A Secret Legacy: Cuban Exiles, the CIA and the Congo Crisis (A Documentary Film in Progress)
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ABC News: Bay of Pigs vets, Families Seek Billions From Cuba

11/23/2014

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MIAMI — Nov 23, 2014, 11:12 AM ET By CURT ANDERSON AP Legal Affairs Writer

(For full article on ABC News website click here)

Since the day in 1959 that Cuban government agents blackmailed his father into committing suicide, Gustavo Villoldo has been on an anti-Castro mission that included co-piloting a B-26 bomber during the ill-fated 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion, infiltrating Cuba for the CIA numerous times and tracking down Fidel Castro lieutenant Ernesto "Che" Guevara in Bolivia in 1967.

Now, at age 78, Villoldo is fresh off another clash with the Cuban government, this time with a tentative success: He and family members of other two men ? American Bobby Fuller and Cuban Aldo Vera ? each won separate lawsuits in Florida seeking billions of dollars in damages combined from the Cuban government, which defaulted after never responding to the lawsuits.

"Money to me in this case, it doesn't mean anything. My family tragedy is sacred ground," Villoldo said in a recent interview. "I am continuing to fight Castro in a different arena."

The fight now, though, is less with Cuba than it is with the banks where the U.S. Treasury froze Cuban government assets that the families now want to seize. The banks are resisting turning the money over, insisting the U.S. families have yet to prove they should be allowed to seize it.

Earlier this year, Manhattan U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein ruled that the Florida decisions must be honored as attorneys for Villoldo and the others try to get at accounts with ties to Cuba held by the 19 banks, including Bank of America, Barclays Bank, Citibank, Wells Fargo and JPMorgan Chase.

"The judgments granted by the Florida circuit court in favor of the plaintiffs and against Cuba are entitled to full faith and credit," Hellerstein wrote in an Aug. 22 order.

At stake is as much as $3.5 billion; the families have agreed to share any proceeds they get out of the New York accounts.

Villoldo attorney Andrew Hall, who previously represented Watergate figure John Erlichman and families of sailors killed in the USS Cole terror attack, said the Hellerstein ruling was a watershed moment in the case. The exact contents of the accounts and the account holders are sealed by court order, and the legal question now involves whether the money truly belongs to Cuba.

"That's the battle: Is this Cuba's money or is this someone else's money?" Hall said. "This is the green light that opens the door for us."

In a nutshell, the money was halted by the Treasury Department as it passed back and forth electronically through the New York banks between entities in Cuba and banks in other countries overseas.

Based on the rulings so far, Hall estimated more than $20 million could be paid out by the banks within the next six months. Another $20 million to $40 million, he said, could be obtained depending on upcoming legal decisions on precisely when an electronic funds transfer, or EFT, should be considered Cuban property that could be seized.

In October, the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that EFTs were subject to seizure only if Cuba itself, or a state-owned entity, transmitted the funds directly to the bank. Lawyers on all sides are still sorting out that decision's impact. An attorney for several big banks, James Kerr, suggested that no money be turned over to Villoldo and the other families right away.



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RESCUE REUNION: Cuban-American CIA team meets Congo hostages in Kendall (The Miami Herald)

11/17/2014

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By Glenn Garvin, [email protected]
11/16/2014 6:49 PM

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To read full article on Miami Herald.com, click here

As how-do-you-dos go, it was strange, but cheery and certainly effective: “Hi, I’m one of the hostages, you saved my life,” said Marilyn Wendler, extending an outstretched hand. “Which one were you?”

“I was the one driving the pickup truck and shooting out the window,” replied Angel Benitez, not even slightly nonplussed. “Nice to meet you!”

So it went Sunday as Cuban-Americans who fought in Africa 50 years ago under CIA command held a reunion with hostages they rescued from Congolese guerrillas.

The hostage rescue was just one chapter, albeit the most dramatic, of a little-known five-year CIA effort to shore up the pro-Western government of the country now known as the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which was under attack by guerrilla movements backed by China and the Soviet Union.

About 250 CIA veterans, former hostages and their families flew in from all over the world for the event, which was organized at a Kendall banquet hall after an impromptu and much smaller reunion three years ago.

A surreal blend of chatter running the gamut from “Here’s a picture of my grandchild” to “the .30-caliber machine guns tended to overheat,” punctuated by the occasional burst of tears, provided the soundtrack.

Those mostly came from encounters between missionaries and the men who rescued them, most of whom had never met before. The missionaries were being held by guerrillas known as Simbas (from the Swahili word for lions) who had already killed one of them and wounded several others.

Conducted in a continuous hail of gunfire at a rural compound on the edge of the jungle, it left little time for social amenities.

“We didn’t have time to get acquainted,” said Wendler, a Los Angeles nurse who was just 11 when the rescue took place on Nov. 24, 1964. “We just took orders and stayed quiet. And when it was over, they disappeared.”

Some of them, however, knew one another on sight. Ruth Reynard burst into tears instantly when she saw Juan Tamayo, the burly CIA machine-gunner who cradled her 4-year-old self in one arm and blasted away with his weapon in the other the entire length of the five-mile ride from the missionary compound to the safety of government lines.

“As soon as I looked into his eyes, I was 4 years old again,” said the Nashville college administrator. Tamayo, now a 77-year-old Miami concrete merchant, brooding for five decades that the roar of his machine gun had deafened her, smiled broadly at the news that her ears are good.

“Now I can die in peace,” he said.

Others at the reunion were less tearful than flat-out awed.

“When I hear all these stories, it’s like my uncle and my grandfather were bad-asses,” said 18-year-old Miami Dade College student Juan Jarquin, whose uncle and grandfather were both part of the CIA force that rescued the missionary.

“They’re part of history, and that means that — indirectly and in a small way — so am I.”

About 125 Cubans working for the CIA took part in the Congo wars from 1962 to 1967. They were originally recruited for the agency’s covert war against Fidel Castro, but as it wound down, the CIA put them to work on the other side of the world.

“Besides being well-trained and capable, they were also completely deniable,” said Frank R. Villafaña, author of Cold War in the Congo, virtually the only history of the conflict. “None of them had American citizenship or passports. If they got captured, Washington could just say, ‘Sorry, don’t know anything about this fellow, he’s not one of ours.’”

Coincidentally, the Soviets and Chinese were also importing Cubans into the Congo — troops from Fidel Castro’s armed forces. James Hawes, who commanded the CIA’s tiny two-boat navy that patrolled Lake Tanganyika, disrupting guerrilla supply lines, said his proudest moment was when the 16 Cuban exiles under his command drove a unit commanded by Castro lieutenant Che Guevara back across the lake into Tanganyika.

“Was the war in the Congo worth it?” Hawes said. “Ask Che.”

Or ask Dick Holm, a legendary CIA officer who fought in the Laotian jungles and tracked notorious terrorism Carlos the Jackal, in addition to his service in the Congo. “Apart from one bad day, I wouldn’t change anything in my career,” he said.

His definition of “bad day” is probably a little stronger than yours. Holm was aboard a CIA reconnaissance flight that crashed in the remote Congo jungle, leaving him blind with burns over 35 percent of his body. It took his Cuban-American pilot, Miamian Juan Peron, 10 days to hike through Simba-controlled territory and return with a helicopter — which promptly crashed. It was two years before Holm could go back to work.

With memories of the Congo like those, why would he travel across the country for a reunion?

“Juan Peron phoned me last week and called me a [wimp],” Holm replied. “So I had no choice.”


Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/article3970866.html#storylink=cpy
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    Sandra Alvarez-Smith is the director and Executive Producer of the film

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