For Cuban Exiles, Scars Still Raw

ELIZABETH, N.J., April 17, 2001 — As they steamed toward the coast of Cuba in April, 1961, they were young, confident and idealistic, driven by dreams of ousting Fidel Castro and emboldened by the backing of the U.S. government. Forty years later, Castro still holds sway in Havana, and the surviving members of Brigade 2506 still live in exile, their anger and sense of betrayal as palpable as ever.

“WE FELT CONFIDENT because we had the word of the United States,” recalled Eliecer Grave de Peralta, who stormed Giron Beach near the Bay of Pigs on April 17, 1961, along with about 1,500 other Cuban exiles.

But the United States balked at the last minute: Castro’s air force was only partially destroyed, U.S. air cover wasn’t provided to the invasion force and the CIA didn’t notify the Cuban underground of the impending attack.

After three days of heavy fighting, Castro’s superior forces vanquished the exiles, the United States was faced with a diplomatic nightmare and the invasion attempt set the harsh tone for relations between Havana and Washington that endures to this day.

The Bay of Pigs has become a catchphrase for bungling and rich fodder for books, movies and academic research.

But to the men who took part, the debacle is a matter of deep resentment. Most were imprisoned for nearly two years in Cuba, watched the torture and execution of comrades, and hold an abiding hatred of Castro.

Gathered together during a recent stormy night in New Jersey, the memory of April 17-19, 1961, still stings for five of the original members of the Brigade 2506. They dream of Cuba, they pray for Cuba and they now realize they may never go home again.

DREAMS OF CUBA
Grave de Peralta still remembers the day he left Cuba: Dec. 3, 1960. The revolution was less than 2 years old and after fighting alongside Castro to overthrow the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista, Grave de Peralta turned his back on his comrades.

“I took Santa Clara for Castro,” he said, but he could no longer stand the tyranny of the new regime. “The executions without trial, the persecution of people with different ideologies, the shutdown of the press,” Grave de Peralta said.

He was 27 when he returned on April 17, 1961, still consumed with the ideal that drove him to join Castro’s band of rebels in the Sierra Maestra mountains. “We wanted agriculture reform, to give land back to the farmers and to reinstate the Constitution of 1940,” he said.

Now he wanted to overthrow Castro. After training under CIA supervision in camps scattered through Central America, Grave de Peralta joined a buoyant band of exiles on its way to the Bay of Pigs. “We had no doubts. We thought we had a closed deal.”

Three days later, as they ran out of ammunition, Grave de Peralta knew it was over. He managed to be among the handful plucked to safety after the botched invasion. “I had to escape; I faced a death sentence in Cuba,” he said.

Castro was prepared for the invasion. Another exile, Raul Sanchez, recalled hearing Cuban radio broadcasts warning of an attack as he headed in one of the five old cargo ships to his homeland.

Even then he wasn’t worried. “We were young, we were counterrevolutionaries, we were going to free our homeland,” Sanchez said. And the CIA told them that the United States would not let them down.

Time has only hardened their bitterness — and the target for much of the anger is President Kennedy, who took office a few months before the Bay of Pigs, and his brother, then Attorney General Robert Kennedy. “They betrayed us,” said Segundo Miranda, a commander with the invading force.

Although an investigation by the Central Intelligence Agency placed a great deal of the responsibility for the fiasco on the CIA, which planned the operation, the exiles blame Kennedy for calling off on April 15 air strikes aimed at crippling Castro’s air power. Without the air strikes, the invasion itself should have been called off, they say.

FORGOTTEN PLIGHT
The men, soldiers of a forgotten war in many people’s minds, are still strangers in a strange land. They came to the United States to spend a few months preparing for an invasion. They have stayed for nearly four decades.

They raised families and continue to lobby, to protest, to argue their cause. Last heard from during the Elian Gonzalez imbroglio, the exiles try to muster public support for dissidents inside Cuba who are still imprisoned for venting opposition to the government.

They bemoan what they see as indifference by the U.S. government to the plight of Cubans. And they won’t tolerate those who dare sit down with Castro.

Last month, a handful of exiles broke ranks by traveling to Havana to pore over unclassified documents about the battle alongside top Cuban officials and academics.

“Jesus had 12 apostles, one betrayed him. We have 5,000 people and five betrayed us,” said Sanchez.

The U.S. economic blockade — widely criticized internationally — is also lambasted by the former fighters. But for another reason: They say it’s not tough enough.

“What kind of blockade is it? You can use Visa, Mastercard there; you can ship with Airborne Express,” Sanchez said.

THE NEXT GENERATION
The exiles’ children carry the torch. Alex Grave de Peralta is 23 and has never been to Cuba. But like his dad, he cares passionately for the country — and detests the Castro regime.

Esther Gatria, 26, is the daughter of Sergio Gatria. Her father was a dissident inside Cuba who worked with the fledgling Castro regime but waited for word of the invasion. He left in 1967 after a long struggle to get out of Cuba.

Esther Gatria visited Cuba in 1999, but she says nothing she saw changed her mind about the Castro government.

Both Alex and Ester share their parents’ anger — and hopes for a democratic Cuba.

And while Esther is active in the November 30 organization of her father — a dissident group with members, many imprisoned, inside Cuba — she and Alex realize that they will have to wait for Castro’s death.

“History shows that after every tyranny there is a period of chaos. But hopefully when the dust clears, it will come up as a democratic society,” Alex said.

Kennedy and Johnson decided instead, to involve the United States halfway around the world in a far away place resulting in sending 50,000 young Americans to their deaths - and they couldn't spare just a couple of fighter aircraft for a few hours - which would have spared the United States of having nuclear missles aimed at them only 90 miles away the following year (1962 Missle Crisis). The 'Democrat' Foreign Policy decisions of the last 4 Democrat Presidents of the United States have been nothing short of 'disasterous'...

Kennedy = Bay of Pigs = October 1962 Missle Crisis
Johnson = Vietnam = 55,000 American lives lost
Carter = Fall of Iran, Hostage Crisis, Energy Crisis, Mariel Cuban Refugee debacle
Clinton = Nuclear Secrets to China, Intelligence Failures, Immigration - Criminals and Terrorists allowed in our country, Bin Laden Off the Hook when they had intelligence to get him, Pardons of unrepentant criminals and multi-million dollar tax evaders.

Mainland Puerto Ricans have their hearts in Puerto Rico. Yet they stay mainland when they are able to go home. Refugee Cubans have their hearts in Cuba and can't go home. Bet you if Purto Rico was forced into independence and the Reds were overthrown in Cuba at the same time, Cuba would become more prosperous than Puerto Rico, even with the previous support of US government and businesses having given a "head start" to PR.

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Confidence in Kennedy and those around him was highly misplaced.

John F Kennedy, Inaugural Address, Jan 20, 1961:
"We shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, or oppose any foe to assure the survival and success of liberty."

April 1961: Kennedy forces a change in the landing site, in order to cover up American involvement by claiming air attacks were originating from a captured air field.

10pm, April 16, 1961: Kennedy cancels 40 B-26 sorties against Castro's air force scheduled for six hours later because of international political embarassment caused by leaks of the impending invasion.

http://www.military.com/Content/MoreContent1/?file=cw_f4_1

I am a WASP who grew up in Miami, and was in grade school there when Fidel came down out of the mountains. I was still in grade school at the time the operation at the Bay of Pigs was allowed to go sour for lack of air cover and other support. The sense that this was an absolute travesty, and that the Kennedy boys were personally responsible for that travesty, was by no means limited to what was then called the Cuban Exile community. This was so palpable, that even kids in grade school were aware of it, in their own childish way.

I vividly recall the day that John Kennedy was shot. By then I was in Junior High School. We were sent home early that afternoon. The TV broadcast news was very somber; funereal, and filled with foreboding. Yet, all over Miami in areas within the Anglo community, there were what, for lack of a better term, one would ususally call parties. People, while mindful of the significance of the assassination of a sitting president, considered John Kennedy to be unworthy of the office; a man who, for crass political reasons, allowed "our guys" to hang out there and get chopped up on that beach. In short, some considered John Kennedy to be a traitor.

It was many years later, as an adult pursuing a career in Washington, DC, and elsewhere, that I learned that, for whatever reason, this point of view was not shared in much of the rest of America. This, for me, was an epiphany, and it marked the beginning of my journey to the right, politically, and away from the dark side.

John Kennedy did not just betray the Cubans; he betrayed America. And there are more non-Hispanic Americans who understand that fact than many Cubans may realize or appreciate. There are people who did not, and have not, bought into the myth of the sainted Kennedys.

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