"Patsy!": The Life and Times of Lee Harvey Oswald (14 page)

“They?”

“The Central Intelligence Agency. If they do decide to go ahead, you will be approached by a man called George.”

“Political solutions don't work.”

—Woody Allen;
Sleeper
, 1973

 

Having recently returned to the CIA office in Miami following one of his frequent sojourns to Cuba, on January 10, 1957, agent Frank Sturgis, aka George, busied himself with typing a report on the status of Fidel Castro's desire to seize control of the island's politics with his guerilla force. Then the phone on his desk rang. Answering in hopes of keeping the conversation brief, George was pleasantly surprised to hear a familiar voice on the other end, causing him to smile.

“Hey, ‘George'? Welcome home. ‘Dick Tracy' here.”

That could be only one man: Bob Maheu, a former FBI agent now serving several A list companies as a private contractor. Also Maheu performed a variety of chores for the CIA, making key connections between Company agents and potential operatives. He received his nickname owing to an uncanny resemblance to an ever popular square-jawed honest-cop comic-book character featured in the Sunday Funnies and B movies. Flattered by the comparison, Maheu had taken to sporting a yellow hat with black band similar to Dick Tracy so as to heighten the comparison.

“Hey, Robert. What have you got for me this time?”

The disembodied voice explained he'd been contacted by a field agent who had recently completed a routine investigation on a marine, seemingly of Red leanings. Instead, Lee Harvey Oswald turned out to be a super-patriot, if an odd one, as such perhaps of potential use to the U.S. government's information-gathering community. The FBI agent contacted the CIA; the top brass there tapped 'Dick Tracy' to get in touch with George and request he look into it, see if there might be something here.

“Of course,” George said. He and his old pal chatted for a few minutes, George jotting down the essential information before returning to more pressing matters. The conclusion of his findings dealt with a Cuban whose friendship George cultivated while in Cuba, a valuable contact named Manuel Artime Buesa.

*

Buesa had been with Castro from the very beginning: i.e., the middle of March, 1952, following a military coup in which Fulgencio Batista seized control of the government and augmented an authoritarian regime to the benefit of Cuba's small moneyed classes if at the expense of the poverty-level multitude. No matter how exploited the dirt-poor masses were, Batista's new regime offered them less; so little that, as always happens when people no longer can feed their families anything but garbage, lacking even that, the likelihood of revolution increases.

Though born to the middle-class, the university educated Castro brothers, Fidel and Raul, felt the people's pain and set about organizing potential rebels in hopes of ousting Batista. Buesa, hearing Castro speak on a Havana street corner, had been attracted by his hulking presence and lawyer's ability to bandy about words, inspiring all who had gathered to listen. That very day Buesa offered his services. For the next year and a half, Buesa and other volunteers trained for the coming day of revolutionary fervor with whatever rifles they could get their hands on, mostly outdated Springfields and Winchesters. In time they came to number more than 160, mostly drawn from the lower-classes. Buesa noted five university-educated intellectuals among Castro‘s followers. To Buesa's surprise, Castro, despite his own academic background, appeared uncomfortable around such supporters. Several years later, Buesa would learn why.

Just before daybreak on the 26th of July, 1953, as the entire country readied for summer fiesta, a caravan of rickety cars roared down the highway toward the Monacada Barracks in Santiago de Cuba. Each was filled
with stalwarts certain that, before the noon hour, they would capture the military compound.

Then, everything that could possibly go wrong proceeded to do precisely that. Unprepared for such an ambitious undertaking, the men ecstatically leaped out of the transports before Castro gave the order to do so. In moments, they were overrun by forces that outnumbered the rebels ten to one. During this skirmish, fifteen members of Batista's army were killed, as were nine of Castro's men. Others were captured. All were tortured, this including castration with rusty razor blades. Some were executed immediately afterwards, most imprisoned.

Fidel and Raoul managed to make their escape into the Gran Piedra mountains, hoping to reorganize there. These survivors were all captured by government forces three days later. In the early fall of that year, the rebels were tried en masse by an Urgency Tribunal. Castro, with his considerable argumentative skill, managed to wrangle his own separate court case at which he belligerently defended himself. No matter; after being found guilty, all were tossed into Presidio Modelo, a noted hellhole, each man sentenced to serve a one-year term there. This, supposedly, to teach each and all a lesson. In the case of Fidel Castro, the miserable food and filthy surroundings had the opposite effect.

During that horrific year, Castro—sometimes in a group cell, on other occasions relocated in solitary—constantly read. At this point democracy, which he expressed interest in as a university student, disappeared from his writings, the theories of Karl Marx coming to dominate his world-view. Buesa, on the other hand, was not won over. As he and Castro had discussed earlier, Buesa preferred to oust Batista, then call for open and honest elections so as to create a democracy, much like the one in the U.S. The now radicalized Castro scoffed, assuring his comrade that in time Manuel would see the error of his ways.

When Batista staged a fixed election in 1954, winning the popular vote overwhelmingly, Castro now had tangible evidence to convince his comrade that the right to vote clearly did not insure that the people would be heard. Buesa did take that into account, still continuing to believe
the problem lay not with the idea of elections, rather the patent dishonesty of this one.

The turning point for Castro came from a source closer to home. Mirta had never bought into her husband's revolutionary fervor. She married Castro in 1948 owing to his advanced degrees, believing her husband would soon get over such youthful idealism and set to work earning a living as a lawyer. With Fidel behind bars, she set out to obtain a divorce. Worse, Mirta accepted a job in Batista's government, offered if she would publicly reject her husband's radicalism. Worse still Mirta openly raised Castro's son in Havana's most solidly middle-class neighborhood, as if to announce her subscription to the consumer-values of those rare few able to afford an American-like lifestyle.

Now Castro abruptly turned against the U.S., less for its democratic system than its economic base. If capitalism had corrupted his Mirta, it might do the same to anyone. Communism took on a lustre in missives Castro released from behind bars. Nonetheless, Batista, believing the revolutionaries must, after suffering constant torture, be sufficiently humbled, announced that all would be released on schedule. Batista guessed that the Castro brothers would crawl off into oblivion like whipped dogs.

Upon release, a hardened, bitter, more extremist Castro began sending loyalists out to bomb strategic Batista posts. As innocent citizens were harmed and in some cases killed, Castro insisting this was regrettable but unavoidable, he incurred the wrath not only of their fascistic leader but also moderate liberals and progressives who likewise opposed Batista but still subscribed to non-violent methods. Police were instructed to shoot down Movement members on sight. The Castro brothers, realizing they might soon be dead, quickly decided a strategic retreat was in order. On July 7, they and Buesa slipped away into Mexico.

“I shall return,” Castro called out over his shoulder at the moment of departure, the bearded giant who now held the U.S. in contempt ironically echoing a famous American general.

Once in Mexico, where the right-wing government wanted no part of Castro and his insurgent force, the fugitives created a secretive cell dedicated to waging warfare against all dictators everywhere. As a result of this broadening policy, Argentinean doctor Ernesto “Che” Guevera arrived in the mantis-green jungle, joining a burgeoning force that now included several Mexican revolutionaries and people from other Third World Countries. Plus several Americans, claiming to support The Cause.

Among these came a man known only as George. In actuality, this was Frank Sturgis, sent down to infiltrate the guerillas by the CIA. The U.S. had grown concerned as to whether these rangy troops might constitute a viable threat to U.S. interests in the area. Corporations had recently poured immense amounts of money into Latin America, perceiving these as potentially lucrative sites.

Trained in the art of duplicity, George quickly won Castro over. He not only had been accepted into Castro's force but soon became an officer, always at The Beard's side in public, seated beside him at strategy meetings held in the leader's tent. Soon George made it a point to get to know as many other volunteers as possible, hoping to find some weak link in Castro's chain-of-command which he could then manipulate in favor of the U.S.'s crusade against communism. The moment that George first shared cigars with Buesa he knew that here was the man he'd been looking for, quickly cultivating a relationship. The soft-spoken Cuban shortly admitted his discomfort with the manner in which Castro had grown as authoritarian as Batista on the right.

At long last, Manuel grasped why Castro had distrusted the educated members of his group from day one. Any time one would suggest a democratic election of leaders, Castro tore into a fury, disappearing into his tent where his latest young mistress awaited. When Castro finally stepped out into the daylight, he sullenly stalked about camp, staring down whoever dared to speak such sacrilege. Now, it was Castro's way or the highway, not that there were many of those near their hidden enclave.

Buesa was, as George could clearly tell, wavering. Good!

Seven months later, Castro decided the time had come to strike. He secured a leaky leisure-craft, the
Granma,
capable of safely carrying twenty men at most. Castro crowded 82 followers into the timeworn hull, Manuel and George among them. Chugging along, the antiquated boat quietly passed along the river during the late-night hours of November 25, 1956, then slipped out into the gulf unseen by Mexican shore patrols.

During the next several days everyone complained of hunger and filth. One man fell overboard and nearly drowned. They were supposed to land at a designated beachfront in Oriente Province, where comrades would be waiting with provisions, weapons, and trucks. Together all would move in-land, the revolution about to ignite. But when a Cuban army surveillance helicopter spotted them below, plans had to be swiftly altered. The
Granma
, about ready to soon sink anyway, came ashore ten miles away from their mark, swiftly descending in a swamp near Los Colorados.

When the men tried to disembark, some drowned in the bog. Those able to crawl up onto land attempted to push inland only to come face to face with troops, ready and waiting; Batista had been informed of the coming invasion by some traitor in Castro's midst. Castro turned to his trusted officer, George, swearing that when he found out who had done this terrible thing he'd personally strangle the man. George nodded, apparently in solemn agreement, though not making eye contact, offering no reply.

For the next several days, remnants of Castro's ever diminishing guerilla force fought its way from one ambush to the next, trying to reach the Sierra Maestra mountain-range. There, Castro knew, like-minded supporters waited. When the two groups combined, this rag-tag army could disappear into the natural camouflage. Federal troops would be afraid to follow into what might turn out to be an ambush behind every tree. Castro counted noses; including his brother, the men numbered fourteen.

Even George was gone now, apparently killed in one of the fire-fights, though no one had actually witnessed the American going down. Likely, his body lay somewhere back there in the brush, among the dead and dying. The loss of so trusted a man only made Castro all the more determined to eventually win.

“I have not yet begun to fight,” he promised, echoing yet another war-hero from the America he ironically despised.

When Batista, sipping wine in his Havana mansion, heard reports of this boast, he laughed out loud, calling Castro a bearded clown. Did this scraggly buffoon actually still believe he could topple a military dictator? The
fool
!

*

In the epicenter of Havana, a huge building constructed in the manner of an ancient Spanish fort rises above the diverse buildings that compose this age-blighted metropolis. Cut from stone, the imposing city-within-the city can be seen for miles by any resident who glances upward at the high-stretching rock on which the prison was long ago painstakingly erected. Since the first day of its existence, this dark, ominous tower has cast an ever-shifting shadow over Ciudad de las Columnas, the city of columns, Cuba's most formidable outpost of civilization.

Initially a humble village, Havana had been founded in 1515 by a loose confederacy of conquistadores and priests. For the better part of five centuries, the heart of Cuba's social and political systems withstood tests against its permanence by natural calamities and man's ongoing strife with his fellow man. Such people enjoyed victories and suffered defeat; won, lost, lived, loved and died; come and gone as if blown in and out by trade-winds. What remained was Havana itself, some days gay, at other times sad. Always lorded over by that black needle, the initial sign of the city any approaching visitor observes.

Adding to the medieval aura, two wide moats circle this edifice, one midway up the incline, the other closer to the top. Each remained crossable only by the wood-and-iron drawbridges that clank up and down following orders from the bastion's current commander, whomever that might be. This position of power had for centuries remained subject to change, no matter how solid any reign appeared. El Castillo del Principe was its name, the one-foot-thick walls dating almost as far back as the first crude mission,
located several blocks away. Those who over the ages were interred here, like others living in daily fear of at some point doing or saying something that might cause them to be condemned to this ghastly place, refer to it as El Principe.