Page 179 - Gobierno ivisible

Date: 4/5/2011 Page: 179 of 237

To complete the financial arrangements, the Continental Insurance Company wrote out a $53,000,000
performance bond without charge, guaranteeing that the Red Cross would meet its obligations to deliver the drugs
to Cuba.

Meanwhile, the drugs contributed to "Project X" by the manufacturers were flooding into Miami and creating a
monster job of cataloging and bookkeeping at Opa-locka (ironically, the same CIA air base used as a jumping-off
point for the Bay of Pigs trainees). The CIA provided a pharmacist, Stephen Aldrich, who helped log the drugs as
they arrived in Florida.

On December 16 Donovan began his final mission. He stopped off in Washington to confer with officials and
then went on to Miami, where he disappeared. The press could not find him, and with good reason.

Donovan stayed in a CIA house in Miami on December 16 and 17, telephoning to Havana. About 9:00 P.M.,
December 17, Donovan called Washington to say that he had arranged to go to Havana in the morning. He also
reported that one of Castro's negotiators had a sick child who needed a certain medicine immediately.

Katzenbach called Walter Reed Hospital and got ten vials of the medicine. Shortly after midnight Oberdorfer, his
assistant Frank Michelman, John Nolan and a CIA attorney flew to Miami from Washington, taking the medicine
along.

They did not arrive at the CIA "safe house" until 5:00 A.M. on December 18. There, Donovan received a final
pre-dawn briefing. Then he flew into Havana. Nolan stayed at the house, helping to man the CIA telephones. The
rest of the team flew back to Washington.

Two days later Donovan returned briefly to Miami. Then he flew back to Havana, taking with him Dr. Leonard
Scheele, the former Surgeon General of the United States. On December 21 Donovan and Castro signed a
Memorandum of Agreement. But Castro was wary of Donovan's representations. Donovan suggested that Castro's
aides inspect some of the drugs.

Shortly after midnight three Cuban Red Cross officials in olive drab flew secretly into Miami. They were met by
Dr. Scheele and Barrett Prettyman, shown the supplies at Opa-locka and then taken to Port Everglades to inspect
the drugs being loaded on the African Pilot, a ship donated by the Committee of the American Steamship Lines.

The Cubans then adjourned to a Howard Johnson's motel and said to Prettyman they wanted to remain for the day.
It was now 5:00 A.M., December 22. Nolan and Prettyman were alarmed at what would happen if the press
learned that Castro emissaries were holed up in a Florida motel. One of the Cuban Red Cross men smoked big
cigars and, in his olive uniform, did not project the image of a man of mercy. Nolan and Prettyman finally
prevailed on the Cubans to fly back to Havana, which they did at 9:00 A.M.

That same day the African Pilot sailed for Havana with the first shipload of drugs. Early on Sunday, December
23, Nolan and Prettyman joined Donovan in Havana. The African Pilot docked that afternoon. Castro met the
ship.

The prisoner exchange seemed to be proceeding smoothly. At 5:00 P.M. the first plane left the San Antonio de los
Banos airport for Homestead Air Force Base south of Miami. It landed in Florida an hour and five minutes later.
All told, four planeloads and a total of 426 prisoners left Cuba by nightfall.

But, in Havana, it had become obvious to Donovan that the airlift would be halted by Castro unless the Cuban
Families Committee came up with the $2,900,000 that had been pledged as ransom for the sixty wounded
prisoners released in April before Donovan entered the picture.