Second National Front of the Escambray (SNFE)
Edmundo Amado Consuegra: rebel fighter who served on Morgan’s security detail after the revolution.
Lázaro Artola Ordaz: comandante who trained Morgan after his arrival in the mountains.
Regino Camacho Santos: captain and training officer who designed a homemade gun with Morgan during the fighting that became known as the “Cuban Winchester.”
Anastasio Cárdenas Ávila: comandante, killed in the battle of Trinidad in 1958.
Jesús Carreras Zayas: comandante who stood up to “Che” Guevara when the latter tried to take over the Second Front. Carreras was executed with Morgan in 1961.
Antonio Chao Flores: young rebel known as “The Americanito,” who met Morgan in Miami and helped him travel to Cuba to join the Second Front in the mountains.
Armando Fleites Diaz: comandante and medical doctor who defended Morgan after the revolution when Fidel Castro tried to oust the American from the post-revolutionary forces.
Eloy Gutiérrez Menoyo: comandante and principal founder of the Second Front. He became a trusted friend and mentor to Morgan.
Rafael Huguet Del Valle: pilot tapped by Morgan to haul weapons to the new rebel forces rising up against Fidel Castro.
Ramiro Lorenzo Vega: rebel who broke his leg and was carried across rugged terrain by Morgan while fleeing Batista’s soldiers. Morgan later wrote about Lorenzo’s bravery in a letter published by the New York Times.
William Morgan: leading figure of the Cuban revolution and the only American to achieve the rank of comandante, the highest command level in the rebel forces. Known as the Yanqui comandante, he later organized a movement against the new revolutionary government after Fidel Castro began forging ties with the Soviet Union.
Domingo Ortega Gomez: captain whose rebel team intercepted enemy soldiers during the final days of the fighting and stopped them from escaping.
Pedro Ossorio Franco: former member of Castro’s intelligence unit sent to spy on Morgan, but who eventually sided with Morgan and threw his allegiance to the Second Front. He was also later charged with trying to overthrow the government and sentenced to thirty years in prison.
Roger Redondo Gonzalez: captain and intelligence officer who warned Morgan in 1960 that Soviet military advisers were arriving in Cuba.
Olga Rodriguez Farinas: popular student leader and protester forced to flee to the central mountains during the revolution. Morgan’s second wife, she spent eleven years in prison, leading hunger strikes and spending much of her time in solitary confinement. After her release, she moved to Morgan’s hometown of Toledo, Ohio, in 1981, where she waged a campaign to restore Morgan’s citizenship and return his remains to America for reburial.
Roger Rodriguez: rebel fighter and medical doctor who escorted Morgan to the mountains to fight for the Second Front.
26th of July Movement
Fidel Castro Ruz: charismatic founder of the Cuban revolution who led the fighting from his base in the Sierra Maestra mountains in 1958. Known as the “Maximum Leader,” Castro served as prime minister and president until illness forced him from office in 2008. A virulent anti-American, he was leery of Morgan’s growing popularity with the Cuban people and tried to bounce Morgan from the post-revolutionary forces.
Raúl Castro Ruz: younger brother of Fidel, who became one of the most important figures in Cuba’s leadership. An avowed Communist since the early days of the revolution, he bitterly opposed any recognition of the Second Front, calling for the entire unit to disband. As of 2008, he is president of Cuba.
Ernesto “Che” Guevara de la Serna: Argentinian physician and avowed Marxist who joined the Castro brothers to help lead the revolution. During the fighting, he tried unsuccessfully to take over the Second Front before the final campaign that drove Batista from power. He later clashed with the Second Front leaders over their pro-Democratic stance and tried to strip them of their ranks.
Other Rebels
Faure Chomón Mediavilla: leading student rebel and Second Front supporter who broke with the unit over its decision to wage war in the mountains rather than taking the fight to Havana. After the revolution, Castro appointed him ambassador to the Soviet Union.
Targets of the Revolution
Fulgencio Batista y Zaldívar: Cuban leader who seized control of the government in two separate military coups, the first in 1933 and the second in 1952. A populist leader in his early years, he later forged ties with US businessmen and mobsters, reaping millions in kickbacks while cracking down on his opposition through torture and imprisonment. He fled the country on January 1, 1959, after the rebels took control of Santa Clara and the Escambray mountains. He died in exile in Spain in 1973.
Manuel Benítez: corrupt chief of Cuba’s national police under Batista, who fled to Miami and later became a key informant for the FBI.
Antonio Regueira: Batista army lieutenant whose prolonged shootout with Morgan in the battle of Charco Azul underscored the tenacity of both sides in the early months of the revolution.
Ángel Sánchez Mosquera: tenacious Cuban army colonel who fought numerous battles with the rebels in the Sierra Maestra mountains before being sent to the Escambray mountains to stem the rebel incursion.
Francisco Tabernilla Dolz: Cuban general and army chief under Batista whose demoralized forces struggled against the rebels, prompting him to declare that the war was lost well before the final surrender.
The Trujillo Conspiracy
Augusto Ferrando: Dominican consul in Miami and bagman for Trujillo who helped the dictator devise the plan to overthrow the Castro government with Morgan’s help.
Rafael Trujillo Molina: longtime dictator of the Dominican Republic who hatched a plot to overthrow the Castro government in 1959 with the help of Morgan. Trujillo put a $100,000 bounty on Morgan’s head after discovering that the American had served as a double agent for Castro.
Ricardo Velazco Ordóñez: Spanish priest and Trujillo operative who helped the dictator plan the conspiracy against Castro and convinced Trujillo the plot would succeed.
Americans
Dominick Bartone: Cleveland organized-crime figure who supplied guns and a plane to Trujillo in the plot to overthrow Castro.
Ellen Mae “Terri” Bethel: Morgan’s first wife, whom he met while working in a Florida circus in the 1950s. She filed for divorce in 1958, three months after he left for Cuba. They had two children: Anna and William Jr.
Philip Bonsal: career US diplomat and last American ambassador to Cuba, who fed information to the FBI about Morgan’s activities in Cuba.
Frank Emmick: CIA operative from Ohio who helped finance Morgan’s venture to breed fish and frogs in Cuba for sale to American restaurants.
J. Edgar Hoover: director of the FBI, who became obsessed with Fidel Castro’s rise and Morgan’s role in helping Castro stay in power.
Alexander Morgan: father of William Morgan, who agonized over his son’s decision to fight in the Cuban revolution.
Loretta Morgan: mother of William Morgan, who tried to stop his execution and later pushed to restore his US citizenship and to return his remains to America for reburial.
Frank Nelson: CIA and mob operative who first approached Morgan about carrying out an assassination of Castro for one million dollars.
Leman Stafford Jr.: veteran FBI agent ordered to track Morgan’s movements between Miami and Havana in 1959 and 1960.