The events depicted in the book come from extensive interviews with Olga Goodwin (Morgan), dozens of members of the Second Front of the National Escambray, as well as William Alexander Morgan’s family and friends, historians, and Cubans who fought in the revolution. We spent a decade researching the story, reviewing thousands of pages of documents from private collections and the National Archives and Records Administration. In addition, we examined hundreds of news stories from the New York Times, Miami Herald, Associated Press, Toledo Blade, and other media outlets. An important source was Olga’s memoir, an unpublished 150-page manuscript stored in her basement for years. Her writings provide deeply personal material as well as extensive details of the couple’s relationship during one of the most important revolutions of the twentieth century. We also relied on nearly fifteen hours of tape-recorded interviews with key members of the Second Front from the collection of author and former journalist Lee Roderick.
Introduction
We talked at length with numerous members of the Second Front of the National Escambray, including Roger Redondo, Armando Fleites, Domingo Ortega, and Ramiro Lorenzo. We interviewed Hiram Gonzalez, Rino Puig, and others incarcerated with Morgan in La Cabaña. We pulled from transcripts of interviews with Pedro Ossorio, Edmundo Amado Consuegra, and others. We interviewed Olga Goodwin (Morgan) and pulled from historical documents.
Chapter 1
We interviewed dozens of family members and friends of William Morgan. They included Art Ryan, Donnie Van Gunten, Stan Sturgill, Marshall Isenberg, James Tafelski, and others. We drew on transcripts of interviews with Loretta Morgan, Carroll Costain, and her husband, Edric Costain, as well as Charlie Zissan and Edmundo Amado Consuegra. We reviewed Morgan’s military records, including transcripts of his court-martial and his army psychiatric evaluation. We talked at length with key members of the Second National Front of the Escambray.
Chapter 2
We conducted extensive interviews with family and friends of Olga Goodwin. We interviewed Olga more than a dozen times during the last decade and pulled from her memoir, which included details of her bus trip to take supplies to rebels in the mountains. We also drew from historical documents as well as news stories during military dictator Fulgencio Batista y Zaldívar’s rule in the 1950s.
Chapter 3
We talked at length with members of the Second National Front of the Escambray, including Roger Redondo and Armando Fleites. We pulled from transcripts of interviews with Edmundo Amado Consuegra. We drew on documents and archival material related to the history of relations between the United States and Cuba.
Chapter 4
We pulled from transcripts of interviews with Roger Rodriguez, Isabelle Rodriguez, and others who helped Morgan on his journey to the mountains. We conducted extensive interviews with members of the Second National Front of the Escambray and pulled from historical documents and published material.
Chapter 5
We conducted numerous interviews with Morgan’s fellow soldiers in the Escambray, including Eloy Gutiérrez Menoyo, the leader of the Second National Front of the Escambray. The men described Morgan’s first days in the rugged terrain as well as harsh conditions in the camps. We also drew on interviews with Olga Goodwin, who recounted stories her husband had told her about his early days with the guerrillas. We used military maps and historical documents to pinpoint rebel movements.
We talked at length with members of the Second National Front of the Escambray, who described skirmishes with government soldiers in early 1958. They also provided military maps and other key documents to help us understand the campaign and strategy. Roger Redondo recounted hiding a cache of weapons critical to the rebels’ survival. Menoyo’s biography, including his ideological differences with Faure Chomón, was pulled from our interviews, as well as documents and published material.
Chapter 7
We conducted interviews with members of the Second National Front of the Escambray. They described the grueling march to flee Batista’s soldiers and recounted how Menoyo pushed Morgan to keep moving after he spotted the American on the ground in pain.
Chapter 8
Our account of Morgan’s rise in the rebel unit came from numerous interviews with members of the Second National Front of the Escambray. They recounted Morgan’s skills as a soldier and how he trained the rebels in self-defense and to handle weapons. The men also talked about Morgan’s altercation with Regino Camacho Santos and described Morgan’s courage during an ambush by Batista’s soldiers at Charco Azul.
“In the confusion Morgan didn’t understand the orders to charge,” Roger Redondo told the authors. “William was trapped and fighting for his life.” For our account of Morgan’s inner thoughts during the battle, we relied on interviews with Second Front members as well as Olga Goodwin. They said Morgan told them what he was thinking when he stood up during the firefight.
We incorporated details of Morgan’s letter to New York Times correspondent Herbert Matthews to show how the Second Front was emerging as a fighting unit in the mountains. The letter was the first sign to the outside world of Morgan’s involvement in the conflict. In it, Morgan articulated why he was fighting.
Excerpt: “Why do I fight in this land so foreign from my own? Why did I come here far from my home and family? Why do I worry about these men here in the mountains with me? Is it because they were all close friends of mine? No! When I came here they were strangers to me. I could not speak their language or understand their problems. Is it because I seek adventure? No. Here there is no adventure only the ever existent problems of survive. So why am I here? I am here because I believe that the most important thing for free men to do is to protect the freedom of others. I am here so that my son when he is grown will not have to fight or die in a land not his own, because one man or group of men try to take his liberty from him.”
Chapter 9
We talked to Olga Goodwin at length about her journey from Santa Clara to the Escambray. At the time, she was wanted by the secret police for antigovernment activities. We also drew on her memoir, interviews with friends and family members, and historical documents, including news stories, for our account of life in Santa Clara and Las Villas Province in 1958. “I would rather die on the street than go into exile,” she told the authors about why she fled to the mountains instead of seeking asylum at a foreign embassy in Havana. Former soldiers of the Second National Front of the Escambray provided details of the base camps, including call signs and signals used to warn sentries of approaching danger.
Chapter 10
Our account of Olga’s first two encounters with Morgan comes from interviews and her memoir:
“He said he felt very pleased to meet me. . . . I felt so thrilled that words could not come out of my lips. I only looked at him in astonishment and awe. He was so big and different from the others, that I could only look at him,” she wrote.
Later that night, Olga recalled Morgan galloping toward her on a white horse, whistling a song she would later know as the theme from the movie The Bridge on the River Kwai.
“How are you doing, Olgo?” he asked.
“I am fine, Commander,” she said. “But my name is not Olgo. It’s Olga—feminine.”
Morgan laughed. He was still trying to learn Spanish.
“OK,” he said. “But to me, you’re still going to be Olgo.”
Chapter 11
We talked at length with members of the Second National Front of the Escambray, including Eloy Gutiérrez Menoyo, Roger Redondo, Armando Fleites, and others. They provided us with critical details about how small groups of soldiers communicated with each other in the field and shared information, as well as how they planned and carried out attacks.
Chapter 12
We conducted extensive interviews with Olga Goodwin and used details from her memoir, including how she administered first aid to injured rebels. Members of the Second National Front of the Escambray provided information about the network of messengers and safe houses in the mountains.
Chapter 13
For our account of skirmishes in the mountains, we drew on interviews with Second National Front of the Escambray soldiers, including Eloy Gutiérrez Menoyo, Roger Redondo, Armando Fleites, and others. We also used historical documents, including maps, and news stories. Our account of the Rural Guard torturing villagers comes from eyewitness accounts. Morgan included some details in a letter to his mother:
“The other day the Soldiers came to the mountains 1,200 in our zone and burned 14 homes of families who were neither rebels or opposed—the Government killed a 60-year-old woman—who ran from one house to protect her grandchild—And they cut out the tongue, pulled out the fingernails and hung a 72-year-old man who was senile and refused to let them enter his home—these things I have seen and much more.”
Chapter 14
The chapter comes in part from letters that Morgan wrote to his mother and two children. In the letters, Morgan explains why he’s fighting in the revolution and offers future advice for his son and daughter: “Dear Mom: This will be the first letter I have written to you since I left in December. I know that you neither approve nor understand why I am here—even though you are the one person in the world—that I believe—understands me. I have been many places in my life and done many things which you did not approve—or understand, nor did I understand myself.”
He told his mother he left Toledo in December “because I believed it was the wisest thing to do.”
Then he described his fellow soldiers and their commitment to the cause: “My men have walked—20 miles in a night to attack these same Soldiers—much of the time we have little food—and we sleep on the ground. But slowly but surely we are driving the Soldiers from the mountains and all over Cuba—men like us are doing the same in the city or the hills.”
He ended by saying he hoped his mother now understood why he was in Cuba: “The whole point of this letter is to let you know why I fight here. I do not expect you to approve but I believe you will understand—And if it should happen that I am killed here—you will know it was not for foolish fancy—or as dad would say a pipe dream. As for Terri and Billy and Ann, it is hard to understand but I love them very deeply and think of them often.”
Chapter 15
We used Olga Goodwin’s memoir to help tell the story of the Batista’s indiscriminate bombing in the mountains to try to break the will of the guerrillas. It was during one of the air attacks that Morgan broached the subject of their future. But Olga told him she couldn’t think about their future while they were in the middle of a war.
“I don’t know you. I don’t know anything about you. We must talk calmly, since I don’t know anything about your life and, you don’t know anything about mine,” Olga wrote in her memoir.
Chapter 16
We interviewed Olga Goodwin, and drew on extensive passages in her memoir for details of her leaving camp after her parrot died.
For our account of Jesús Carreras’s meeting with Ernesto “Che” Guevara, we drew on extensive interviews with the members of the Second National Front of the Escambray. We also relied on documents and historical accounts of Che’s journey to the Escambray and the rift between the Second Front and the 26th of July Movement.
Chapter 18
We talked at length to Olga Goodwin and pulled from her memoir. Part of the chapter comes from extensive interviews with members of Second National Front of the Escambray, including Eloy Gutiérrez Menoyo, Roger Redondo, Armando Fleites, Ramiro Lorenzo, Jorge Castellon, and others. While Menoyo was under pressure to make peace with Che, he also had to deal with the increased presence of Batista’s troops in the mountains.
Chapter 19
Our account of Morgan and Olga’s wedding comes from interviews with Olga Goodwin, her family and friends, and members of the Second National Front of the Escambray. We also drew from Olga’s memoir: “The month of October arrived and the political situation in Cuba was worse all the time. Several towns were being attacked and, at the end of October, l958, he told me: ‘Olga, we better get married. Nobody knows what’s going to happen and I know that I love you very much and that you love me too.’ I said: ‘It’s all right, let’s get married as soon as we can.’ ”
We drew on our interviews with members of the Second Front, including Roger Redondo and Armando Fleites, and military maps, news stories, and archival material for our account of the battle of Trinidad. Redondo recalled urging Menoyo to postpone the mission. As a scout, Redondo discovered the military had sent two companies to Trinidad in anticipation of a rebel attack. Despite the risk, Menoyo moved forward with the plans.
Chapter 20
Our account of Menoyo’s meeting with Che Guevara was pulled from numerous interviews with members of the Second National Front of the Escambray, including Eloy Gutiérrez Menoyo, Roger Redondo, Armando Fleites, and others. Documents show that Castro had sent Che to the Escambray to bring all the rebel fighting units under the umbrella of the 26th of July Movement.
Chapter 21
We talked at length to Olga Goodwin and pulled information from her memoir. She recounted details of Morgan’s uniform and his ritual—how he dressed before heading into the field. Our account of the final push—including the skirmish at Topes de Collantes and Che’s attempt to undermine the Second National Front of the Escambray’s role in the campaign—was drawn from extensive interviews with members of the fighting unit, including Roger Redondo, Armando Fleites, and others.
Chapter 22
We interviewed a number of people who fought with the Second National Front of the Escambray, among them Eloy Gutiérrez Menoyo, Roger Redondo, Armando Fleites, Ramiro Lorenzo, and others. They described critical details about the battles and provided maps and other documents. Our account of the final days of Batista’s government comes from historical papers, books, and news stories.
Chapter 23
Our account of the Second National Front of the Escambray’s campaign to take cities and towns is drawn from numerous interviews with members of the fighting unit, including Roger Redondo, Armando Fleites, and others.
Chapter 24
We based most of the narrative of Morgan’s time in Cienfuegos on extensive interviews with Olga Goodwin and members of the Second National Front of the Escambray, including Roger Redondo, Armando Fleites, Rafael Huguet, and others. We also incorporated details from Olga’s memoir and transcripts of interviews with Morgan’s family, as well as news stories about Morgan’s role in Cienfuegos and the revolution. We also used documents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which had started looking into Morgan’s activities in Cuba.
Chapter 25
We based the chapter on extensive interviews with Olga Goodwin and her friends and family members. In her memoir, she included details of the challenges facing her husband and the rebels in the wake of Batista’s sudden departure. We drew on news stories to help document Morgan’s popularity among the Cuban people, who affectionately called him the Americano.
Chapter 26
For Morgan and Olga’s time together in Cienfuegos, we used material from Olga Goodwin’s memoir. Along with interviewing Olga, we also talked to her friends and family, as well as members of the Second National Front of the Escambray. Our account of Fidel Castro’s visit and meal in a Cienfuegos restaurant comes from interviews with Olga and others, along with news stories.
“Castro was wearing his fatigues, high boots; his hair was curly and very black, his eyes shined (something that struck my attention highly) and his eyes seemed to laugh when he spoke,” Olga recalled in her memoir.
But she said she quickly became disillusioned.
“In reality, I did not see Castro pay much attention to William nor the group under the latter’s command. This annoyed and disappointed since I saw that Castro only paid attention and gave importance to his group. I thought that that was not fair and, because of that, I asked my friend (Rosita) to leave, and I did not even want to eat. I only got close to William and told him: am not feeling very well and I am leaving, because there is too many people here and I need a little fresh air. So I left.”
Chapter 27
The narrative for this chapter comes from extensive interviews with Olga Goodwin and members of the Second National Front of the Escambray, among them Eloy Gutiérrez Menoyo, Rafael Huguet, Roger Redondo, Armando Fleites, Ramiro Lorenzo, and Jorge Castellon. We also reviewed Olga’s memoir, news stories, and documents.
We talked at length with members of the Second National Front of the Escambray, including Eloy Gutiérrez Menoyo, Roger Redondo, Armando Fleites, and others. We drew from extensive interviews with Olga Goodwin as well as from her memoir. We also used historical papers and news stories to help depict the chaotic situation in Havana in the early days of Fidel Castro’s government. Fleites recalled details of Menoyo’s argument with Che that almost turned into a bloodbath. “It was very tense in the room,” Fleites said. “We didn’t know what would happen.”
Chapter 29
We conducted extensive interviews with Olga Goodwin and her family and friends, including Isabelle Rodriguez, and pulled details from Olga’s memoir. During the interviews, Olga recounted her personal conversations with Morgan. We interviewed a number of people from the Second National Front of the Escambray, among them Roger Redondo and Armando Fleites. We used transcripts of interviews with Morgan’s family, including Loretta Morgan and Carroll Costain.
Chapter 30
We talked at length with Olga Goodwin and members of the Second National Front of the Escambray. For our account of Morgan’s meeting with Dominick Bartone, we drew on those interviews, which included details of private conversations they had with Morgan. In addition, we reviewed National Archives and Records Administration documents that included Federal Bureau of Investigation, State Department, and Central Intelligence Agency files related to William Morgan and the mob. During one of our interviews, Fleites recalled a private meeting with Castro in which the Cuban leader expressed concerns about Morgan because he was an American. Our account of the meeting with Frank Nelson comes in part from Morgan’s conversations with Olga and key members of the Second Front, as well as from FBI and other documents.
Our account of the meeting in which Morgan and Eloy Gutiérrez Menoyo decided to tell Castro about the Trujillo conspiracy was pulled from numerous interviews with members of the Second National Front of the Escambray and Olga Goodwin. We also used her memoir and FBI documents. For the section on Pedro Ossorio’s arrival at Morgan’s home, we reviewed transcripts from an earlier interview.
Chapter 32
We conducted numerous interviews with key members of the Second National Front of the Escambray, among them Eloy Gutiérrez Menoyo, Roger Redondo, and Armando Fleites. During interviews, Olga Goodwin provided insight into how Morgan juggled details of the plot and meetings with the Trujillo conspirators. Some meetings took place in her Havana home. We also found critical details of the meetings in FBI documents; the agency had a number of informants who called in with regular updates. Our interviews with Olga—as well as her memoir—provided key details of the meeting between Morgan and Fidel Castro to discuss the Trujillo plot.
Chapter 33
To document the Trujillo conspiracy, we interviewed numerous members of the Second National Front of the Escambray, including Eloy Gutiérrez Menoyo, Roger Redondo, and Armando Fleites. In addition, we interviewed Olga Goodwin and reviewed her memoir, which provided insight into problems facing the couple caught in the middle of an international conspiracy. She described in vivid details the characters who regularly showed up unannounced at her door, including the Reverend Ricardo Velazco Ordóñez, a Trujillo confidant. Trujillo had sent Ordóñez to Cuba to check up on Morgan. We also used transcripts of earlier interviews with Pedro Ossorio and FBI and other documents to show that Morgan was under surveillance by federal agents who worked feverishly to try to unravel the plot. Details about the meetings between Morgan and FBI agent Leman Stafford Jr. came from various sources, including FBI documents and Olga’s memoir. In our interviews, Olga provided additional information about the FBI’s investigation.
We conducted extensive interviews with numerous members of the Second National Front of the Escambray, including Roger Redondo, Armando Fleites, and others. They provided critical details of how the plot unfolded. They also were in the room when Morgan contacted Trujillo via radio. During the plot, Morgan confided in Olga and several close friends, including Redondo and Fleites. In interviews with the authors, they recounted their conversations with Morgan.
Chapter 35
The narrative for the chapter comes from extensive interviews with Olga Goodwin. We also used details from Olga’s memoir and talked to members of the Second National Front of the Escambray about the plot. We reviewed FBI and State Department documents along with news stories. Our account of Morgan’s voyage to Cuba with the weapons was drawn in part from FBI documents, which included details of an August 20, 1959, phone call between Morgan and Leman Stafford Jr. It came one week after Morgan’s role as a double agent was revealed to the world.
“He apologized for what he claimed was his inability to furnish the true details regarding the purpose of his previous visits to Miami, Florida. He felt that he had not violated any United States laws by his previous actions, although he did feel he may have ‘bent’ some of them,” Stafford wrote.
Chapter 36
We interviewed a number of people who participated in the Trujillo conspiracy, including Eloy Gutiérrez Menoyo, Roger Redondo, Armando Fleites, and others. We talked at length with members of the Second National Front of the Escambray who were in a Havana house when Fidel Castro and Camilo Cienfuegos confronted several adversaries involved in the plot to overthrow the Cuban government. We reviewed documents, news stories, and FBI and State Department documents, including cables and memos.
The chapter’s details were culled from extensive interviews with Olga Goodwin. She also described in her memoir how the Trujillo conspiracy elevated Morgan’s profile in Cuba. In the aftermath, Morgan had become a celebrity.
“After the ‘Trujillo Conspiracy,’ there was much change in our lives, because way before this problem, he had a lot of followers. But when it happened, their sympathy toward him increased. I mean there was a lot of movement around his person, not only within Cuba, but in the Cuban radio, television. Many American journalists called him constantly and asked him for interviews. So my place was constantly full with American journalists,” Olga wrote in her memoir.
Chapter 38
Our account of Morgan losing his US citizenship comes from extensive interviews with Olga Goodwin and Morgan’s family members and friends. We also reviewed State Department, Central Intelligence Agency, and other documents. We interviewed numerous members of the Second National Front of the Escambray about protecting Morgan in the wake of the Trujillo conspiracy. We pulled the transcripts of broadcast journalist Clete Roberts’s interview with Morgan. During the session, Roberts asked him about the revolution, Morgan’s relationship with Fidel Castro, and Morgan’s loss of American citizenship. He also touched on Morgan’s marriage.
Roberts: “You know, Bill, what you’ve just told me—the meeting with Mrs. Morgan, the romance, the kind of a life you live—sounds to me like all of the movie scripts that were ever dreamt about in Hollywood. How has it happened that you haven’t offered a diary for sale?”
Morgan: “I don’t believe you should cash in on your ideals. I don’t believe I was an idealist when I went up into the mountains, but I feel that I am an idealist now. At least I have an awful strong faith in an awful lot of people and what they want to do.”
Chapter 39
We talked at length with leaders of the Second National Front of the Escambray about how Fidel Castro’s secret police began watching Morgan. In a series of interviews, Olga Goodwin said her life with Morgan during this period was difficult. She had a newborn. They had just moved into a new apartment—her fourth home since the revolution ended. She told us she dreamed about moving to the United States to raise their family. But after Morgan lost his US citizenship, she knew that was out of the question. We drew from Olga’s interviews and memoir for our account of Morgan confronting Fidel Castro in front of a live television audience. At the time, Castro was beckoning a crowd to join him in denouncing America. Her memoir was a valuable resource for Morgan’s decision to create a farm for fish and frogs.
Chapter 40
Our account of Morgan’s push to get the fish and frog farm up and running comes from interviews with Olga Goodwin, Morgan’s friends, and members of the Second National Front of the Escambray, including Roger Redondo. We used transcripts of interviews with Edmundo Amado Consuegra and Pedro Ossorio. During this period, Olga recalled that Morgan took Antonio Chao Flores under his wing, trying to keep him from getting in trouble.
“Describing this young man is for me, in a certain way, a reason for pride, since I deemed him an extraordinary young man,” Olga wrote in her memoir. “William and I thought of him as our son. He had a fair skin, was very amiable, affectionate and fluent in his conversation, and had extraordinary political ideals. He had a soft, penetrating and pure look in his eyes, a short height, blond hair and quick movements upon walking, never fearful and courageous to a maximum, ready to face any danger and even look for it at any time. I looked at him at times and told him: ‘I fear for you, because at times you are a little impulsive and I think that something could happen to you.’ He smiled and told me: ‘Don’t worry; nothing will happen to me.’ ”
Chapter 41
We talked to Olga Goodwin at length and had access to her memoir, providing critical details about the couple’s family life. Our account of the La Coubre disaster comes from numerous interviews with Olga and members of the Second National Front of the Escambray, among them Eloy Gutiérrez Menoyo, Roger Redondo, Armando Fleites, and others, as well as from historical documents and news stories.
Chapter 42
We interviewed key members of the Second National Front of the Escambray, who provided critical information about their struggle to find a way to counter Fidel Castro’s tilt toward the Soviet Union. In a series of extensive interviews, Roger Redondo and others told us that no military unit was more opposed to Communism than the Second Front. They had publicly proclaimed this position. They had even expressed their views to Castro. Our account of Morgan’s decision to run guns to the Escambray comes from interviews with Olga Goodwin, Second Front members, and Cuban historians, among them Enrique Encinosa. We also drew on historical documents and transcripts of interviews with key players, including Frank Emmick. Olga’s memoir provided information on Morgan’s fight to free Jesús Carreras from jail.
Chapter 43
The chapter derives from extensive interviews with Olga Goodwin and members of the Second National Front of the Escambray, among them Rafael Huguet, Roger Redondo, and Armando Fleites. We also drew from historical documents—especially for the section on the emerging Soviet presence in the Escambray. We also reviewed news stories and numerous books on the Cuban revolution. For the birth of Olga’s second daughter, we pulled information from Olga’s memoir.
Chapter 44
Many of the critical details of Morgan’s and Olga Goodwin’s arrests come from Olga’s memoir and from our extensive interviews with her during the last decade. We also pulled material from our lengthy interviews with members of the Second National Front of the Escambray, Morgan’s friends and family, Cuban historians, State Department documents, and news stories.
We based much of the narrative of Morgan’s incarceration in La Cabaña and his wife’s house arrest and subsequent escape on interviews with Olga Goodwin and members of the Second National Front of the Escambray, among them Roger Redondo and Armando Fleites, as well as transcripts of interviews with Pedro Ossorio Franco and Edmundo Amado Consuegra. We used Olga’s memoir to provide critical details about her meeting with Morgan in La Cabaña and about how she escaped house arrest with her two young children by drugging Cuban guards.
Chapter 46
We conducted extensive interviews with members of the Second National Front of the Escambray, among them Roger Redondo, Armando Fleites, Eloy Gutiérrez Menoyo, Domingo Ortega, and others. Redondo and Fleites talked at length about their decision to flee Cuba. Our interviews with Olga Goodwin provided details of her journey to the Brazilian embassy, where she was granted asylum. We also pulled information from her memoir. During interviews with Cuban historian Enrique Encinosa, he revealed that his father provided a safe house for Olga and her children as they eluded the secret police.
Chapter 47
Our account of Morgan’s incarceration in La Cabaña and his March 1961 trial comes from numerous sources, including transcripts of interviews with Pedro Ossorio and Edmundo Amado Consuegra. We also interviewed journalist Henry Raymont, who covered the trial for United Press International. We reviewed Morgan’s last letters to his mother and Olga, and we examined historical documents, including the trial transcripts (translated by Donald Cellini, former Spanish professor, Adrian College). In addition, we drew from news stories and Olga’s memoir, which described her escape from the Brazilian embassy in a desperate attempt to reach Morgan in Camagüey. Our account of Loretta Morgan’s frantic attempt to save her son’s life came from a number of sources, including the transcript of an interview with her in the 1980s, as well as documents and letters revealing her appeals to congressional and religious leaders on her son’s behalf.
We drew from a number of interviews with people who were in La Cabaña the night Morgan was executed, among them Hiram Gonzalez and Pedro Ossorio (tape-recorded in 1983). We also reviewed historical documents and an account written by the Reverend John Joseph McKniff, the priest who heard Morgan’s last confession and then escorted him to the execution wall. McKniff described Morgan’s death by firing squad. Among the documents were Morgan’s letters to his mother.
“I have made my peace with God,” he wrote from his cell. “I can accept whatever happens with my mind clear and my spirit strong.”
Our account of Olga’s arrest was drawn from our extensive interviews with her as well as her memoir written in 1982.