Then Castro recounted every tantalizing detail of the plot, from the mob visit to Morgan to the Americano’s trips to Florida to buy guns and boats.
“Trujillo appointed William Morgan the leader of the counterrevolutionary [plot],” said Fidel, pointing to the Yanqui comandante. Castro described how Morgan’s home had become the command center of the scheme, with radio directives beamed from Santo Domingo. Morgan’s undercover work kept the dictator and others believing that an insurgency would take place. “He convinced Trujillo that everything was in order,” said Castro.
“All the leaders of the movement were to meet in Morgan’s house and receive instructions. Major Menoyo and a group of comrades were living there.”
At every turn, Morgan made sure the government knew of the changing invasion plans and where the insurgents were planted. Fidel turned to Morgan and to the reporters. “He is a Cuban,” he said. “He is married to a Cuban. He is not a North American.”
To the reporters, the story had all the makings of a Cold War thriller, with Morgan as the lead character. He had reached a milestone in his life. No one knew that more than Olga, who was watching the press conference unfold from their home in Miramar.
Reaching over to a table, Castro pulled out the stacks of money, the same bundles that Morgan had carted from Miami on the boat. “We seized some seventy-eight thousand dollars,” Castro said. Then, he did something that surprised everyone. He turned to Morgan in front of the cameras and handed the bundle to the American. It was a reward, Castro said, for exposing the Trujillo people.
Like a scene in slow motion, Olga stared in disbelief and then shouted at the TV screen: “Don’t take it. Don’t take it!”
Morgan stood back for a moment, unable to speak. Fidel had just handed him seventy-eight thousand dollars, turning Morgan into a mercenary on national television. Morgan didn’t know what to say. He had asked earlier that the money be sent to the Escambray for special programs to help the people. Castro had just kicked him in the gut.
Morgan put the money back down. Rather than let his emotions show, he stood silent. After a while, he couldn’t even hear what Castro was saying.
The door slammed, and footsteps sounded in the house. As he came in the room, she smiled and embraced him.
Morgan’s stomach was turning. He could control only his word and the strength of his convictions. It had taken him long enough to find those. “I’m not a mercenary,” he said.
There wasn’t much Olga could say. She had told him many times before that he didn’t understand the politics of her country, but she wasn’t going to tell him now. She barely had time to talk to him before he left for the press conference because of all the reporters showing up at their door. When he walked into the press conference, she realized that his stature overshadowed Che’s and Raúl’s. Neither man had gained this level of fame. That spelled trouble. Nearly all the newspapers in Havana had lionized Morgan in the last day. Castro wasn’t used to being upstaged.
“This is why I am scared for you,” she said. “I am scared for us.”
Olga knew it wasn’t a good time to broach the subject of moving, but she wanted to raise it now rather than later. “We need to live in your country,” she said. Even though she was about to deliver their child, she wanted to begin preparations to move. It was time for them to settle down to a safer life. “I don’t want to worry about you anymore.”
Once again, Morgan stopped her. He knew where this was heading, but now wasn’t the time. They still had to make sure the Second Front was protected. They still had to ensure the government would hold elections. Plus, after everything that happened with the FBI, he had to make sure it was safe for him to return home. They would wait until the baby was born and then look into moving. Morgan needed more time.
Everyone around Trujillo had failed. Castro not only remained in power, but it would be more difficult than ever to oust him now. In his thirty years of running the Dominican Republic with an iron fist, Trujillo had never been so exposed. He was furious. The generalissimo accused everyone around him of making him look like a fool. He had to clean house. Johnny Abbes was done. He would never serve as security chief again.
Trujillo wanted a complete report on what had happened. But more than that, he wanted to strike back. He wanted blood. He put out word that he would pay anyone one hundred thousand dollars for killing the Yanqui comandante. It didn’t matter where the hit took place. He wanted Morgan dead.
Three years earlier, Trujillo was suspected of ordering the abduction of a Columbia University lecturer who was writing his doctoral thesis about El Jefe. Jesús Galíndez Suárez was snatched off the streets of Morningside Heights in Manhattan and supposedly smuggled in a private plane to the Dominican Republic. Then he was stripped, handcuffed, and bound with a rope around his feet before being lowered into a vat of boiling water. His body was never recovered. If Trujillo could do the same to Morgan, he would.
Guards stood watch in the corners of the hospital. Even the government sent men to roam the halls outside Olga’s room. She had arrived at six o’clock in the morning, doubled up in pain. Morgan inched up to her bed and kissed her.
She had been through so much in the past three months that he could never make it up to her. Their lives had been turned upside down. The newspapers were publishing stories about revenge plots against Morgan for his role in the conspiracy. Olga was assigned her own bodyguards. Armed men were even poised at the street corners near their home.
Morgan got up from the bed as the nurses came to get Olga. He bent over and kissed her. “Remember, darling,” he said, placing his hand on her stomach. “This must be a boy.”
Smiling faintly, she shook her head. It didn’t matter whether it was a boy or a girl, she said. This was their child—together.
As the nurses wheeled Olga to the delivery room, Morgan walked to a chair outside the room and plopped down. He had so much to think about. He knew that Trujillo would stop at nothing to see him dead. So would the Batistianos. What troubled him was that he wouldn’t be there to protect Olga and their baby, that somehow he would get pulled away and they would become a target.
As he sat quietly, a nurse came up to him. “Comandante Morgan?” she said. “You can come in now.”
As Morgan entered the room, a nurse was standing to greet him, clutching a crying baby. “You have a girl,” she said.
With Olga just awakening, Morgan walked over and gently lifted the infant into his arms.
For a moment, he stared into her blue eyes and then smiled, looking at Olga. For the first time in a long time, he was at peace.
Stafford was rushed. In just a few hours, he had to finish a report for the highest levels of the US government. The orders to file the report hadn’t come from his supervisors in Miami. They had come from FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover. The Morgan case had gone from a priority investigation to something far more urgent.
To Stafford, it came as no surprise. He and the other agents had let Morgan get away, plain and simple. Now they were paying the price. Not only had Morgan outfoxed them, but he had pulled off an undercover operation that saved the Castro government. Worse, it had become international news. Time magazine ran a feature story on the conspiracy, calling Morgan “the crafty, US-born double agent.” The New York Times, the Miami Herald, the Washington Post, and scores of other newspapers carried the story. That kind of exposure invited the scrutiny of Congress and the other big shots. No doubt, they were all asking questions.
No one was more furious than Francis Walter, the powerful Pennsylvania congressman who chaired the House Subcommittee on Immigration. An ardent anti-Communist, Walter, like Hoover, built his political fortune by playing strongly on Cold War rhetoric. He allowed the US government to deport or ban anyone identified as subversive, regardless of evidence. His critics viewed him as reactionary and racist, but he remained popular among his constituents.
> The Morgan case made Walter’s blood boil. Trujillo may have been a thug, but he despised Communists. If anyone needed support in rooting out Reds in the Caribbean, it was Trujillo. Few others had more impact on immigration matters than Walter, who could pick up the phone to boot someone from the country.
Now Morgan was on his radar.
Olga nudged closer to Morgan on the living room couch as they watched the tropical fish dart across the large glass tank. Since the baby was born, they finally had been able to clear their house of all the radio equipment and settle into their home. They had phoned Morgan’s mother to let her know that they had named their baby after her.
Just as Morgan was reaching up to the tank to adjust the filter, they heard what sounded like squealing tires and car doors slamming. Seconds later came a burst of gunfire, with bullets shattering the front windows and walls.
Morgan quickly jumped over to Olga and pulled her down on the floor.
The baptism of Loretta Morgan Rodriguez in Havana Cathedral, with Olga’s longtime friend Blanca Ruiz Flores and Eloy Gutiérrez Menoyo Courtesy of Morgan Family Collection
“The baby!” Olga shrieked. “The baby!”
Morgan bolted up the stairs, ran down the hall, and pushed open the door to the baby’s room. She was fast asleep.
Moments later, Alejandrina, the housekeeper, joined him. “Get down, Alejandrina, get down!” he yelled. The housekeeper hit the floor while Morgan squatted down with the infant in his arms.
Morgan’s entourage was already running across the lawn with guns raised. The two assailants had just enough time to jump into a car, start the engine, step on the gas, and race out of the neighborhood. The escorts ran to their own cars and sped after them.
Olga ran up the stairs and into the nursery. “She’s fine,” Morgan said, handing the baby to her. Then he ran down the stairs and out the door.
Despite bodyguards at both ends of the block to watch for trouble, the car had managed to slip through security and stopped in front of Morgan’s house. Something wasn’t right.
Shaking, Olga came down the stairs with Loretta in her arms. There was no way she was going to stay at the house anymore.
38
Morgan spent the rest of the night circling the house, poking his Sten into the bushes to make sure no one was hiding. Their machine guns hoisted in the air, the guards checked every car driving into the neighborhood. No one could come to the front door unless cleared by bodyguards. No one.
Morgan had never hounded his men about doing their jobs, but a stunning security breach had occurred. They had never seen him this angry. What unnerved him was that the attackers had driven directly to the front of the home without being stopped. He could take care of himself and even Olga, who had survived the fighting in the mountains. But the bullets had pierced the wall just under the room where his infant daughter was sleeping.
Olga was packing. So were his men. Morgan had made a decision. He would move into a smaller, more secure location, probably a penthouse unit in the Vedado neighborhood. He could take only about a dozen of his closest men, but they would be carrying .30-caliber machine guns and grenades. Morgan was preparing for another attempt on his life. This time, he would be ready.
He had been working behind the scenes, calling the State Department and other House members, lining up support. The congressman was tired of hearing about the Yankee comandante. He didn’t care if the Cubans were calling him a hero. The man had helped Castro. That’s all that mattered. Now he was going to pay.
In just days, Representative Walter had convinced government lawyers to make a highly unusual move, one that would leave Morgan as vulnerable as anyone in his position could be. They were stripping him of his birthright.
No longer could he call himself an American citizen. Utilizing a rarely used clause in US law, State Department officials issued a “certificate of loss of US nationality.” The reason: Morgan had served in the armed forces of a foreign country. He no longer had the rights given to American citizens. He could be denied entry into the country. By the afternoon of September 4, it was official.
Reporters scurried down the long corridor and into Congressman Walter’s office. The paperwork was signed and sent to the State Department. The decision had been teletyped to Havana. Only the public announcement remained. In front of the reporters in his office, Walter lashed out at Morgan, saying his efforts to help Castro “were greatly harmful to the interests of the United States.” He clarified that the “State Department agrees with my opinion.”
The news trickled over the wire, alerting reporters in Havana. A writer for the Associated Press read the teletype bulletin and called the house in Miramar.
Morgan had spent much of the day packing and making other preparations. He had found a suitable high-rise on Calle 16 just across from the Malecón, but he hadn’t heard the breaking news. At first, he was suspicious. No one had said anything to him or even warned him this was coming. The reporter told him the justification for his loss of citizenship. Morgan shot back that he had never served in the Cuban army. The charges had been trumped up.
“I had the good fortune of being born in the United States,” he said, “and I am not going to lose my US citizenship.”
He hung up the phone. Morgan didn’t always understand the machinations of politics, but he concluded that it was the work of Trujillo and whoever was supporting him in the States. He wasn’t going to allow anyone to take away his citizenship. He would fight it. His future and that of his family depended on it.
Olga watched as her husband met with reporters in their home. He said he wasn’t going to blame anyone, but he was getting angry. This wasn’t about justice, he said. It was about getting even. He had done nothing wrong.
“What I did, America taught me,” he said.
They could have revoked his citizenship nine months ago, right after the revolution succeeded in January. But they were pulling it now, just two weeks after the failed Trujillo conspiracy. He had learned that Representative Walter, Senator George Smathers of Florida, and Senator James Eastland of Mississippi had led the effort.
“Members of Congress bribed by Trujillo gold, who have caused the temporary loss of my citizenship, are no better citizens than I,” Morgan said. “Our country knows them well. Public opinion will be on my side.”
He was going into battle mode again, except this time the enemy lay a thousand miles away in Washington. If he had to expose people like Walter and Smathers, he would. Morgan reminded the reporters that Trujillo did whatever it took and spent whatever it took to achieve his goals. The dictator had doled out $750,000 to the Mutual Broadcasting System to air favorable stories about his regime. “We have seen how his money poisoned the United States, buying the press in the recent scandal,” Morgan said.
The reporters took down every word and filed their stories. Clete Roberts, anchor of KTLA-TV in Los Angeles, showed up at the house with an entire crew, insisting on talking to Morgan. Roberts asked about Morgan’s role in the revolution and why he had helped Castro.
Morgan replied that it wasn’t about fame. He wanted to help liberate the people from a despot. “People who fought here in Cuba, fought for an ideal, fought for a reason. I think it’s about time the little guy got a break. He never had one before,” Morgan said.
Roberts wanted Morgan’s response to the accusations that he was merely a “soldier of fortune.”
Morgan shot back that coming to Cuba was never about money. “I don’t believe you should cash in on your ideals. I didn’t believe I was an idealist when I went up into the mountains, but I feel I’m an idealist now. At least I have an awful strong faith in an awful lot of people and what they want to do.”
But Morgan didn’t know what lay in store.
39
Each move was harder than the last. This was her fourth home
since the revolution ended. Olga had hoped to find sanctuary in America, but now that was looking less and less possible.
She was watching the lights moving in the harbor when she heard something coming from the bedroom. At first, it sounded like someone shouting, but she couldn’t be sure. Morgan was standing in front of the television set, clenching his fists. On the black-and-white screen, Castro was raising his arms and urging the crowd to join him in denouncing Americans in Cuba.
“Yanqui, vete a casa,” he chanted. Yankee, go home.
The studio audience repeated the line, “Yanqui, vete a casa! ”
She and Morgan had heard it before, but it was resonating with the audience more strongly, whipping them into a frenzy.
“That son of a bitch!” Morgan yelled.
Olga turned off the television, but Morgan was already rushing to put on his clothes. “I’m going down there,” he announced. Olga tried to calm him, but he wasn’t listening. “I am going down there,” he insisted. “Change your clothes. We are going to that program.”
Olga went down the hall to alert their escorts, but by the time they gathered their guns, Morgan had already jumped into the elevator.
“You can’t do this,” she called after him. “This is Castro.”
But Morgan was already on his way. Olga and several others ran down the stairs to catch up with him. She didn’t know what he was going to do, but it wasn’t going to be good. By the time she and the men reached the ground level, the blue Oldsmobile was gone. If they were going to reach the Telemundo studio in time, they had to leave immediately.
Her driver stepped on the gas as Olga frantically looked for her husband’s car as they sped along the route to the station. She knew his temperament better than anyone. He was still angry about Castro’s antics at the press conference. Then the drive-by shooting, which could have killed the baby. Perhaps he was reacting, after the fact, to the loss of his citizenship.
The Yankee Comandante Page 19