Page 180 - Gobierno ivisible
P. 180

Date: 4/5/2011                                                                                Page: 180 of 237



            At 2:00 A.M. on Monday, December 24, Nolan flew to Miami. He placed a 5:00 A.M. phone call to Robert
            Kennedy in Washington. Nolan made it clear that unless the money was raised by three o'clock that afternoon, the
            deal would collapse.


            "What are you going to tell Jim Donovan?" Robert Kennedy asked.

            "I'm going to tell him you're going to get the money," Nolan replied.

            There was a pause. Then Robert Kennedy said: "Have a nice trip back."


            Nolan flew back to Havana. The Attorney General called Richard Cardinal Cushing, the Roman Catholic
            Archbishop of Boston, who pledged $1,000,000. Robert Kennedy also called General Lucius Clay, who was a
            sponsor of the Cuban Families Committee.

            Clay borrowed the remaining $1,900,000 on his own signature, then solicited contributions from American
            business firms to cover that amount. Texaco, Standard Oil of New Jersey and the Ford Motor Company Fund
            each contributed $100,000.

            In Cuba, that Monday, two more planeloads of prisoners were permitted to take off. Then Castro stalled.


            First he staged a military air show at San Antonio de los Banos to tie up the airport. Then, about 1:00 P.M., Castro
            halted all flights until he received word about the money. Late in the afternoon Castro was assured the Royal
            Bank of Canada had deposited it in Montreal. Donovan and Castro then met at the Canadian consul's office to
            accept the financial guarantees.

            At 9:35 P.M. the last of the planes carrying the returning prisoners touched down at Homestead Air Force Base.
            Aboard was James Donovan, a quiet American -- his mission accomplished.

            For each of the returning prisoners, the routine was the same. Clean clothes, a meal and then a bus trip to Dinner
            Key Auditorium, where their families and friends were waiting. There, they marched between double lines of
            fellow members of Brigade 2506 as a band played the march from The Bridge Over the River Kwai.

            It was Christmas Eve, 1962.


            There were some people who were not content to accept the prisoner exchange as a humanitarian act arranged by
            a private citizen. Months later, in June, 1963, all thirteen Republican members of the House Foreign Affairs
            Committee called for a Congressional inquiry into Donovan's role. They charged that many aspects of the
            exchange "remain baffling."


            Donovan replied: "I was a private citizen acting on behalf of the Cuban Families Committee."

            It was not, of course, quite as simple as that, as has been shown. Although both Donovan and the White House
            took this position (for reasons Robert Kennedy had explained privately to the drug industry on December 7,
            1962), the fact is that no fewer than fourteen branches of the government participated in the complex deal: the
            CIA, the Air Force, the Departments of Health, Education and Welfare, Justice, Defense, Commerce, Agriculture,
            Treasury, the Internal Revenue Service, the White House, Immigration, the CAB, the ICC and the State
            Department.
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