“I always felt that the Cubans were being pushed into
the Soviet block by American (foreign) policy.” —Lee Harvey Oswald, 1962
So where was Lee Harvey Oswald when Bay of Pigs went down? According to official records, in Minsk. Lee had arrived in Moscow on October 16, 1959, announcing to Soviet officials there and the American ambassador his plans to defect. Russian authorities sent him to Minsk in January, 1960; Lee had lived there ever since. On March 30, 1961, complaining of an inner ear infection, he had been admitted to a hospital. During his twelve days there he was often visited by his latest girlfriend, a pretty if none too bright young thing named Marina. On April 11, Lee would be discharged.
Most of this was “legend,” a cover-up for what Lee had been assigned to try and achieve during this time period. George had remained in contact on a regular basis since the defection, via several couriers, while Lee divided his stay between two Moscow hotels, later via a single go-between once he reached the smaller provincial city. The assigned courier appeared on Lee’s first day in Minsk. An elderly American had approached him on the street, mentioning that he too had defected. They genially shook hands. When that was done, Lee walked away with a piece of paper in his hand. The following morning when the men passed each other again, they stopped, chatted, and shook hands once more. This time it was Lee who passed a message through this intermediary back to George. And so on and so on.
On March 28, the brief note from George instructed Lee to enter the hospital within two days, complaining of unbearable pain in his right ear. Admitted on March 30 and putting on a convincing performance, Lee noticed in the midnight darkness a male coming up the aisle to his bed. This shadowy figure stepped close, whispering in Lee’s ear. Finally Lee got a good look at the intruder’s face, a duplicate of his own. Realizing that what George had explained to him would be a transfer was occurring, Lee slipped out of bed even as the twin took his place. Quietly Lee exited. As he left the hospital a car pulled up, the driver signaling to Lee. Two hours later he was dropped off in a remote field where a plane awaited. Once aboard Lee found himself headed to Helsinki, transferring there to a jet bound for Miami.
Lee stepped off that craft four hours later and, exhausted, headed into the main terminal. George and Johnny Rosselli were waiting for him. They greeted the bleary-eyed arrival, took Lee out for breakfast, and described the upcoming mission. Something big was about to go down in a week and a half. Lee was not to be briefed about any of it for fear that if captured by Castro’s forces he might be tortured into talking, so the less he knew the better for all. George would only say that in less than 24 hours Lee would be off to Cuba, there to serve as part of a three-pronged assassination attempt on Castro. Johnny would be one of the other two operatives, as would a sometimes employee of the government to be known to Lee only as ‘Dick Tracy.’
Just like in the James Bond books ... and the upcoming movies based on them, which I read are already in pre-production ... my private fantasy is about to become public reality ... 007 and, now, Lee Harvey Oswald are ... licensed to kill!
Kill, but not drive. As Sinatra would say, now ain’t that a kick in the head? I doubt I’ll ever master it. Something comes over me every time I try. I shake and shiver and give up.
Killing? Ah, that’s easy. Driving? Difficult!
*
The following day, according to plans, Lee arrived at the Tamiami airport at precisely six a.m. He waited in the lobby, miniscule compared to the one in Miami’s International Airport, until Johnny Handsome stepped alongside him, motioning for Lee to follow. At the ticket counter stood a young attendant, the only person on duty so early. Johnny explained that he and his friend had paid in advance for the rental of a Cessna 172, the three-year-old model most popular with amateurs who wanted to take flying lessons. A pilot had been arranged for as well. She checked over their identification, with a smile instructing them to pass through the lobby and onto the runways out back.
A pilot, wearing the traditional brown-leather jacket that had been popularized during the war by the Flying Tigers, smiled broadly, waving for them to board. Johnny slipped into the back while Lee hopped in next to the flyboy. Several attendants on the ground scurried about, making the final checks. These men stepped back and signaled for what was to be a conventional take-off. Each was shocked to see that the man in the backseat pulled out a pistol, crammed it into the pilot’s right cheek, and roared:
“We are defecting to Cuba. You will fly us there at once.”
The pilot, appearing panicky, nodded. They cruised down the runaway and rapidly ascended. The mechanics hurried back into the building, calling to the young woman to report another skyjacking of the type that had recently become frequent.
Once airborne, the three jet-age cowboys had a good laugh. The ruse was necessary so that word of the hijacking would be spread all over international radar. Those in Cuba assigned to monitor such airwaves would pick up on this, which ought to prove helpful once they landed, as heroes, outside of Havana.
“Well, so far, so good,” Lee smirked.
“We’ve only just begun,” Dick Tracy reminded him.
During the first third of the flight they ran through their operation. In three days time, each man working on his own would try to kill Castro while he dined at his favorite restaurant. Their approaches were so drastically different that it seemed impossible all three could fail when the tactics were carried out simultaneously. This would make the situation all the more favorable for their side on ‘D Day,’ a term Dick Tracy used, Lee aware the flyer knew more about the coming Big Event than he.
“Well, I trust and believe that we’re going to pull this off and maybe with a little luck all three of us will live to tell our grandchildren about it,” Lee said.
“The odds are in our favor as to the first part of your statement,” Dick Tracy explained, “less so as to the second.”
“Most likely one of us will go down,” Rosselli added.
“Maybe two? Well, as I said that first day when I signed up for the marines, I’m willing to give my life for my country.”
“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,” Dick Tracy replied.
“Still, I’ve got to say, while all I know about Castro is what I read in the papers, and while my impression is mostly negative, I’ve got a feeling in my gut that says all of this crap might have been avoided.”
Dick Tracy turned to Lee briefly, studying the man who sat grinning smugly in the passenger seat. “I don’t get your drift.”
“Well, I keep as close an eye as I can on everything that’s happening on the international scene. So I can’t help thinkin’ that things didn’t have to reach such a ... how would you put it ... crisis point between the U.S. and Cuba.”
Dick Tracy, checking out his flight panel once more, solemnly shook his head. “How could we have avoided it, Lee?”
“After the takeover in ’59, the only thing I think Castro really cared about was his own survival. If I’m right, that means he had to be open to all offers which might benefit him. Including any overtures from the U.S.”
“You’re forgetting,” Rosselli said, “Castro was a Red.”
“Right. But also an American. A Latin American, a Third World American. But an American. Don’t you think he might have opened his arms to U.S. aid if we’d offered to pour money and goods in, rather than assuming a bunker mentality toward us? I mean, think about it. A lot of blood got spilled during that New Year’s eve revolution, but no Americans were harmed.”
“You sound soft on communism,” Dick Tracy remarked.
“Better dead than Red,” Rosselli added.
“Well, yeah. Sure. Hey, I like American style capitalism as much as either of you guys. But that doesn’t mean we can’t live with a Marxist state, so long as it isn’t openly hostile.”
“You’re claiming then that Fidel might have been an ally?”
“I’m saying that I believe he left that route open until we started playing dirty tricks, like cigars to destroy his beard.”
“You yourself were in on some of that stuff.”
“I know, Johnny, I know. And glad to do it. My country calls, I answer! All I’m saying is—“
“—we might have tried extending an olive branch first.”
“Right, Dick Tracy. I mean, the Soviet Union likes to come in and swallow things whole. Maybe Castro would have preferred to be our ally, however uneasy, if only we gave him a chance.”
“Yet you’re going down there to kill him at this moment?”
“I sure am, Johnny. Like Alfred, Lord Tennyson said about those who serve their country in the military or any other such capacity: Ours is not to reason why; ours is but to do and die.”
“Could all those months in Minsk, when you were pretending to be a true believer in communism, have turned you around?”
“No, no, no! Believe me, if there’s one thing I learned over there, it’s that their supposedly left wing government is as authoritarian as Batista’s fascist Cuban state before the revolution, and Castro’s left wing authoritarian regime now.”
“How about the U.S. of A.?” Dick Tracy wanted to know.
“We may be far from perfect but so far as I can see we’ve got the best of all possible governments in an imperfect world.”
“Now you’re talkin’, pal!”
“Still, any government is only as good as those people who are running it at any one point in time.”
“Are you referring to Kennedy?” Dick Tracy wanted to know.
“Yes. But Eisenhower, too. I mean, he may not have been out for Castro’s blood, like JFK. Still, maybe he over-reacted a bit by trying to rid the world of Castro by non-violent means.”
*
They said little else during the remainder of the two hour seven minute trip. Lee wondered if he might have spoken out of turn, even as he had back during his first days as a marine when he opened up too soon to a seeming friend.
Yes, these guys were fellow members of a mission, but not my best buddies. Well, too late now to do anything about it. Just hope they took my words as intended: small talk.
Dick Tracy, clearly a skilled flier, kept their positioning at 210 degrees, straight on toward Havana. Some twenty minutes north of Cuba, Lee spotted a pair of MIGS out his window, but they roared off in the opposite direction and did not turn around at the sight of this American craft. Shortly the plane crossed over and away from The Big Blue, crossing over sandy browns of the rugged beaches, then wildly diverse greens of adjacent rolling hills, fully visible, absolutely breathtaking.
“Here we go,” Dick Tracy sighed, nosing the plane downward. All had been briefed as to the swiftly-evolving defense system on the island, posts strung out at regular intervals so that any air invasion attempt could quickly be detected. Dick Tracy circled twice, checking his controls, over toward a medium-sized compound: a dozen rusty tin buildings circling a larger, older wood-frame structure. A quarter-mile northward, a landing strip extended eastward, little more than a primitive field cut from waist deep weeds, shoulder-high cane, and an encroaching mantis-green jungle. Descending the Cessna, the pilot likewise released the wheels. Minutes later, they landed without a bump.
“We’re here!” Lee shouted, excited to once again be in Cuba, which he had adored during his previous brief stay.
“Do precisely as you are told,” a firm voice commanded in thickly accented English, “or we will shoot. Do you understand?”
“Oh, shit!” Lee gasped. A squad of eight men rushed toward them, all wearing drab olive fatigues, crouched low, pointing submachine guns directly at the recently airborne intruders. Burning eyes suggested none had any hesitations as to shooting the Americans on the spot rather than assume any risk.
“We’re defectors!” Johnny called out, standing still in the spot where he had leaped down seconds earlier. Dick Tracy, just then jumping down from out of his own doorway, repeated that in Spanish.
“Step away from the plane. Quickly!” One bearded Cuban, obviously the leader, barked orders while waving sharply, his other arm cradling his weapon. Never having felt this close to death before, Lee’s body shook so hard he feared that he might not be able to comply, however much he wanted to. The leader then nodded for them to proceed toward the main building.
A not inconsiderable arsenal of weapons remained trained on the three as the Cubans roughly escorted them to G-2, the local office of Castro’s secret police. That imposing Cuban squad leader verbally accosted and accused the men, insisting that they were CIA agents. All denied, denied, denied, pleading to be taken to Havana to where they could present their case to the authorities. The inquisitor’s eyes suggested that he might possibly believe Lee and Johnny were defectors, Dick Tracy the hapless pilot they forced at gunpoint (Johnny’s weapon long since seized by guards) to fly them here.
The interrogation at last over, they were held for several hours in one of the windowless tin shacks which, as the middle of the afternoon encroached, came to feel like a crude oven. As evening wore on, a guard approached, informing Dick Tracy that he was free to go but must immediately return to Florida. Not glancing at the others, he exited the building and headed back to the plane. Shortly Lee and Johnny heard the motors roar as he took off. This was precisely as they had hoped things would go. Their confederate would proceed to a hidden airstrip not far from Havana, meet them at an appointed time and place, so the three-pronged assassination attempt would proceed on schedule.
Several hours after Lee and Johnny had fallen asleep on the dirt floor, each stirred as there came a dull noise at the door. They rose without exchanging a word. This, they knew, was the pre-planned escape; one of the supposed guerillas in the squad would be a CIA plant. As the scenario dictated, the lock had been removed. Cautiously, they slipped off into the night and started on their long walk to Havana.
So far, so good!
*
Two days later, everything quickly turned to shit. Dick Tracy was the first to fail. Since he had never before come face to face with Castro, he’d been assigned the task of doing just that. As Castro sat down at one of Casalta’s outdoor tables, always preferring to catch the first breeze from the sea rather than swelter inside, Dick Tracy stepped up, thrusting forward a pen and paper, humbly requesting Fidel’s autograph. Though two guards stepped between their leader and this sudden interloper, patting the man down as they checked for weapons, Castro nodded magnanimously; happy to oblige! As the American set a pen and paper down on the table Castro yanked a pen from an inner jacket pocket, writing:
If only more U.S. citizens would come to visit all would know that we are not your enemies!
—Fidel Castro
This left Dick Tracy, recovering from his surprise, saying thank you to Castro, hastily picking up the autographed paper and his own pen, then departing. This pen contained a secret syringe filled with poison. The plan had been that, as Castro completed writing a message, Dick Tracy would reach to take back his pen while thumbing the lever, releasing botulin, pricking Castro’s skin, and injecting poison into his system. He hadn’t guessed Castro would have a pen of his own. Phase one had failed.
Lee, across the plaza, was already in position with a Browning FN High Power Bolt Action Rifle, the 1959 Safari Grade Model, SN L7168, peering through a telescopic sight, aiming at the guards. Having achieved sharpshooter rank in the marines, in the South Pacific proving to George back home that he had no compunction killing someone who needed killing, Lee had received this assignment. When Tracy bolted and ran, Lee would, employing smokeless-powder cartridges so as not to give away his hiding place, take both the guards down.
Within seconds of Dick Tracy leaving, out of the restaurant ambled Johnny Rosselli, carrying a hot plate of grilled shrimps, the dictator’s favorite, which he ordered every Wednesday night. These, Rosselli had drenched in botulin as well as lemon and butter, adding the third element while easing out the door. Despite his face-to-face confrontation with Castro in mid-January, 1959, Rosselli had no fear of being recognized. His hair was now light brown instead of jet black, he wore contact lenses to change his eye color to a shade of sea-green, and he kept his head tilted to one side while setting down the platter.
There was only one problem: an old friend of Castro’s, to whom the dictator recently extended a favor, had sent precisely this dish over to the dictator’s offices for lunch, accompanied by a bottle of white wine. So now Castro was in the mood for something else, perhaps a rare steak. He pushed the plate over to a cabinet minister seated at his right, whispering in the waiter’s ear that he wanted a different dish. Maintaining his low profile, Rosselli nodded, turned as if to step back inside Casalta, then slipped off into the crowd. Like a wisp of smoke, Johnny was gone, even as Castro’s doomed associate swallowed a mouthful of the delicacy and, gagging, fell to the ground. He rolled about, his face at first crimson, then ashen, dying.
Lee was to have shot down the guards if Castro ate and died, covering Johnny’s escape. Such tactical work was no longer his concern. Now, all he had to do was pull the trigger, bring down Castro, and hurry off, meeting the others at the Cessna in a pre-arranged place. Lee’s finger tightened on the trigger. Even as he began to squeeze, in the slow and efficient manner mastered at Boot Camp, Castro stood up and stared straight at him as if the dictator knew precisely where Lee had hidden himself. Lee was gripped by shock and confusion: How and why had Castro glanced this way? Lee could not know that toward the end of January 1959, this was the spot from which Enrique Avirez had tried, and failed, to pull the trigger on Castro.
The dictator experienced a sense of déjà vu, fully expecting to die this time around. Perhaps that explained why he did not. Lee saw such passion, fury, desperation, and intense longing to live in the eyes of the man across the way, his finger momentarily froze. Lee blinked, then quickly regained composure, readying to shoot. In that split-second the guards had thrown Castro down on the ground and leaped on top of him, shielding his body with their own. Someone in the late-afternoon crowd spotted Lee and pointed, shouting. Dropping the rifle, Lee rose, turned, and ran for his life.
Twisting his way up and down narrow boulevards, Lee almost immediately crashed headlong into a police officer summoned to the scene. Assuming this panicky fugitive must be guilty of something, he grabbed Lee by his short hair, yanked him up, and hurried to nearest police station. Once inside Lee bleated his innocence, halting in mid-sentence until he saw Johnny Rosselli and Dick Tracy in handcuffs, these now placed on his wrists.
*
The prisoners bounced up and down, driven over roads bumpier than any Lee could remember. They sat on a hard metal bench, handcuffed, in the back of a filthy police truck. Three guards squatted across the way, glumly staring. Each cradled a Thompson submachine gun. None spoke during the fifteen minute drive. Each guard’s eyes suggested they secretly hoped for some small gesture to justify opening fire. There wasn’t enough food in Cuba to go around. Who wanted three more mouths to feed?
Furtively, Lee glanced at Johnny on his left, Dick Tracy to the right. The latter stared ahead as if willing himself into oblivion, Lee guessing this was Company policy. Johnny hunched over, shoulders downward, likely the Mob approach. As the truck at last slowed, the guards broke their silence, conversing in ecstatic Spanish. Something major was about to happen.
“You will disembark immediately,” the one in charge, at last making eye contact, commanded. The incessant whirring of the vehicle’s motor ceased, the scent of hot oil from its timeworn engine engulfing them. “Now, do you hear?”
As when they’d disembarked the Cessna, Lee hopped down first. On the street, many Cubans paraded by, a few in the rich colored clothing from pre-revolutionary days. Most men now chose military fatigues, signifying the preferred no-nonsense style of a regime that condemned any personal pleasure as political decadence. With of course Fidel’s secret exception: fine cigars, grilled shrimp, beautiful women. Johnny Handsome and Dick Tracy dropped down beside Lee, the constant flow of Cubans considering these handcuffed Americans with curiosity. A ragged man, face full of hatred for anyone from a country arrogant enough to send armed men here to kill their leader, spat in their direction.
God help me! Please? I’m begging you ... Please give this one a happy ending. Get me back to Minsk and beautiful Marina?
Glancing about to get his bearings, Lee’s attention was drawn to something on high. They stood, he realized, in the shadow of a looming hill topped by a dark fortress, something right out of the middle ages. Then he recalled seeing it on his previous secretive visit: El Principe prison.
“You will be our honored guests,” the lead guard announced without emotion, “in our own great castle.”
With that stout fellow pompously leading the way, Lee and the others shuffling behind him, the remaining guards holding tight on either side, they trudged up the hill. Minutes later they approached the first of two immense drawbridges, its thick, splintered plank surface slowly lowering over a winding moat.
“This is bad, bad, bad,” Lee whispered, any bravado that he had felt setting off on their mission long gone.
“Stay calm,” Dick Tracy whispered.
“All they can do is kill us,” Johnny Rosselli laughed. “Hey, everyone dies.”
“No talking,” the lead guard called over his shoulder. Another jabbed Lee in the belly with his gun barrel, a signal to cross over at once. The wood bridge, with its metal bindings, creaked as the party stumbled across. When they at last reached the incline’s halfway point, nearing the second drawbridge, another group of guards awaited with three more prisoners, these appearing more bedraggled than themselves. Lee guessed them to be Cubans captured during a counter-revolutionary demonstration. The two trios merged, making silent eye contact, saying nothing.
At least I’m not alone. My guess is that they’ll be worse off than us. Castro won’t think twice about executing some of his own people. U.S. Citizens? Maybe that will give him pause.
Once beyond the building’s looming entrance they were guided down a narrow corridor. Everything smelled stale, as if old, unwashed clothing were piled high nearby. At last reaching their journey’s end, the entire party entered a cavernous room. The only pieces of furniture were a large desk and accompanying chair. In it, a big man with a barrel-like torso sat, reading reports Lee assumed contained all the known facts about the six.
Additional guards circled, grunting for the prisoners to step in the seated man’s direction. When Lee hesitated, one nasty looking guard shoved a gun barrel against his back.
“My friend,” whispered the burly, red-headed prisoner just beside him, “as Sophocles said some two thousand years ago, ’the greatest gift would be to have never been born.’”
He quotes a philosopher? In English? Oh, that’s right. George told me: educated citizens are always suspect in Castro’s Cuba. They think too much, fail to follow the party line. And speaking of George: where are you when we most need you?
For the following quarter-hour, the commander lectured his prisoners about El Principe, afterwards sharing his resume. A thirty-something man with black eyes set deep in a flat frying pan of a face, the commandant’s other features camouflaged by a huge Zapata mustache, his unnaturally round head perched without a noticeable neck atop an unusually thick body.
“Comprehend, uninvited American guests, I am Captain Pupo Puerta Valle, supreme commander of El Castillo del Principe. Before accepting this position I had the honor to serve as group leader in Fidel Castro’s personal bodyguard. We wore civilian attire so as not to be easily recognized by those hoping to harm our leader. Every man carried a .45 automatic with orders to shoot first, as your American cowboys say, ask questions later. These were replaced by more sophisticated weaponry, the Belgian-made 9 mm automatic 15 shot pistol, our new arsenal provided by a European nation sympathetic to our cause.” Everyone sneaked a quick glimpse at Valle’s holstered gun. “In time, the personal bodyguard was disbanded, the Party assuming responsibility for Castro’s continued safety. I was given the honor of serving in any other capacity and picked the position in which you now find me. Traitors among our ranks are summarily executed. Americans who have arrived without invitation are held until we can determine the best manner of dealing with your situation. Some are returned home, others allowed to stay, and a few executed. Only time will tell as to your fates. In the meantime, you are under my jurisdiction. No matter how brave and bold you might consider yourselves, I will learn precisely who you are and who sent you. As someone once put it, ‘there is an easy way to do things and a hard way.’ Only fools choose the hard way. Shortly, I will learn which of you happen to be fools.”
Torture! He means torture if we don’t break down and talk.
Captain Valle whirled his head as a signal to his men. With weapons still held ready, the guards pulled backward. A moment later a dozen uniformed men, brandishing rifles with bayonets in place, hurried in from the corridor.
“You six will strip down,” Valle ordered. “Now!”
The prisoners hurriedly removed their clothes, standing in this clammy room in their underwear. “I said strip,” Valle continued. Each prisoner allowed his drawers to drop. Glancing down, Lee noticed that the grey stone floor had over the years been bloodied, leaving a ghastly purple stain.
Once they were naked, two enormous guards stepped up alongside each of the six. They lowered their rifles so that a pair of bayonets touched up against each man’s scrotum. As if part of a choreographed routine, one guard extended his blade forward until it pricked the flesh of each prisoner’s limp penis. His partner simultaneously jabbed at each prisoner’s sad hanging sack. In precise movements, this bizarre ballet of bayonets continued. Guards toyed with the men’s masculinity, always on the verge of castrating them, barely holding back.
Please, God, not that! Just let them kill me.
“Any questions?” Valle demanded in an irritated tone that made things abundantly clear: no response need be offered.
No, no, no. I don’t want to say this. It’s just like the first day at Boot Camp when I tried to become ‘Angelo Maggio,’ Sinatra’s adorable runt who had a gag for everything. I tried doing that and it didn’t work. Some sergeant told me, during one of my low ebbs, that nothing is more stupid than doing the same thing over and over again, always expecting a different result. I only wish I could stop the words before I speak them—
“Captain Valle? Where do babies come from?” *
“I’m sorry,” Lee wailed, cocking his head toward the jail cell’s bleak ceiling. “I didn’t mean to say it.”
“Why the fuck did you?” Johnny demanded.
“I don’t know. It kinda slipped out.”
“It must’ve come from somewhere.”
“Jerry Lewis.”
“What?”
“It was in a Jerry Lewis movie. He and Dean Martin were in the army. A top sergeant bawled them out. Then he asked, ‘are there any questions.’ So Jerry—”
“That’s only a movie!” Johnny shouted.
“George warned me about you. Said you could be our top operative if it weren’t for something crazy deep down inside.”
“I’m sorry. Sincerely! I’ll try—” Then, Lee wept.
How often in my life have I wished that I were dead? And considered suicide? Those were “the good ol’ days” compared to this. If only there were a way out, I’d take it. Something I might use to end it all. But there’s nothing ... nothing!
Now Dick Tracy began to feel sorry for Oswald, who during this reprimand had shriveled up before the agent’s eyes. Lee literally fell down into a corner of their small cell.
“Marguerite!” Lee sobbed. “Marina ...”
I never realized it ‘til now: The names of my lover and mother begin with the same three letters. What might that mean?
Following Lee’s bizarre bad joke, Captain Valle ordered the self-styled clown tied to a rack against the wall, arms forcibly stretched outward as guards primitively bound his hands.
“I was only kidding. Can’t you take a joke?”
Valle turned and stepped around to his desk, taking a whip from the central drawer. He returned to where Lee helplessly hung and administered five harsh lashes. Lee yelped each time the thick strand of leather tore down on his milky flesh. The other five, forced to watch, had to struggle to keep from vomiting. This included Rosselli who, while working for Capone in Chicago, had seen, even done, pretty much everything. Yet nothing came close to this. The smell of torn flesh ...
When the ordeal finally ended, Lee, initially standing, hung by cuffed wrists, semi-conscious, like a side of beef in a slaughterhouse. Valle signaled his minions; one rushed out of the room, returning with a metal tub. He splashed water across Lee’s back. This brought Lee out of his stupor. Valle ordered Lee released and, wobbly though he was, the humbled prisoner managed to stumble back in the line with the other prisoners.
The two original groups, during their march through the corridor to the cells, had remained separate. During the ordeal a sense that they were developing into one amorphous community gradually overcame everyone. The trios were forced into adjacent cells at bayonet point. In the confines of their 25 by 20-ft. cell, Dick Tracy inspected the wounds on Lee’s back. His partner would live, though infection might become a problem.
All had to urinate and defecate in a single hole. They slept on hard stone as there were no cots. The two sets of three men remained in their cells 24 hours a day, except when guards arrived to drag someone down the corridor for interrogation. The victim would be solemnly greeted by Valle and returned an hour or so later, badly beaten. Why are you here? Valle demanded. Who sent you? Lee, like his two companions, had been fully briefed by George during planning session as to how to answer if things came down to this: I acted on my own accord. Yes, the other two men were my co-conspirators, but that is the limit of guilt. We are American patriots. Right or wrong, we arrived to eliminate our country’s greatest threat in the Western hemisphere.
Beat me, whip me, kill me. All I can do is admit my guilt, accept any punishment. But you cannot break me, cannot force me to lie and say that the United States government had any part in this. I’ll go to my death assuming full responsibility.
I will die lying to protect me country. I am a patriot. This is what I promised George at our first meeting in Mexico.
No matter how badly the Americans were tortured, the Cubans in the adjoining cell had it worse. If for the first two days an invisible wall of secrecy separated the cells, a camaraderie gradually developed. Men from one group exchanged words now and then with the others. The conversations continually expanded in length and intensity. Essential to such talk was the reality that Valle had spoken of that first day: Fidel Castro feared nothing more than allowing the U.S. government some excuse to send in the marines, which might occur if the Americans were to be summarily executed despite their assassination attempt. Even a long stay in El Principe for them could lead to an invasion.
No doubt Castro wondered if that might be a pre-planned narrative, the three sent down to purposefully be arrested, this allowing the U.S. an excuse to do what the administration most hungered for: a full scale invasion of Cuba, motivated by the need to “save” the “innocent” U.S. citizens held there.
As for the Cubans in the next cell? That was something else entirely. They awaited execution at Fidel Castro’s whim.
*
Located in the center of each cell, a ragged hole had been cut into the stone. When a prisoner needed to relieve himself he rose and approached this spot, then squatted over it. Lee had heard the expression “shit-hole” before but never had he seen, much less used, one, not even at the makeshift camp back on Corregidor. Also there was what the men referred to as “the other hole,” this one located closer to the entrance. Twice a day, emissaries would arrive and, while guards kept guns trained on the prisoners, poured muck into this cavity. After, each prisoner had to scoop his food, if one chose to call it that, up from this reservoir with his bare hands. No one ever cleaned the space or explained what it was they ate. Lee guessed it to be a stew of bananas and meat from some animal. Rats? Ugh!
He, Johnny Handsome and Dick Tracy initially preferred to go hungry, so putrid was the slop. The Cubans in the adjoining cell glutted themselves. In time, hunger took its toll, and the Americans ate. Lee’s stomach refused to accept the concoction. He hurried over to the other hole and puked, groaning like a sick beast. The next meal Lee skipped. Starving, he tried once more, somehow holding the stuff down. No sooner had he finished than a case of the runs set in, leaving Lee unable to leave the shit-hole for more than an hour. Toilet paper, a necessity back home, the Americans recalled as a luxury. Old newspapers lay scattered around for the prisoners to wipe themselves.
“Who sent you?” Captain Valle screeched into Lee’s ear, he seated in a rough wooden frame chair, hands bound behind his back, unable to even wriggle when the lash came down again.
“No one. I swear, it was our own crazy idea—“
Once more, Valle slashed the whip against Lee’s naked back.
I must not break, I must not break, I must not ...
*
To keep from screaming while incarcerated, particularly on occasions when Johnny Handsome and Dick Tracy were escorted out for joint interrogation and torture, Lee made conversation with the Cubans. The red-bearded shrimper, an odd fellow, marched around his cell’s borders, reciting poetry. He introduced himself as ‘Cavarez,’ an ardent anti-Castro democrat. Though he now worked as a cleaner of fish at the docks, he’d been educated at university and briefly employed as a grade-school teacher before the revolution. Cavarez, if that was his name, insisted anyone whose eyes and mind had been opened by a wide array of books could never be seduced by simplistic Red propaganda.
“And you? I hear your companions refer to you as Lee. I thought you might be Chinese. What brought you here, my friend?”
Even as Lee opened his mouth to speak his mind he realized what was going on. These men were plants! The coincidence of them brought to El Principe precisely as the three Americans were interred strained credulity. At that moment when they were at their most vulnerable, these Cubans—doubtless spies for Castro, so loyal they were willing to undergo torture if that proved necessary to cultivate the attempted assassins and seduce one into spilling the beans—were government agents.
His eyes filling with anger, Lee turned and stepped away. When his companions returned, Lee disclosed his suspicions.
“Of course. How did I not see spot that at once?”
“Great goin’, Lee. You just saved our friggin’ necks!”
They rolled over and went to sleep. When the Americans woke the next morning, each privately wondering how he could possibly make it through another day here, all noticed that the adjoining cell was now empty. Whether the Cubans really had been anti-Castro and were taken away for execution, or as spies for Castro they had passed on word to Captain Valle that their cover was blown and so excused, Lee would never know for certain.
Shortly eight guards, wielding rifles, arrived. The leader unlocked the cell door, signaling for all to follow. Out they went, back down the hallway, then the huge corridor, finally out of the fortress into the morning air. They marched back down the path, crossing both drawbridges, then were loaded into a canvas-covered police truck similar to the one they’d arrived in.
This is it! Either they take us out to a field and shoot us down or they bring us to the Cessna and let us go. Hey, I’d even prefer the former if it means leaving this prison forever.
It proved to be the latter. They were ordered to step out of the truck in the field where Dick Tracy had left the plane a week earlier. At gunpoint they were ordered to board. The Cessna had been refueled. Their pilot started up the engine.
“Goodbye,” the squad leader waved with an ironic smile that made clear it would not be wise for them ever to return.
Two hours later they descended to Miami’s Tamiami airport.
During the flight, Lee wondered if either Dick Tracy or Johnny Handsome had during their previous joint interrogation broken down and admitted they were CIA and Mafia, this reported to Castro who, fearful of both, decided that discretion had to be the better part of valor, as the Bard had written 350 years earlier, and set them free out of fear. Still, if Lee learned anything at all from the ordeal, it was to keep his mouth shut.
They reported to George, apologizing for the mission’s failure. He poo-poohed such talk, insisting their attempt had been noble and had been considered unlikely to succeed if well worth the try. They were heroes and would be treated as such.
*
Following five days of R and R in Miami, during which time Lee fell in love with the city, particularly after making the rounds with Johnny Rosselli, he began his trek back to Russia. This time he followed precisely the same round-about route that brought him here only in reverse. Late at night on April 19, 1961, he secretly entered his apartment. Everything appeared normal, his double having effectively covered for him, apparently leaving shortly before Lee arrived. Exhausted, he slept soundly.
The following morning, Lee woke to a loud knocking at the door. He pulled himself together, opened it, and saw his current girlfriend Marina, laughing and crying at the same time, all excited, her body shaking, apparently with joy.
“Yes!” she shouted.
“Yes, what?” he yawned.
“Yes, silly, I’ll marry you.”
As Marina leaped forward and threw her arms around him, kissing Lee on his cheeks, his lips, his forehead, he silently cursed his double, who had indeed left Lee returning to a big surprise! What did that jerk do? Propose to her while assuming my place in the hospital? Then, Lee realized that perhaps the twin had been ordered to do so by George as part of a CIA plan.
Marina, meanwhile, rambled on about wanting to stop by here ever since Lee’s release on April 11, though she had to be absolutely certain this was the right thing. That’s why she’d stayed away until now, when it came to her all at once: I want to be his bride more than anything in the whole wide world.
She entered, they locked the door, and the couple made love with great passion and a touch of fury. Ten days later, on April 30, they were officially married. In between, the two barely left his rooms. In addition to the sex, they spent a great deal of time together, he on the couch, listening to radio reports concerning the then-underway Bay of Pigs invasion.
Wow! So that’s what 'Dick Tracy' meant when he used the phrase 'by D-Day' back in Miami!