Page 211 - Gobierno ivisible

Date: 4/5/2011 Page: 211 of 237

Gibraltar SS Corp. Langfrd B1 371-8098.

Then, silently, by a process akin to alchemy, Gibraltar Steamship faded away and was metamorphosed into a
brand-new identity -- the Vanguard Service Corporation, "consultants." Radio Swan fluttered into a CIA Valhalla,
only to emerge as "Radio Americas."

Oddly, the Vanguard Service Corporation did not bother to move out of Gibraltar's quarters or to change its
telephone number. The 1963-64 Miami telephone book still carried the same listing for Gibraltar, but it also
carried this listing:

Vanguard Serv Corp consltnts Langfrd B1 371-8098.

With a whole new dramatis personae, Radio Americas, now managed by one Roger Butts, continued to broadcast
from Swan Island.

In 1962 an elderly New England couple, Mr. and Mrs. Prince S. Crowell, decided to visit Swan Island. Mr.
Crowell's father had been a chemist for a guano company, and the adventurous couple occupied their leisure time
with visits far and wide to the scene of bygone guano operations.

"Mr. Crowell had set his heart on going to Swan to continue the guano investigation," Mrs. Crowell wrote later in
the Falmouth (Massachusetts) Enterprise. [1]

The couple would not be put off. They contacted Sumner Smith, who agreed to write to "his caretaker, Captain
Donald E. Glidden, to make plans for us ... The captain had given us into the care of Mr. Roger Butts, an
executive of Vanguard Service Corporation, which manages the commercial station, Radio Americas, on the
island."

The Crowells were, apparently. innocently unaware of what they had stumbled into.

Once a week, a CIA plane would leave Miami for Swan Island, and it was the only air link with the United States.

"At last arrangements were made for us to be among the few recent visitors to Swan," Mrs. Crowell wrote. "We
flew from Miami in a DC-3, twenty-four-passenger plane with two pilots, the mail, medical supplies, weekly
food, several wares for the store, etc. We learned later that we presented some problem. About one half-hour
before we were to land, the island found out that no preparation in the line of ramp or ladder had been made to get
two aged passengers from the high door of the plane. After much scurrying around and various suggestions, a
solution was found. They drove a tractor with a scoop up to the door, raised the scoop, led us onto it, backed away
a bit and lowered us. Every available man, woman and child was down to greet us. I was a curiosity indeed, the
only female citizen of the United States on the Island."

What happened next was like a scene straight out of a Margaret Rutherford-Alistair Sim film comedy, as the
charming couple was turned loose on the CIA's guano island.

"Mr. Butts gave up his home for us, a Quonset hut, five rooms and a bath with hot and cold water," Mrs. Crowell
continued.

"The radio station and weather bureau were carefully explained to us, but not comprehended. We were taken
swimming in the loveliest water I ever saw ... my especial joy on that trip was the birds; at least one hundred
frigate birds, one hundred brown boobies, and twelve red-footed boobies ... Palm warblers ... were around our