THE CASTRO OBSESSION
U.S. Covert Operations Against Cuba, 1959-1965
by Don Bohning
Patomac Books, 2005
pp. 259-261

If ever there was a classic case of unintended consequences, it came from the residue of the covert war and its out-of-work veterans. Many, but not all, had been on the CIA's payroll in some fashion. Others, such as soldiers of fortune like Frank Sturgis/Fiorini, were attracted by the opportunity to ply their trade. Many of those who had worked for the CIA had learned how to fire a weapon, use an explosive, operate a boat, and in some cases, fly a plane. Much of the unused stock of C-4 and other such material was readily available at the right places in Miami and apparently found its way into the hands of would-be terrorists. Explosions rocked Miami with regularity. At least half a dozen exile terrorist organizations emerged, among them Cuban Power, Cuban National Liberation Front, Omega 7, Christian Nationalist Movement, and a coalition called the Coordination of United Revolutionary Organizations (CORU).

A report from the Metro-Dade County Organized Crime Bureau file on terrorism dated June 18, 1979, and posted on the Internet, started by saying that since May 25, 1977, "there had been 24 bombings and attempted bombings" in the U.S. and Puerto Rico. "San Juan," said the report, "has had 43 Cuban exile terrorist incidents since 1970. Of these, 41 were bombings and 2 were shooting murders. New York City has had 25 of these terrorist incidents since 1970.... In one 24-hour period in December 1975 a Cuban exile terrorist placed 8 bombs in the Miami, Florida area. Most of these bombs were placed in Government buildings such as Post Offices, Social Security Office, the State Attorney's office in Miami, and even in the Miami FBI office." This outburst occurred during a visit by William D. Rogers, the assistant secretary of state for inter-American affairs, apparently as a protest to the Ford administration's tentative overtures toward rapprochement.

"For the first few years of the Castro regime," said the report, "the United States Government obviously was assisting Cuban exiles in thci4 fight to topple the communist regime of Cuba. The U.S. Government supported the ill-fated Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961, and later supported other Cuban exile groups in their missions against Cuba. Because of t f t i N U.S. support there was no terrorism as such until the end of the 196(}N. when the various Cuban exile groups began to realize that the U.S. Government was withdrawing support for their anti-Castro cause."5

Among the more notorious actions attributed to veterans of the secret war were the June 1972 Watergate burglary that eventually ended Richard Nixon's presidency; the October 1976 midair bombing of a Cuban air liner off the coast of Barbados, killing all seventy-three aboard, including Cuba's entire junior fencing team; the 1976 assassination of former Chi! can ambassador Orlando Letelier and Ronni Moffitt, an American col league, when the car driven by Letelier was blown up by a bomb as they entered Washington's Sheridan Circle; the apparent political assassinations of several high-profile Miami exile figures, most among the Cuban community's more moderate voices; the 1964 firing of a bazooka at the UN as Che Guevara prepared to address the organization; a bomb blast that took both legs of popular Miami Spanish-radio journalist Emilio Milian, who had denounced exile terrorism and intimidation. The reign of terror continued sporadically in Miami throughout much of the 1970s and into the 1980s.

Among the most notorious of the extremists were Orlando Bosch, a pediatrician by profession but terrorist by trade who had no documented CIA link, and Luis Posada, who, according to a 1991 Miami Herald story, "learned the finer points of demolitions from a friend on the CIA payroll. The agent then supplied him with explosives—the cheap stuff that stained your hands—to use in Cuba." Although a member of the Bay of Pigs Brigade, he sat out the invasion in Guatemala with a never-deployed battalion. Both Bosch and Posada were implicated in the deadly 1976 Cuban airliner bombing and jailed in Venezuela. But the DISIP, Venezuela's intelligence agency under President Carlos Andres Perez, had come under heavy Cuban exile influence. One of its ranking officers was Posada, who was working with the unit at the time he was implicated in the airliner bombing. Posada escaped, with help, and Bosch, after nine hunger strikes, was acquitted and deported back to the United States. After his escape, Posada fled to Central America where he worked in security for Presidents Jose Napoleon Duarte of El Salvador and Vinicio Cerezo of Guatemala.6 Posada was held responsible for bombs placed in several Havana hotels during 1997, one of which killed an Italian guest. He was later convicted and jailed in Panama for plotting an assassination attempt against Fidel Castro during a visit there, but was pardoned in August 2004 and fled to Honduras.

Bosch has a lengthy history of terrorist acts, including firing a .57 mm recoilless rifle at a Polish freighter docked at the Port of Miami, a crime for which he was convicted, along with two members of his Cuban Power group. Granma, Cuba's state newspaper, published a list in 1980 of nearly fifty terrorist acts in which it claimed Bosch participated, either directly or indirectly. In one of the more absurd episodes, Bosch was arrested for towing a torpedo in a trailer along a busy South Florida roadway. In 1983 the Miami City Commission declared "A Dr. Orlando Bosch Day."

Not all the unemployed veterans of the secret war turned to terrorism. Some joined the fight against communism in the Congo. Others went to Vietnam. Felix Rodriguez and Gustavo Villoldo, working for the CIA, helped track down Che Guevara in the Bolivian jungles. Rafael Quintero worked with 011ie North's "off-the-shelf" resupply operation for U.S.-backed, anti-Sandinista guerrillas in Central America after Congress shut off their funding. This project led to the Iran-Contra scandal. While it's easy to agree with Dallek's assessment that Cuba policy showed Kennedy "at his worst," many exiles, among them Erneido Oliva and Rafael Quintero, remain convinced that the last best hope for the overthrow of Castro died with the Kennedys.

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