Despatriado

My father also related to me that the person who was in custody on suspicion of President Kennedy’s death was Lee Harvey Oswald who was a Castro Sympathizer and a devout Marxist. Ironically Oswald himself was gunned down by Jack Ruby two days after his arrest.

Another interesting aspect of our conversation was that Jack Ruby had strong ties with alleged Mafia organizations in the United States. However, the Cuban government had another theory on the subject. They wanted the Cuban people to believe that the Kennedy assassination was somehow connected to the freedom they were giving to the black people in America, which resulted in the CIA’s complicity in the assassination.

Unknowingly my father triggered in me an interest in politics and foreign policies. I was very curious as how we as Cuban people, living on a small island, had played a major role in the International Arena.

At the beginning of my classes as a seventh grader in 1966, my mother was concerned about my upcoming birthday and on reaching the age of fifteen. Once I turned fifteen this prevented me from leaving the country. During this time, Pititi encouraged me to enlist in the Merchant Marines. Even my parents thought that it was a very good idea, it would give me alternatives and a hope for the future.

Pititi and I signed the application forms in February of 1966, we were accepted and told to report to a military base outside Havana. We stayed there until May 1966. At this time I was ordered to present myself in the security office for the Fishing Fleet of the Gulf of Mexico. My new assignment consisted of working in conjunction with a military unit of 12, which was involved in the building side of the harbor. Our responsibilities primarily included duty watch at night and searching ships coming in and out of Havana harbor.

We were allowed three days furlough, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, when we were allowed to visit our families. Pititi was also allowed the same privileges. We would meet and take our girlfriends to the beaches or movie theater.

Pititi never revealed to me what his job consisted of. One day we went to a dance party at the Derretero Club. I did not want to pay the entrance to the club, I was arrested by two plain clothes policemen. Pititi watched the entire event from the other side of the room with great amusement. He approached the two policemen and asked to speak with them. I could not hear what was being said. Pititi showed them a badge and told them that I was in his custody. Ever since that incident I became very curious as to Pititi's job and status, he never offered and I never asked.

On June 15 1966 my unit was replaced and I was transferred with Julito Hernandez (El Flaco) to a patrol boat. This boat looked similar to the other fishing boats but on the inside of the ship there was different equipment and communication gear. The boat consisted of eight people, a lieutenant, instructor, mechanic, cook and four young cadets. Our main objective was to learn about the Cuban coast and develop communication skills. We were to learn how to obtain assistance from the Air Umbrella in the field of operations where we were to conduct maneuvers.

Ten days later I returned from my first mission. My parents were very concerned with the activities because they already knew of secret plans to leave Cuba. It was at that time that my father gave me my second political lesson concerning Cuba and the Castro government.

He told me that most of the Cuban people thought that the revolution was a reaction to the need for justice in response to Batista's abuse of power, which involved people being tortured and killed. He said he regretted that when Castro first approached the city of Havana, there were weapons and tanks and thousands of soldiers stationed at the base to oppose his arrival. He allowed himself and other military personnel to be persuaded not to fight fearing too many civilian casualties.

At the military base in Columbia, there was a lieutenant general in charge of the tank brigade that was stationed there, and he wanted to pursue the idea of going out and intercepting Castro's caravans of revolutionaries and commandants, but somehow he got persuaded.

I spent two hours with my father on this political discussion, then he went on to tell me that Castro was living in the mountains. He had found financial assistance from Meyer Lanksy, Lucky Luciano, and the Catholic Church. Castro was professing that 65% of the Cuban economy was leaving the country. Ironically when Castro took power, his first order of business was to confiscate private property, create another Land Reform in the country (INRA), and close the Catholic and eventually the Protestant churches. No one was allowed to preach in public places. The Americans left and the Soviet Union was invited on to the island. While banishing the Americans for taking the 65% of the economy out of the country, we allowed the Russians to take out 85% of the economy in exchange for military equipment. Even the freedom of expression was abolished by Castro.

I was very connected to my father's ideology and I questioned him further on the missile crisis that had taken place in October of 1962. He immediately replied by saying, 'It seems to me that the Soviet Union was trying to unstabilize the American military power by having middle range nuclear weapons in Cuba. That would eventually be an excuse to use it in a conflict between Cuba and the United States.

The most difficult point of the crisis, was that the Castro government had access to one single missile that was ready to launch without the assistance of a Soviet engineer. The Russians had a hard time getting that missile out of the hands of Castro, a guarantee had to be made that the United States would not intervene in Cuba after the missiles had been dismantled.

The Kennedy administration quarantined the island and finally a deal was made between the two super powers. The Castro government agreed to the removal of all nuclear weapons out of Cuba, but the embargo was maintained by the United States.

Finally, my father told me that the American people didn't really know that Cuba still had nuclear capacity every time a Soviet nuclear submarine was stationed in Cuba territory, in particular to the constant traffic of Russian submarines on patrol from the Soviet Union and Cuba. Somehow the Castro's government had a deal made with the Soviet Union allowing him to have access to nuclear weapons in case of a military crisis with the United States.