Recently, I stumbled across something pertaining to Cuba and how the people’s lives were changing for the better
The article caused me to have a flash of déjà vu.
One day in the summer of 1960, when I was 18 years old, (Damn….that’s nearly a half century ago) I was listening to radio station WNOR, in Norfolk, VA. During the news broadcast, the announcer mentioned that some people were in town recruiting for a group called the International Anti-Communist Brigade, whose purpose was to invade Cuba and kick Castro’s communist government to the curb and establish a democratic government.
Even though I was only 18, I had been on my own since I was 15, was already divorced and had been in and out of the Army, and was really not doing too much worthwhile with my life. This group sounded to me, street kid that I was, like an ideal thing for me to be doing. Kill a Commie for Mommy, and all that.
The news announcer didn’t give any way to get in touch with these people, so I called the radio station and talked to the announcer and was told that they didn’t have any information about getting in touch with the recruiters about joining the Brigade, but that they would try to get some information for me, and to call back.
The station ran a little piece about the Brigade and ridiculed them a bit….saying it seemed strange that they were recruiting, but that no one was able to get in touch with them. Next day, they had some names and a phone number for me.
I called the number, which was in South Norfolk, now known as Chesapeake, VA, and talked to a person named Bernard Barker, whom I found out later is a native born Cuban, in spite of his name, and a former member of the Cuban secret police under Batista, Castro’s predecessor. (Born in 1917, Barker was still alive in Miami Florida as of January 2009)
Barker talked to me a bit, and turned me over to Frank Fiorini, also known as Frank Sturgis. Sturgis, among other things in a multi-faceted career, was at one time in the mountains of Cuba with Castro before Castro won his revolution. As it turned out, both of these guys were working with the CIA at this time. (Another couple of interesting tidbits about these two guys later.)
The three of us met, along with a friend of mine who was also interested, and we were finally invited to go along with them and do our part to save Cuba from Castro and the “Red Menace.” We were to meet in front of the post office in Norfolk (Now a Federal Courthouse) and be transported to Florida, and from there to Peru for training.
My friend and I were there when we were supposed to be, but Sturgis and Barker never showed. I talked to Sturgis’ wife, Juanita Fiorini, who worked as a waitress at the Virginian Restaurant on Granby Street in downtown Norfolk, but she denied any knowledge of their whereabouts or activities. I never saw them again.
The landing, as is well known, was a spectacular failure. Castro not only survived the invasion but outlasted ten presidents despite every effort to force him from office—including at least six attempts at assassination.
To prepare for the invasion, the CIA trained the force in secret camps in Guatemala-not Peru, as I was told- for nearly six months. But long before the landing, it was widely known in the Cuban community in Florida (and, presumably, the information was also available to Castro agents) that such a landing was in the offing. Finally, the invasion failed because Kennedy refused to provide U.S. air support for the brigade. Castro's aircraft easily disposed of the exiles' tiny air force and proceeded to sink the invasion ships and cut down the men holding the Bay of Pigs beachhead.
This in spite of the fact that some of the Cuban militia was bussed….yep…bussed to the battlefield.
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Only about 150 members of the 1,500-strong brigade managed to escape; the others were either killed in battle or captured by the Cuban armed forces. I remember seeing some of them on TV being landed in Florida in handcuffs and chains. I remember saying to myself…”Self…you are one lucky SOB!”
Twenty months later, in December 1962, Castro released the 1,179 Bay of Pigs prisoners in exchange for $53 million worth of medical supplies and other goods raised by private individuals and groups in the United States.
You remember Frank Sturgis, and Bernard Barker, that I mentioned above? Well…these two showed up again a few years later. They were two of the Watergate burglars!
During the time between the Bay of Pigs fiasco and Watergate, they were both suspected, and still are in many quarters, of being involved in the Kennedy assassination.
As far as the Kennedy thing goes, though, I like my daughter Jackie’s theory the best. She said: “I think Elvis did it.” The poor girl takes after her old man.
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