paul 90 –1 Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) 119, 127 Dudeck, Carla 109 –10 Duffey, Joseph 140, 142, 144 –5, 156, 159, 171 Duke Power 96 Dulles, Alan 13 Dulles, John Foster 13, 82–3 Duncan, James 77 Dunn, Marvin 42 DuPont Award 145 Duran, Alfredo 188 –9 Echevarria, Jose Antonio 6 – 7 Edward R. Murrow Award 145 Eisenhower, Dwight D. 11, 15, 21, 29, 62 Elgarresta, Mario 49 –50, 54 Elgin Air Force Base, Florida 40 Elliston, Jon 92 Ellsberg, Daniel 75

El Salvador: conflict in 45 – 9, 53, 87, 100; death squads 45, 47, 49 El Salvador white paper see Communist Interference in El Salvador embargo of Cuba 53, 92, 112, 124, 131, 133, 137, 139 –40, 145, 154, 156–8, 165, 168–9, 185, 191, 195, 203, 205 Emergency Broadcasting System (EBS) 79 Enders, Thomas 78 Engelhardt, Robert 81 English, Glenn 52 Escalante, Fabian 32 Escambry Mountains 22–3, 35 Esmeralda 97 ESPN 129 Esquipulas II Accord 100 Estefan, Gloria and Emilio 159 European Union 157, 164 Evans, Thomas 86 Everglades National Park 177–8 executions in Cuba of Batista supporters 10 Executive Order 12323 51 Exon, James 84 facilitative communication 67 The Falcon and the Snowman 121 fall of communism in Europe 92, 113 Family Bridge 97 Fascell, Dante 79, 117, 122, 124, 127, 135, 142, 157 Fat Albert 119, 126 –7, 196 –7 Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) 160 –1 Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) 36 –7, 61, 122, 127, 130, 162–3, 166, 172 Federal Communications Commission (FCC) 17, 67, 71–2, 77–80, 82, 91, 116, 119, 122, 124 –6 Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) 79 Feingold, Russ 209 –10 Fernandez Brenes, Jose Rafael 127 Firing Line 106 The First Resort of Kings: American Cultural Diplomacy in the Twentieth Century 76

Index Fisk, Daniel 189 –90 Flake, Jeff 187–8, 190, 192, 203, 210 Florida Association of Broadcasters (FAB) 78, 120 Fonda, Jane 186 Forbes, Malcolm S., Jr. 135 Forbes, Steve, Jr. 134 Ford, Gerald R. 37, 44, 46, 130 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act 37 foreign media available in Cuba 67, 143, 206 Foreign Policy (publication) 53 Fort Chaffee, Arkansas 40, 151, 201 Fort Indiantown Gap, Pennsylvania 40, 201 Fort Leavenworth 14 Fort McCoy, Wisconsin 40 Forum World Features 75 Foundation for Democracy 187 The Fourth Floor 76 Frank, Harold 78 Franqui, Carlos 101 Free Cuba PAC 51, 104 –5, 107 Free Europe Committee (FEC) 62–3 Free Trade with Cuba Act 145 Freedom Flights 30, 34 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) 77, 199 Freedom Tower 180 –1 Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional (Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front), FMLN 45, 48 Frente Sandanista de Liberación Nacional (FSLN), Sandanistas 44 –5, 47, 68, 100 –1 Freschette, Myles 52, 77 Gairy, Sir Eric 46 Gallup Organization 174 game theory 66, 68, 72–3, 88 Garcia, Joe 104, 181–2, 193, 195, 212, 214 La Garra Escondido (The Hidden Claw) 33 Gaudet, Hazel 55 Gautemala, CIA invasion of see Operation Success

Gelb, Bruce 114 Generación Y 209 General Accounting Office (GAO) 83, 125, 128, 205 General Electric 11 Generation Ñ 181, 195, 212, 214 Gerbner, George 61 Gibraltar Steamship Company 17 Giddens, Kenneth R. 77, 91 Girón 22, 24 Goebbels, Joseph 58 Goldberg, Rube 124 Golden Exiles 28 –9 Goldwater, Barry 75 Gonzalez, Elian 172–8, 181, 191, 195 –6 Gonzalez, Jose 67 Gonzalez, Juan 173 Gonzalez, Juan Miguel 173 – 5 Gonzalez, Lazaro 173 –5 Good Housekeeping 160 Goodman, Benny 75 Goodyear 18 Gorbachev, Mikhail 97, 113 Gore, Al 146, 176 –80 Graham, Bob 103, 131, 133 – 5, 142, 176 Graham, Katherine 75 Gramm, Phil 159 Granma (boat and trip) 6, 24, 34 Granma (newspaper) 34, 39, 149, 185, 198, 200 Grassley, Charles 83 –6 Greco, Mayte 160 Grenada 46 –7, 86, 88, 100; 1983 invasion of see Operation Urgent Fury Grenada United Labor Party 46 Gross, Larry 61 Guano Act of 1865 16 Guantanamo Bay Naval Base 151–2, 154 –6, 159 –60, 162, 169, 203 Guatemala, 1954 coup 13 –6, 22, 24 –6 Guevara, Ernesto Che 6, 8, 15, 23, 33, 49, 95, 105, 107, 203 Gulf Oil 75 gusano (worm) 32, 38 Gusano Libre Campaign 32 Gutierrez, Armando 173 –4, 178 –9 Harkin, Tom 82–3, 86 Hart, Stephen 130

297 Havana Sports Palace 10 Havel, Vaclav 113 Hawkins, Paula 85 –6, 90, 93, 103, 106 Haynie, Thomas 122 Heiss, Carol 75 Helms, Jesse 63, 75, 153, 158, 168 –9 Helms-Burton Act; see Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity (LIBERTAD) Act Heritage Foundation 75, 189 Hertzog, Herta 56 High Frontier 75 High Noon 198 –9 Highway 395 Interchange 31 Hispanic American Report 21 “History Will Absolve Me” speech 6 Hitler, Adolf 58 HIV 95 –6 Hollings, Ernest 117–8, 120, 127 Home Box Office (HBO) 121–2, 129 Homestead Air Base 31, 177– 8, 179 Homestead Air Base Developers, Inc. (HABDI) 177 Hoover, J. Edgar 130 Hoover, Lee Henry 111 La Hora 21 Houlihan, Jeffrey 162 House Banking Scandal, 1992 128 Houston, Lawrence 26 Hoy (newspaper) 34 Human Rights Campaign; Interest Group 187 humanitarian trade with Cuba 168 –9, 183 Hungary, 1956 uprising 63 Hunt, E. Howard 18, 50 Hurricane Andrew, 1992 145, 177 Hurricane Betsy, 1965 80 –81 Hurricane Dennis, 2005 196 –7 Hurricane Ike, 2009 207 Hurricane Joan, 1988 100 Hurricane Katrina, 2005 201 Hurricane Michelle 183 Hyatt Hotels 135 hypodermic needle theory of communication 55 –6 Ibero-American Summit 166 Iglesias, Arnaldo 161 Iglesias, Ignacio 105, 106

298 Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) 174 –5, 178 In Praise of Public Life 103 indoctrination of children in Cuba 18 –9 Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion 68 Institute for Propaganda Analysis (IPA) 55, 59 Inter-American Commission on Human Rights of the Organization of American States 149 Inter-American Dialogue 140 Inter American Press Association (IAPA) 53 –4, 132 interference, damage claims of made by broadcasters 91, 100 International Broadcasting Bureau (IBB) 185, 190 International Communications Agency (ICA); see also United States Information Agency 64, 76, 78 International Frequency Registration Board (IFRB) 125 International Telecommunications Convention, 1982 121 International Telecommunications Union (ITU) 71– 2, 125; 1981 Rio Conference 84 Iowa Congressional delegation 78 –80, 82–3 Iowa Department of Agriculture 79 Iran-Contra Scandal 107, 123 Iranian Hostage Crisis 43 – 4, 48 Iraq War 202–3 Ireland, Andy 78 Iriondo, Arnaldo 161 Iriondo, Sylvia 161 Isle of Pines 141 Israel 50 ITT 153, 157 Jackson, Jesse 89 Jacobs, George 74, 77 Jacoby, Jeff 185 Jahn, William 77 jamming: radio signals 68 – 70, 192; satellite signals 121–22; television signals 116 –7, 119 –20, 124, 192

Index Jepsen, Roger 83 Jews, persecution of 58, 59 JM/WAVE, Zenith Technical Enterprises 31–2 Johnson, Lyndon Baines 31 Juffer, Kristin 146 –7 Junior Pan American Games 182 Juragua nuclear facility 96, 161 Kennedy, Jacquelyn 76 Kennedy, John F. 21–7, 30, 37, 49, 76, 80, 94, 105, 133, 137; assassination 130; Cuban Missile Crisis 132; Latin American Task Force 52, 76 Kennedy, Patrick 170 Kennedy, Robert F. 32, 145 Kennedy, Rosario 112 Kerry, John 195 Khrushchev, Nikita 30 King, Lawrence D. 179 King, Dr. Martin Luther, Jr. 33, 75 The Kinks 69 Kirkpatrick, Jeanne 51, 110, 134 Klapper, Joseph 57 Kneitel, Tom 34 Korean Air Lines, flight 007 shootdown 85 Kostmayer, Peter 86 Kramer, Donald 186 Kramer, Marcia 139 Kroft, Steve 114, 159 Krome Detention Center 152 Kurzban, Ira 141 KVOS-TV 124 LaFollette, William 77 Landau, George W. 77 Landau, Saul 145 Lansdale, Edward 116 –7 Lassie 126 Latin Grammy Awards 181– 2 Lautenberg, Frank 126 lawsuits against Castro and Cuba 172 Lazarsfeld, Paul 55 Leach, James 82–3, 86 Lee, Janet Norton 76 Lehr, Myriam 179 Lehtinen, Dexter 111, 212 LeMieux, George 209, 214 LeoGrande, William 69, 79 – 81, 133 Lesnick, Max 35 –6

Levine, Robert M. 92 Lew, Salvador 180, 185 –8, 190 –2 Lewinsky, Monica 139, 143 Lewis, Marcia 143 Lexington Institute 152, 195, 208 Liberty City Riots 42 Lieberman, Joe 103 –4, 126, 177, 194 Life (magazine) 14, 95 Limbaugh, Rush 178 limited effects paradigm 57 Lincoln, Abraham 141 Little Havana 29 –30, 36, 53, 107–9, 131, 133, 137, 140, 144, 162, 164 Lobo, Richard 145 –7, 156, 159 Lord, Peter P. 77 Los Van Van 181 La Lucha see La Causa Lugar, Richard 205 Lyle, Jack 56 Lynch, Grayston 24 MacDougall, John R. see Captain Midnight Mack, Connie 123, 135, 145, 197 Mack Amendment 133 Madama Butterfly 32 Mader, James 77 magic bullet theory of communication see hypodermic needle theory Magin, Charles 122 Majesty of the Seas 156 Malcolm X 145 Mallin, Jay, Sr. 94 –5, 97, 99, 114, 135 –6, 140, 170, 186 Managua, 1972 earthquake 44 Mandate for Leadership 75 March Air Force Base 162 Mariel (city) 39, 148 150 –1 Mariel Boatlift 39 –41, 43, 48, 50, 67, 81, 89, 95, 109, 150 –1, 184, 186, 201, 213 Marielitos 40 –2, 151, 186, 201; backlash against 40 –1, 151; excludables 40, 89 – 90, 94, 110; prison riots 109 –10, 201 Marshall Plan 94 Martí, Jose 51, 84, 88, 90, 193 Martin Luther King Center 161 Martinez, Ana Margarita 162–3, 172

Index Martinez, Bob 114 Martinez, Mel 196 –7, 209 Martinez, Raul 111–2, 212 Marxism, in Central America 44 Mas Canosa, Jorge 50, 54, 75, 77, 93, 95, 103 –6, 109 – 10, 115, 123, 145, 165 –6, 177, 181, 192, 214; before CANF 105 –6; calls for actions in Cuba 136 –7, 140; death 167–9, 180; election of Ileana RosLehtinen 112–3; feud with Miami Herald 132; influence over the Office of Cuba Broadcasting 136 –7, 140, 145 –6, 156 –9, 170; 1994 balsero crisis 152; as possible president of Cuba 113 –4, 131, 138, 166, 212; relationship with Clinton administration 133 –4, 145, 156, 159, 167 Mas Canosa, Ricardo 105, 107, 110 Mas Santos, Jorge 180 –2 Masferrer, Rolando 35 Masvidal, Raul 50, 75, 106, 108, 132, 138 Matos, Huber 67–8, 76 Matthews, Herbert 6 –7 Max Headroom 122 Mayo Clinic 43 McCain, John 203 –4 McCollum, Bill 165 McCurry, Mike 154 –5 McDuffie, Arthur 41–2 McFarlane, Robert 92–3 McGovern, George 106 McKinney, Cynthia 188 mean world syndrome 61–2 Meese, Ed 49 Mellon Bank 75 Mendoza Azurdia, Rodolfo 14 Menendez, Robert 142, 154, 176, 192 Mexican Association of Broadcasters 120 Miami 8, 24, 28 –30, 36, 39; biculturalism 41; black community 31, 37, 41–2, 110 –3; oppression of Cubans 29; refuge for Somoza 44; reverse migration 41; white flight 41 Miami City Commission 108 Miami-Dade County Public Safety Department 36

Miami-Dade School Board 200 Miami Herald 17, 41, 92, 106, 108, 110 –1, 131, 134, 155, 166 –7, 174, 178, 182, 193, 197–8, 201; 2006 journalist scandal 199 Miami New Times 90, 175, 195 Miami Police Department 36, 40 Michelmore, Peter 41 Mid-America Committee of International Business and Government Cooperation 134 Milgram, Stanley 59 –60 Milgram experiment 59 –61 Milian, Alberto 36 Milian, Emilio 36, 90 Miller, Tom 137 Miranda, Jose M. 200 Miss Free Cuba 31 Miss Universe Pageant 31 Mitchell, Parren 86 Mitterand, Francois 104 Mobil Oil 74 Molineaux, Diana 136 Moncada Attack, 1953 6, 136, 192 Monthly Review 145 Mora, Alberto 180 Mora, Angelica 169 –70 Morales, Pablo 161–2 Motes, Ana Belen 183 Mothers’ Movement Against Repression in Cuba 161 Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) 107 Movimiento Interno de Liberación (Internal Movement of Liberation) 53 Moynihan, Daniel 123 –4 El Mundo 20 Munero, Lazaro 172 Murrow, Edward R. 33 Museum of the Revolution 101 Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) 65 NAACP 187 Nader, Ralph 75, 178 The Nation (magazine) 21, 104, 130 National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) 70, 78 –80, 84, 89, 120 National Broadcasting Company (NBC) 67, 116

299 National Council on U.S.Cuban Relations 120 National Cuban Liberation Front (FNLC) 123 National Endowment for Democracy (NED) 104 –5 National Guard, Nicaraguan 44 National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) 142–3 National Public Radio (NPR) 67 National Security Council (NSC) 91, 93, 163 National Security Decision Directive 17 (NSDD-17) 49 National Security Planning Group (NSPG) 91 National Telecommunications Information Agency (NTIA) 70, 77–8 National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) 107 nationalization of property in Cuba 10 –11, 153 –4, 157, 169 Native Americans 75 NATO 63 Navarro, Antonio 126, 145 Nazario, Olga 146 Nazi Germany 58 –9, 85 NBC 6 see WTVJ-TV Nebraska Broadcasters Association 84 Nelson, Bill 181, 196 Neutrality Act 133 A New Inter-American Policy for the Eighties (Santa Fe Report) 47, 51, 101 New Jewel Movement 46, 86 New Orleans Times-Picayune 201 New York City newspaper strike, 1945 56 The New York Times 6, 14, 21, 38, 46, 49, 52, 83, 85, 93 –4, 98, 106, 126, 133, 135, 140, 155 –6, 166, 172 Newman, Yale 77 News and Metropolis 180 Nicaragua, relations with the United States 23 –4, 44 –7, 49, 53, 87, 99, 100, 123, 213 Nichols, John Spicer 66 –8, 76, 79, 81, 98, 104 –5, 121, 124, 126, 144, 192, 199 – 200, 208 1980 elections in the United States 44, 48, 74

300 1958 elections in Cuba 8 1940 elections in the United States 56 Nixon, Richard 34, 37, 50, 75, 78, 91 Nobel Prize 179 North, Oliver 107 North American Regional Broadcasting Agreement (NARBA) 71–2 Nuccio, Ricardo 139, 157, 163 –4 Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) 96 La Nueva Cuba 175 El Nuevo Herald 132 numbers stations 32, 163, 183 Oakdale, Lousiana prison riot 109, 110, 201 Obama, Barack 197, 202–5, 207, 210 –2 Obedience to Authority: the Experimental View 60 Ochoa, Lee 109 odds of dying 61–2 Office of Cuba Broadcasting (OCB) 126 –7, 135, 140, 207, 214; funding 208 –9; investigations of 171–2, 188, 200, 202, 205 –6; leadership 169 –70, 180, 185; oversight 207; relocation to south Florida 159, 164 – 5; research department 145 –7, 156 Office of Inspector General (OIG) 158, 191, 210 Olympic Games, 1984 89 one time pads 32 Opa-Locka Air Base 24 Operation Bounty 33 Operation Eagle Claw 43 –4 Operation Free Ride 33 Operation Full-Up 33 Operation Mongoose 32–3, 70, 116 Operation Pedro Pan 19, 30 Operation Scorpion 162–3 Operation Success 13 –16, 22, 24 –6, 62 Operation Trinidad 16 –7, 20 –3 Operation True Blue 70 Operation Urgent Fury 86, 88 –9 Operation Zapata 22–6; preliminary bombing campaign 23 –4 Orange Bowl 29, 40, 113, 198

Index O’Reilly Herrera, Andres 97 Organization of American States (OAS) 94 organized crime 9, 35 Ortega, Daniel 100 –1, 213 03C campaign 9 Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) 50 Overtown, displacement of black residents 31 Pahlavi, Shah Mohammed Reza 43 El País 138, 156 Palmetto Broadcasters 124 – 5 Pan American Airlines 18 Pan American Games, 1987 109 Panama Canal 44, 74, 155 Parade 76 Parker, Edwin 56 Payá, Oswaldo 184 –5, 190 – 1, 195 Peabody Award 145 Pell, Claiborne 63, 123 Penelas, Alex 177–9 People 177 Pepper, Claude 106, 110 –2 Perez, Carlos (Cuban scholar) 108 Perez, Carlos (1989 candidate for Claude Pepper’s seat) 112 Pérez, Carlos Andrés (president of Venezuela) 192 Perez, Louis A. 98 –9 Perez-Castellón, Ninoska 182, 187 Perez-Roura, Armando 178 Perfect Image Film and Video 200 Period of Puppet Presidents 5 Peruvian embassy, 1980 occupation 39 Peruyero, Juan Jose 36 Peters, Philip 152, 195, 208 Pezzullo, Lawrence 45 Phillips, David Atlee 15 pirate radio stations 69 Plan Torriente 35 Planas, Richard B. 140, 143, 146 Planned Parenthood 58 Playboy Channel 122 Poindexter, John 92–3 political prisoners in Cuba 38, 89, 94, 97, 158, 184 –5 Pope John Paul II 97, 148, 161, 168

Posada Carriles, Luis 107, 166 positive radio interference 68 –9, 84 Posner, Vladimir 69 Powell, Colin 184, 194 Prensa Latina 193 Presidential Commission on Broadcasting to Cuba 51– 2, 74 –8, 81, 84, 101 Presidential Directive NSC6 –77 48 Presidential Palace in Cuba, 1957 attack on 7 The Prisoner’s Dilemma 64 – 6 Pritchett, Flo 76 Programa Especial 95 Project Cuba 92 Project Nassau 35 Project VoteSmart 187 Propaganda Analysis Bulletin 55 propaganda devices 55, 59 Psy-War on Cuba: Declassified History of U.S. AntiCastro Propaganda 92 Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) 74 –5, 75, 106, 122 Pulitzer Prize 175 Queen Isabel II 31 Radio Americas 33 –4; see also Radio Swan Radio Bemba, Cuban Grapevine 21 Radio Broadcasting to Cuba Act, first (H.R. 5427) 78 – 85, 89, 108, 123 –4, 176 Radio Broadcasting to Cuba Act, second (S. 602) 85 – 6, 88 –9, 91, 100, 102–4, 106 –8, 122, 124, 170, 176 Radio Broadcasting to Cuba, Inc. (RBC Inc.) 51–2, 76 Radio Caiman 87 Radio Caroline 69 Radio Continente 7 Radio Free Asia 188 Radio Free Cuba 78 Radio Free Dixie 33 Radio Free Europe (RFE) 51, 62–3, 69 –71, 79, 86, 99, 140, 207 Radio Havana Cuba 33 –35, 186 Radio Impacto 68 radio interference war between the U.S. and Cuba 69 –73, 80, 84 –5, 88, 91, 93, 120 –2

Index radio interference with Cuba: accidental 78, 94; intentional 77–80 radio jamming 18 Radio Liberty (RL) 63, 69 – 71, 79, 86, 140 Radio Mambi 18, 113, 178 –9, 182, 187, 200 Radio Martí 101, 126, 160, 190, 205, 214; annual evaluations of 86, 98, 102, 114 –5; Brothers to the Rescue 160 –1, 163, 165; change from objective to hostile content 137; coalition of support on Capitol Hill 142; coverage of Elian Gonzalez 174 –6; coverage of 2002 Carter trip 185 –6; delay in signing on 88 –91; employees upset 140, 143; feasibility study of 77–78; funding 100, 103, 140, 142– 4, 210; glorification of balseros 99, 151; jamming of 69 –70, 72, 77–8, 94, 98, 120, 125; legislative debate over 86; 1994 rafting and refugee crisis 151–2; objectivity and distortion of facts 143 –4, 154, 156, 158, 188 –9, 206 –7; oversight 106, 142–3; premature construction of 51–2, 74, 83; programming 70, 169 – 71, 186 –7, 190, 195 –6, 200, 207; proposal of 51–3, 63, 67–8, 71, 78; Reagan’s intentions for 63, 67, 68 – 70, 72, 86 –7; sign on 93 – 4, 116; 1040 frequency debate 70, 77, 84 –5; use of outside contractors 186 –7; use of to promote Jorge Mas Canosa and the CANF 114, 136 –7, 140, 143 –4 Radio Martí Task Force 93 – 4 Radio Rebelde 5, 8 –9, 62, 76, 93 –5, 98, 101, 149, 175; 1958 Batista campaign against 8 Radio Reloj 7 Radio Swan 16 –20, 22–5, 33, 52, 62–3, 68, 72, 105, 116 Radio Vatican 125 rafters see balseros Rangel, Charles 145, 156 Rapoport, Anatol 64 Rau, Michael 70

Ray, Robert D. 79 Reader’s Digest 40 –1 Reagan, Nancy 83 Reagan, Ronald 42, 44, 46 – 8, 52, 62, 67, 74 –5, 77, 83 –6, 92, 99 –102, 104, 114, 189; concerns about Radio Martí 91; foreign policy of 48, 64, 76, 107, 123, 131; 1980 campaign 50, 75 –6; 1981 Presidential Inaugural Committee 76; 1984 election 89, 107; TV Martí 117, 122 Reagan Doctrine 48 Red Avispa (Red Wasp) spy network 172, 181 Red Dawn 104 Remembering Cuba: Legacy of Dispora 97 Reno, Janet 174 –8 Replica 36 Representación Cubanos en Exile (RECE) 105 –7 Republican Party 49 –50, 89 research of Cuban radio audience 34, 98, 102, 145 – 7, 188, 206 Revolico.com 209 Revolución 18, 34 “Revolution Yes” speech 9 – 10 Revolutionary Strategy: A Handbook for Practitioners 94 RIAS-TV 125 Richardson, Bill 158 Richman, Gerald 112, 113 Rio Conference 72 Rivera, David 214 Rivera, Tony 146 Riverside see Little Havana RKO Radio 90 Road Runner, cartoon 204 Robertson, William “Rip” 24 Rodham, Hugh 139 Rodriguez, Felix 107 Rodriguez, Juan Carlos 19 Rodriguez, Orlando 114, 136 Rodriguez-Tejera, Roberto 170, 175 –6 Roig, Pedro 191 Rolling Stones 69 Romero, Carlos Humberto 45 Romero, Oscar 45 Ronald Reagan Oral History Project 93 Roosevelt, Eleanor 75 Roosevelt, Franklin D. 56, 67

301 Roper Poll 40 Roque, Juan Pablo 162–3, 172 Ros-Lehtinen, Ileana 132, 135, 141–2, 145, 148, 154, 168 –9, 179, 185, 188 –90, 192, 195, 198, 203, 210, 212; 1989 campaign 111–3, 130, 212 La Rosa Blanca (The White Rose) 141 Rosendahl, Bruce 159 Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines 135 Rubio, Marco Antonio 213 – 4 Rust, William F. 80 –1 Rust Communications Group 80 Sakharov Prize 184, 190 Salman, Carlos 50, 75, 106 Salmon, William 52 sanatorium 96 Sanchez, Elizardo 137–8, 140, 166, 180, 195 Sánchez, Yoani 209 Sandanistas see Frente Sandanista de Liberación Nacional San Roman, Herminino 169 –71, 180 San Roman, Pepe 21–3, 25 – 6 San Salvador, 1986 earthquake 100 San Salvador, Roman Catholic Diocese of 45 Santa Fe Committee; see Council for Inter-American Security Santa Fe Report; see A New Inter-American Policy for the Eighties Santa Fe II: A Strategy for Latin America in the 1990s 101 Santería 173, 186 Santovenia, Daniel Candelario 131 satellite television viewing in Cuba 128 –9 SAVAK 43 Scaife, Richard Mellon 75, 77 Scarface 41 Schlessinger, Arthur 21, 137 Schmertz, Herbert 74 –5, 77 Schramm, Wilbur 56 Schultz, George 93 Schumer, Chuck 82

302 Schuss, Billy 159 –60 Schwarzlose, Monroe 151 Scott, Jerry W. 112 Sears Roebuck 11 Secret Missions to Cuba 92 selective exposure 57 selective interpretation 57–8 selective retention 57–8 September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks 183, 210 Serrano, Jose 165 Shamble, Tim 208 –9 Sherman, Bruce 136, 145 Sierra Maestra 67, 76, 136 Sinatra, Frank 62, 98 Sires, Albio 212 634 Ways to Kill Castro 32 60 Minutes 47, 114, 159 Skaggs, David 142–4, 165, 170 Skol, Michael 149, 154 Skoug, Kenneth, Jr. 92, 94, 101 Small Business Administration 29 Smith, Bob 176 Smith, Christopher 154 Smith, Earl E.T. 76 –7 Smith, Larry 127 Smith, Neal 82, 86 Smith, Wayne S. 52–3, 76, 79 –81, 84, 133, 137, 167, 189, 196, 208 Smith-Mundt Act 210 –1 Snow White and the Three Stooges 75 Snyder, Alvin 128 soap operas, radio 56 social proof see bandwagon effect Somoza Debayle, Antonio 44 Southern Bell 106 Soviet Union, Cold War with the U.S. 44 –5, 49, 65 –6, 69 –70, 85, 104; collapse 96, 130; combat brigade in Cuba 47–8, 74, 213; in Europe after WWII 16, 63; indoctrination of Cuban children 18; influence in the Western Hemisphere 44 –7, 49, 86 –7; invasion of Afghanistan 47; relationship with Cuba 11, 35, 38, 47, 49, 50, 89, 95, 97, 113 Special Olympics, 1987 109 Special Period for Cuba 134 Stalin, Joseph 63 Stanford Prison Experiment 60 –1

Index Stanwyck, Barbara 62 Star Trek 126 State Security Historical Resource Center 19 Stedman, William 51 Stone, Richard B. 74, 77, 84, 106 Straits of Florida 39, 98 –9, 126, 159, 162, 198 Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) 75, 90 Strauss, Peter 143 Suarez, Roberto 132 suicide in Cuba 98 –9, 155 Sullivan, Joseph 156 Swan Islands 16 –7 Swift, Al 82, 124 Szulc, Tad 106 Taddeo, Annette 212 Taishoff, Sol 80 –1 Tamayo, Arnaldo 161 Task Force on U.S. Government International Broadcasting 127 Tauke, Thomas 82, 86, 100 Teenager Party 69 Telemundo 206 Telesur 197 Television Broadcasting to Cuba Act 122–4, 128 Television News, Inc. (TVN) 75 Un Tema y Dos Opiniones 144 Texaco 157, 169 TGW 13 –4 thesmokinggun.com 67 13 de Marzo 148 –51, 154, 160, 165 Thumbs Up Restaurant 110 Tiananmen Square Massacre 113, 126 Los Tigres (The Tigers) 35 Time (magazine) 10, 42, 95 tirarse al mar (throw one’s self to the sea) 98 –9 TNT (Turner Network Television) 129 To Die in Cuba: Suicide and Society 98 –9 Torres, Hector 105, 106 Torricelli, Bill see Cuban Democracy Act Torricelli, Robert 131–2, 134, 139, 142, 168 –9 Trading with the Enemy: A Yankee Travels through Castro’s Cuba 137 Traficante, Santo 186 Trans World Airlines 38

Transit Home and Museum 150 –1 travel to Cuba, restrictions 131 Treaty of Versailles 58 Trinidad 16, 22 Tropic (magazine) 106 Tutwiler, Margaret 133 TV Azteca 200 TV Martí 159, 163; audience research 125 –6, 142, 146 – 7, 170, 199 –200; calls for termination of 127–8, 142, 165, 170, 189, 192, 196 –7, 208, 210; feasibility 116 – 26, 130 –1, 142–4; funding 142–5, 165, 188, 196, 203, 205, 210, 212; jamming 125 –7, 138, 143 –4, 186, 192, 196; legality 121, 123, 125, 127–8; other forms of distribution 206 –9; programming 126, 128, 200, 207; proposal 114, 116 –9, 122 26th of July Movement 6 – 10, 35, 67, 94 –5 Tyndall Air Force Base 162 Ueberroth, Peter 89 United Fruit, la frutera 13, 141 United Nations 46, 71, 101, 137, 149, 157–8, 161 U.S. Advisory Committee on Public Diplomacy 127 U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) 214 The United States and Cuba Under Reagan and Schultz 92 U.S. Coast Guard 39, 98 –9, 118, 148, 152, 156, 159 –60, 166 U.S. commercial radio stations heard in Cuba 78, 98 U.S. commercial television viewed in Cuba 128 –9 U.S. Cuban Immigration Policy 30 –1, 89 –90, 93 –4, 98 –9, 101, 109 –10, 152 U.S. Department of State 19 –20, 37, 49, 52, 70, 73, 77, 79, 92–3, 109, 120, 124 –5, 133, 149, 161, 176, 180, 189, 206, 214 U.S. Department of Treasury 53 United States Information Agency (USIA) 17, 33, 64,

Index 80, 90 –1, 93, 100, 102, 112, 114, 116 –7, 121, 123, 125, 127, 140, 142–3, 146, 153, 156, 180 U.S. Interests Section in Cuba 48, 52–3, 76, 97, 112, 125, 143, 156, 174, 189 –91; antagonistic communication 196, 198, 208 U.S. Prisoners in Cuba 48 Universal Declaration of Human Rights 125, 160 University of Havana 35, 98 Univision 206 USA*ENGAGE 169, 187 USA Today 174 Uses and Gratifications Theory of Communication 57 Valdes, Nelson 135 Valdes, William 170 Vamos a Cuba 200 Vanguard Service Corporation 33 Varela, Felix 184 Varela Project (el Projecto Varela) 184 –5, 190, 195 Verdecia, Carlos 132 Versailles Restaurant 31 Victor’s Café 133 Vietnam War 37, 49, 78, 86 Vilaboa, Napoleon 39 Virgen de Caridad (Virgin of Charity) 150 Voice of America (VOA) 16 –7, 33 –4, 51, 62–4, 69, 72, 77, 82, 86, 88, 90 –1, 97–9, 102, 128, 136, 143, 175, 185, 188, 195, 200, 206, 211; Charter 81, 83; Marathon transmitter site 80 –2, 85; as substitute for Radio Martí 79 –82, 98; Sugar Loaf Key transmitter site 80; transmitter sites in Bethany, OH, Delano, CA, and Greenville, NC 210

Voice of Free Cuba 32 The Voice of Liberation 13 – 5, 18, 24 –6, 62 Voice of the Sierra Maestra 8 La Voz de la Fundación 67, 182 Voz Dominica 17 Walker, Robert 82 Wall Street Journal 90 –1, 138 War of the Worlds radio broadcast 55, 57 WarGames, movie 66, 72 Warriors of Disinformation 128 Washington Federal Savings and Loan Association 37 The Washington Post 38, 46, 52, 75, 90, 94, 128, 139, 173, 202 Washington Quarterly 189 Washington Times 128, 158 Watchman televisions 143 Watergate 37, 50 WCBS-TV 139 WCMQ-FM 148 Weicker, Lowell 103, 128 Weinstein, Allen 104 West Point Society of South Florida 157 Western Union 158 Westinghouse 11 wet foot/dry foot policy 155 –6, 176 WETV-TV 124 –5 WGBS-AM 17 WGN-TV 122 WHAM-AM 80 –1 White, F. Clifton 75, 77 White, Frank D. 151 White Nights 104 The Who 69 WHO-AM 77–81, 83 –5, 91 Who’s Who in CIA 77 Who’s Who in the JFK Assassination 130 Why Reagan Won: A Narra-

303 tive History of the Conservative Movement 1964 – 1981 75 Wick, Charles Z. 75 –7, 91, 93, 116, 119 Wide Wide World 116 Williams, Robert F. 33 Willkie, Wendell 56 Wilson, Donald 80 WINZ-AM 74, 78 Wirth, Timothy 52, 100 WMIE-AM 36 WNBC-TV 145 Woodlawn Memorial Park 31 Woolworth 11 World Series 116 World War I 55, 58 World War II 16, 55, 62, 65, 85 WPMF-TV 200 WQBA-AM 36, 39, 90, 186 WRHC-AM 186 WRUL 17 WSUN-AM 91 WSVN-TV 145 WTTW-TV 122 WTVJ-TV 37, 145, 174 WTVT-TV 143 Year of Agriculture 18 Year of Education 18 Yes We Can! The New Voter’s Call to Action 75 YSAX-AM 45 Zablocki, Clement 78 Zapata Peninsula 22 Zappa, Frank 198 Zelaya, Manuel 213 Zenith Technical Enterprises, JM/WAVE 31–2 Zero 35 Zimbardo, Phillip 60 Zimmerman, Robert 51 Zuniga, Luis 192