A Revolutionary Betrayed: The Story of William Alexander Morgan
Here’s a suggestion for Memorial Day reading, if you’re going to a beach or simply resting in your backyard enjoying the good weather. Buy the May 28th issue of The New Yorker (yes, I know it usually is knee-jerk leftist when it comes to politics), which features an amazing article by author David Grann called “TheYankee Comandante: A Story of love, revolution, and betrayal.”
Grann’s reportage is so good that you will think you are reading good fiction — either a thriller or an adventure story — except that he is telling the very real story of the late William Alexander Morgan, who, as a young man in his 20s, went off to Cuba in 1957 to fight alongside Fidel Castro and his rebels in the guerrilla army seeking to bring down the regime of Fulgencio Batista, the long-ruling authoritarian and corrupt leader of Cuba. I hope that someone gets this article to Andy Garcia and that this Cuban-American exile actor considers optioning it for a film before someone else does.
There were a few other Americans who fought with Castro, but Morgan was the only one to be awarded the rank of comandante, usually reserved for the likes of Che Guevara, Raul Castro, Huber Matos, and, of course, Fidel himself. Like other naive and idealistic young Americans, Morgan was taken with Castro’s cause, having heard many stories about the ruthlessness and brutality of Batista, especially towards his enemies. He went to fight with Castro, he said, because “the most important thing for free men to do is to protect the freedom of others.”
Two things strike the reader on the very first page of the article. The first is a large photo of Castro applauding Morgan at a Havana meeting in 1959, soon after his victory and the collapse of the Bastista government. The second is the opening paragraph, in which Grann writes about the night in which the now 32-year-old man faced Castro’s firing squad at La Cabana, an 18th century stone fortress overlooking Havana’s harbor. As Morgan stood waiting to be killed, one of Castro’s soldiers yelled out that he should kneel and plead for his life. Morgan answered: “I kneel for no man.” The soldiers then shot him in the knee, forcing him to kneel, before they shot off his head in a blast of gunfire.
What happened between 1957 and Morgan’s execution on the orders of Castro is the story that Grann tells. He describes secret meetings of the CIA and Morgan’s seeming alliance with the Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo, who was putting together a secret force to murder Castro. He also tells of Morgan’s friendships and alliances with a key member of the Mafia, Dominick Bartone; the secretive head of the International Rescue Committee, Leo Cherne; and other major players in the various efforts to deal with the reality that Fidel Castro and his rebel band had become Cuba’s new rulers.
I do not wish to try to summarize the twists and turns in the story Grann tells. It is also the subject of a 2007 book by Aran Shetterly, Morgan’s biographer. I have not read The Americano, but although Grann gives the author credit as “incisive,” Grann brings the story up to the present, having interviewed Morgan’s children and the woman he married in a brief guerrilla ceremony, Olga Rodriguez, who fought beside him and was later imprisoned for years by Castro.
If one wishes to gain insight into the living hell that Fidel Castro created in Cuba, look no further than Grann’s article. Castro, like Adolf Hitler, was given luxury treatment when he was imprisoned for trying to overthrow Batista’s government at an earlier moment, before he took to the mountains with his guerrilla band. While incarcerated, he delivered his famous speech, “History Will Absolve Me,” which was published throughout Cuba — the equivalent of Hitler’s Mein Kampf, also written in a luxury prison given Hitler by the Weimar Republic after his Munich beer hall putsch.
Castro has now been in power for many decades and through the reigns of eight American presidents. It is already clear that history will not absolve Fidel Castro, whose crimes have been thoroughly exposed and with whom the oppressed populace of Cuba are all but fed up. Grann’s readers will learn, perhaps for the first time, what kind of treatment Castro gave his political prisoners when they were thrown into his regime’s jail cells. Not only is there no special status for political prisoners, they are the ones singled out for the worst treatment — forced to live in the kind of conditions you would not wish on your worst enemy. Morgan himself was put in solitary confinement for a month, where he became ill, convinced that the food he was being fed was filled with toxic poison. Later, his food was filled with ground glass.
“Even Herbert Matthews, the gullible New York Times journalist who gave Castro free publicity…”
Was he? WAS he?
I submit that matthews was NOT “gullible”, but another in the seemingly neverending line of traitors that have “done their part” by disseminating lies at the new york times…along with countless other “news” organizations.
Tom,
I call them Willing Accomplices.
They knew they were acting to destroy freedom, liberty, and the American way (sounds sorta corny, but how do you think it sounds when you’re in a Cuban prison, the basement of the KGB’s office block, or Pol Pot’s Killing Fields?).
And yet they persisted in their espionage, treason, and actions to destroy the American way.
The NY Times was the first of the media to be infected with Willing Accomplices (after John Reed and Louise Bryant)–Walter Duranty. Recruited as a covert influence agent by the KGB, Duranty did exactly what Matthews did–pushed the Party Line.
And these Willing Accomplices, like Morgan, were NOT “Duped.” They willingly entered into a bargain with the devil. If they paid with their lives, oh well. Careful how you bargain with the devil. He’s a pretty good poker player.
Interesting article, but was there an editing problem? I think Grann’s name gets substituted for Morgan’s a few times. For example, I’m not sure Grann would have interviewed Grann’s children, etc.
William Alexander Morgan, not William Henry Morgan. Yes the editing was horrible in this article.
So, another useful idiot winds up in front of a communist firing squad. Just like all those of Lenin’s inner circle, who, upon his death, found themselves in the basement of the Cheka’s Lubyanka prison, being tortured to sign “confessions” of plotting against the “revolution,” and then executed.
Some supposedly shouted “long live Stalin” just prior to being shot.
Well, I do not fell sorry for any of Lenin’s inner circle because these folks helped unleash mass murder and starvation and frankly, they got what they deserved. Too bad they were not tortured even longer.
As for William Morgan, it appears he too was the victim of his own stupidity and a portion of what befell the Cuban people – 50 years of communist hell – can be blamed on him.
As for the NY times reporter, well, let’s just say that the Walter Duranty also worked for the Times. They both know exactly what they were saying. Too bad Duranty and Herbert Matthews BOTH were not tortured for months on end before they were tossed into a cage of hungry hyenas.
There does seem to be some confusion in the article. Supposedly, Morgan’s “greatest mistake was to be taken in by the charisma and leadership skills of Fidel Castro,” but “he overlooked anything that showed the reality.” I’d say the latter is a greater mistake — in fact not a mistake, but a failure.
I look forward to reading the article in the New Yorker, but I doubt I’ll find Morgan “one of our country’s great sons.” I reserve terms like that for people like Pfc. Fernando Luis Garcia, USMC. As for Morgan, I have the feeling it’ll be like “honoring” some spoiled Hollywood no-talent for going to rehab.
At the end of my summer vacation of 1958 I lacked the funds to return to school. Two classmates and I made plans to join Fidel’s kids in the mountains instead. Kind of like Ché “off to find a revolution”!
By the beginning of September Batista was on the run and Fidel was triumphantly skirmishing his way to Havana. It also became obvious that beyond a sociopath, Ché was also a psychopath and sadist who enjoyed killing with foreplay.
We didn’t go. My friends went back to school. I worked three jobs to be able to follow them the next year, and I read Ayn Rand. In retrospect, I could have been Morgan, but I’m sure I wouldn’t have made comandante.
PS: At age 15, I ran away to Cuba. I saw Batista’s mother and wife walking around unescorted, though they had a limo and driver blocks away. They wandered fearlessly into a dark bazaar (“pulga”) that I had just run out of in fright.
Fidel and Co. can’t wander freely around today. They live in square mile blocks of “zona militares”, ‘copter to and from them like Sadam did his. In those compounds, sometimes former middleclass suburbs like Santa Fe west of Havana, they drive their pet Mazzaratis on oval tracks the hoi polloi can’t see.
These scum were simply auditioning for Obama’s role, and they have put Cuba on the bottom of the 182 country UN “middle class” list from it’s No. 2 (!) position in 1959. And, of course, tortured and murdered untold thousands on the road to where those who always no better than the rest of us go.
Just like all those of Lenin’s inner circle, who, upon his death, found themselves in the basement of the Cheka’s Lubyanka prison, being tortured to sign “confessions” of plotting against the “revolution,” and then executed.
Some supposedly shouted “long live Stalin” just prior to being shot.
Actually, most of Lenin’s inner circle were NOT in the exectued “upon his death”, at least if you mean that they were hauled to the Lubyanka and shot within days of Lenin’s death. The reality is that Stalin spend several years intriguing against first one faction and then the other. Trotsky was the first to be driven from the inner circle and even that took a few years. Lenin was sidelined by his first stroke in 1922 and finally died early in 1924. Trotsky was not out of the Politburo entirely until late in 1927. He was then exiled from the country – not shot – in early 1928. Stalin’s minions finally assasinated him in Mexico in 1940 after years of trying.
The rest of Lenin’s politburo was gradually sidelined after Trotsky had been pushed out. Most of these men wound up in the Lubyanka and were shot. While some did go to their executions professing devotion to Stalin, I believe that most died declaring their undying loyalty to the Communist Party, as opposed to Stalin personally. But there were a lot of men killed and I may be misremembering the details of what each man’s dying words were (when it is known). Even then, how can we really be sure what was actually said, as opposed to what someone later claimed they said? The only ones who heard their last words were usually the execution team in the Lubyanka cellar. It seems unlikely that anyone would say that they were unbiased in the matter. They might deliberately attribute snivelling praise for Stalin to the man about to be shot just to please Stalin, ignoring completely what he actually said.
I stand corrected; I should have said that upon Stalin’s rise to power some years after Lenin’s death, Stalin had many of Lenin’s inner circle tortured (if they refused to sign their “confessions,”) and then shot.
I do not recall the reference that mentioned that some of those shot called out “long live Stalin.” However, it makes no difference because all of them were still committed communists, unable to see the connection betwixt mass murder and corruption and the totalitarian/communist govt. they created.
I did not specifically mention Trotsky, as he too was part of Lenin’s inner circle, but unlike his pals who wound up in Lubyanka, he got his in Mexico via a hatchet planted – OK, slammed – into his skull.
Trotsky the FIRST to be driven from the inner circle. Good god, even a Wikipedia article should correct that stupidity. Kronstadt, the trade unionists, anarchists, etc., etc. Just watch Reds, even Warren Beatty knew more about the Russian Revolution than you right wing nuts.
Stupid leftists causing havoc, murderering people, destroying and wrecking. Then whining that it wasn’t what they wanted when it all goes wrong.
William Morgan helped enslave millions of people and we are supposed to feel sorry for him, poor sweet misguided idealist…….. I’m sure lots of Hitler’s Nazis were idealists as well. I hope Morgan enjoys their company in hell.
To make such a comment, echoed by others as well, shows little familiarity with the course of the Cuban revolution. Remember that Huber Matos too was a comandante, and because he- like Morgan- opposed Communism- was sentenced to 25 years in the Cuban gulag. Many idealistic opponents of Batista had little proof that Fidel Castro was any kind of a Communist. He had promised democratic free elections, and many were fighting for that goal against a truly corrupt and brutal regime led by Batista.
Morgan, like Matos, saw the drift early in the game, and turned against Castro very quickly before he consolidated his power. It is more than foolish to blame the outcome on people like Matos- a hero to the exile community and Morgan as well.
So in my eyes, Morgan more than redeemed himself, as his letter to his son shows.
I agree, Ron. But Batista was no monster compared to the Castro/Ché regime.
Press reports of typical Latin American police torturing students, etc, in the early 1950s seems to catch your eye more than the 110,000 or more by the Castristas?
Remember also that Batista put an end to the horrendous tortures and murders of the Grau regime. He was an interregnum bit player not yet in control of the dregs left over from Grau.
I agree with you, Professor Radosh.
I think we have to carefully resist the tendency to use “20/20 hindsight” in assessing the choices people make. If Morgan had no reasonable clues that Castro was becoming a Communist at the time, it is not fair to blame him for initially supporting Castro. On the other hand, if clues abounded and Morgan just chose to ignore them, that’s a different story.
It’s simply not fair to judge someone on the basis of something that he knew only months or years after he would have needed to know it to make a different decision.
We might just as well condemn everyone who voted for Nixon in 1968. Those voting that year had no way of knowing that Nixon would permit Watergate to take place or that he would stonewall the investigation into it.
It is offensive in the extreme to use Nixon as a comparison to the murderous totalitarian Casto, even just for the sake of comparison. Surely, with a little more thought, a more appropriate line of thinking could have been employed.
To those unclear on the meaning of “invidious comparison”, here is an example worthy of a dictionary entry.
Morgan allied himself with Castro. He was either a useful idiot or wilfully blind. Either way, his stupidity led him to help install a foul murderous regime.
I don’t care how ‘idealistic’ his motives were and I don’t care that he wrote nice letters to his son after the damage was done. He supported a violent communist revolution, he choose to believe that Castro would be a peace loving democratic liberal after seizing power by violence.
You can make excuses for the facilitators of despotism and murder if you want but that makes you the naive one. The rest of us can see quite clearly how all these ‘peaceloving deomcratic’ revolutions always end up with murderous despotisms and we can rightfully condemn the useful idiots who help the murderers succed.
One has to have lived during the Sierra Maestra stages of the Cuban Revolution to understand how seductive was the heroic portrayal of Castro in the American press. Dramatic photo essays in Life Magazine from the rebel encampment in the mountains left little doubt in the minds of many readers that revolution was a righteous one. If one doubted Life’s account, the New York Times would set him straight. Batista was cruel and corrupt, the American State Department that supported him was little better. Looking back I see not only factual errors in the narrative but also an anti-American cast. Idealists of the time saw only a heroic contest between good and evil.
By way of anecdote I mention what I heard of pro-Castro activities on the Georgia Tech campus. A number of mostly Cuban students — evidently in fairly close contact with active revolutionaries in Cuba — planned to join Castro’s forces in the final assault on Havana. Many were armed (.303 British Enfield jungle carbines among favorite weapons), and they were prepared to bring ammunition, cash and medical supplies. Some American volunteers, among them Korean veterans, were also engaged. Notably one, “Paul” (Anglo last name), who, as an ex-military pilot, reportedly shuttled supplies and manpower to Cuba in a DC-3/C47. The story ran that Paul’s last flight, timed to coincide with the climax of the Revolution, was mistakenly fired upon by rebels as the plane landed.
My point, echoing Ron Radosh’s, is that Morgan’s motivations and his sense of the heroic narrative (now much diminished in the American spirit, I think) are more easily understood by his contemporaries than by later generations. Ya had to be there.
That same American State Department just happened to sneak millions of dollars to Castro from 1952 to 1959.
The estimate I remember is up to $200 million.
Don’t imagine that all factions in the Department are marching to the same tune, thanks. I suspect very few of them are marching to a purely patriotic one.
Interesting. Always hard to know what’s going on at State. Never-ending internecine struggle for dominance; sometimes incompetence wins, sometimes corruption. Maybe a draw. In any case my recollection is that they took a lot of heat from lib media for being slow to withdraw support for the Batista government and recognize Castro.
Agreed. I thought Castro was America’s sweetheart for a brief time in the late ’50s. Or at least the media’s sweetheart. My understand is that he was wooing the Americans for help with his revolution using a “Communist…who, me?” line. So I wouldn’t think it surprising that a few American idealists might march off to fight by his side. As for his transformation in the public’s mind from freedom fighter to Commie bastard – I’m not sure when or how that occurred. Was it sudden, based on some act or statement of his? Or was it gradual, as he revealed his true nature as the brutal El Jefe?
“to honor him as one of our country’s great sons,”
I’m very picky about the people I choose to honor and tend more towards those so steeped in virtue and wisdom that they would not make such an egregious error in judgment. I would use him as an example to my children and grandchildren of how wrong a turn one’s life can take when one is lacking a strong moral compass. He paid dearly for his foolishness and his story is a sad one (Samson comes to mind) but lets direct our sons and daughters to true heroes for their role models.
Everyone makes mistakes in life. To me, someone who realizes his error and then risks his life to rectify it is very much a hero. I would add that those sorts of heroes are particularly important examples for children to teach them the power and possibility of redemption. When young people make foolish or wrong choices, they need to know that they can, by dint of courage and self sacrifice, turn their lives around.
Clearly we disagree. You are conflating two completely different things: hero and redemption. I clearly stated that Mr. Morgan would be a useful example of how NOT to live one’s life (in the New Yorker article one of his stated purposes for joining Castro was revenge)and I referenced Samson whose story is one of redemption. I’m far more interested in teaching children to make positive life choices and real heroes are very useful in this endeavor.
This country has produced far too many broken kids who, though redeemed, still have to live with the consequences of their poor choices – as do all those harmed by them as well. Just visit any inner city.
I immediately looked this guy up on Wiki and discovered that before his death at age 35 he had already fathered 5 children by 3 women and one, Japanese, wasn’t even a wife, and he had 3 wives, and that told me enough about his erratic behavior before even reading the article. He walked into his own hell-hole. Wonder how those 5 children have fared?
The author of this article, along with most of the respondents here, reminds me of the ‘Monday morning quarterback’ who could have told you the Giants were going to win because of x, y and z. The fact is, no one — I repeat NO ONE — least of all Castro himself knew where Cuba was heading in a post-Batista world. What people did know was that Batista was an inhuman tyrant who ruled over an island composed primarily of a few elite large land owners and an enormous peasant class who worked their farms. The landowners were the overseers, tormentors, judges and, quite frequently, the executioners of the underclass who worked for them. The vast majority citizens in Batista’s Cuba were illiterate. They had no shoes. One of the things that Morgan noticed when he returned to the hills after the revolution was that the peasants were wearing shoes. And schools were starting to pop up in the villages. As bad as Castro’s Cuba has been, and it’s been bad, for the average Cuban, it’s heaven compared to living under Batista.
What happened in Cuba is what happens often in revolutions. Competing points of view among the revolutionaries that have been subdued during the rebellion in order to focus on the revolution rise to the surface once the overthrow is accomplished. In Cuba, most of the 2nd Front — the army commanded by Morgan and Menoyo — were strongly anti-communist(If Morgan was a gullible idealist, so were another thousand or so of his comrades). On the other side were Che Guevara, an ardent Marxist, and Raul Castro. But the voices of the anti-communists could not compete with the persuasive eloquence of the educated Doctor Guevara, and the communist won out. The new government was also plagued by egotism of its leader. Like so many leaders,Castro entangled his own ambition with the welfare of his country. It’s a neat psychological trick accomplished by countless leaders before him, including a few here in the States — Richard Nixon comes immediately to mind — whereby you manage to fool yourself into thinking your leadership is necessary for the betterment of the State. Whether or not Castro is an evil man is a matter for ethicists to debate (he certainly committed evil deeds), but in his defense, he never tried to enrich himself at the expense of his people on the order of Batista, or Trujillo or F. Marcos or so many other dictators. To the best of anyone’s knowledge there’s no billions stashed away in a Swiss bank account, no collection of villas in disparate places. He doesn’t even were Armani suits.
Propaganda. Hogwash. Cuba had the eighth highest living standards in the world, higher than Japan or Ireland.
Strong unions, public healthcare and schooling, strong and growing middle class.
Of all those mercenaries, how many came back?
“He never tried” humbug. Forbes must have mistakenly listed him as one of the world’s richest men.
But then, I’m sure you’ve made the same noises about the equally noble Yasir Arafat.
I knew a personal friend of Dick Nixon. Nixon was a good man, a patriot, a small town values American, and a brilliant foreign policy expert who saved the dollar, beat Russia’s Vietnamese clients (yes they were defeated in 1973 and agreed to all American demands), ended the Democrat’s Vietnam money machine, and split the Sino-Soviet bloc.
All unforgiveable to your communista mind.
His victories against the Democrat Party’s Communist allied led to a set-up hatchet job.
He was just a guy who like high school basketball, and a far greater patriot than your type will ever, ever be.
Even if you get your glorious Revolution.
No wonder you’re extolling the virtues of Castro, Mr. Single Generic Name Paid $5 Per Post By Media Matters.
I’m certain Castro will correct his ‘mistakes’ any day now. Absolutely.
You haven’t spoken to many Cubans who came here on inner tubes. I have.
Let the audience imagine swear words coming out of my mouth as I write this.
Treason, treachery, vile and true.
Speaking of propoganda! You’ve got to be kidding. Do you really think anyone is going to believe that in 1957, Cuba had a higher standard of living than at least 4 of the following:
US
Canada
England
Switzerland
Sweden
Germany
Denmark
Norway
Finland
Austria
Australia
France
Which 4 of the above countries were poorer than Cuba? The average annual income in 1957 Cuba was $340, which, in fact, was the 2nd highest in Latin America, but the lion’s share of that income was earned in Havana where the Mafia had invested millions in gambling and prostitution and US companies invested millions more in sugar refineries and tobacco mills. But comparing Cuba to other Latin American companies is a fallacious comparison, because the Cuban people did not live in a typical Latin American economy. Unlike Mexico or Colombia, for example, where foodstuffs and other necessities were relatively cheap, Cuba had to import almost all consumer goods from the U.S. as part of the agreement struck between Batista and Washington. To quote from Luis A Martin, “First of all, Cubans were forced to import nearly all consumer products from the US in exchange for the guarantee of selling all sugar in the American market. They imported most of their food. To name a few basic items, nearly all rice, eggs, poultry came from abroad and half of all beans and meat (though much of the land on the island is grass and pasture). The sole utility providers (telephone and electricity) were US-owned companies. Nearly all medicines, clothing, automobiles, and all other motorized means of land sea and air transportation came from the US. Nearly all motion pictures were also imported from the US as well as radio, TV, and all electronic equipment. In short Cuban workers were forced to lead a life consuming US products at higher prices than most Americans paid for them.
I don’t know what you saw in my remarks to lead you to believe I am a Castro sympathizer. But you are far off the mark. Castro is a tyrant. I never said otherwise.I was only trying to paint an objective picture of what happened after the revolution. But of course, people who demand to see the world as black and white, don’t know what to do with objectivity. They don’t know what to do with NUANCE,
You are full of crap from a to z. Castro was always a communist and it was evident for all to see who wanted to see. Compared to Castro Batista was a choir boy.
If it was “there for all to see,” why didn’t Huber Matos and William Morgan, who both comandantes, see it, as well as Menoyo and hundreds of others who knew Castro well. This is precisely what I mean by the smug Monday-morning quarterbacks. These people who knew Castro well, didn’t think he was a communist, but YOU KNEW IT, You knew it all along.
Che Guevara was not a doctor! No medical school in S America or anywhere has any documentary proof of his graduation from medical school. You are not a doctor because the Ny times calls you Dr…
He never graduated from medical school! He was a sociopath nothing more nothing less…
What? Are you out of your mind? There are hundreds of biographies of Ernesto “Che” Guevara, many of them hostile, and not one of them makes such a preposterous claim. Che sat for his final exam on April 11, 1953 and received his degree that June. He was subsequently offered a job at the Clinica Pisani, an allergy clinic in Buenos Aires — offered by Dr. Salavador Pisani himself — but turned it down because he wanted to travel. De donde sacas esta idea loca?
Paul, where did you find this info about his getting the degree? I have been searching the Internet for 1/2 hour and can’t find it.
Terribly sad story.
I knew nothing of it.
Thank you for informing us.
Why is it that there seems always to be tyrants lurking among us? They consistently deliver messages of hope, change, equality, freedom, and justice, just as Castro delivered to the beleaguered Cubans. Time and again, it seems uniformly to turn out badly, frequently disastrously. Yet tryants use the same tactics and people buy into the very well worn rhetoric. And history proceeds to be repeated with the mantra that has so frequently provided global castrophy. Denial is very powerful.
Yet another article written in a slant meant to make one feel sorry for a person who was duped by communism. Somehow I just cannot muster the sympathy because I know he ignored reason along the way like all useful idiots generally do. He not only had to ignore reason but his own senses. My pity is reserved for those he helped kill. I will read up on the story as an interesting foot note to history but don’t expect any sympathy.
You say he went to Cuba to fight for freedom. He could have become a US Army Infantryman or Marine and fought for freedom too. By fighting for another country (or cause) Morgan turned his back on America.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Tigers
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lafayette_Escadrille
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eagle_Squadrons
You might want to rethink your narrow definition there, cause according to what you say all these guys turned their back on the US as well.
There are a number of reasons to help other countries in time of need. Just because it is done doesn’t mean the helpers are against the US. Try the men who flew planes for Britain before the US entered the Second World War or the men who flew for the Flying Tigers in the same situation. Both situations required that the men be contracted to the country that they flew for, Britain and The Republic of China.
I’ve know about William Morgan for at least 30 years, I wrote a term paper in 1984 on the use of mercenaries worldwide from 1950-1967 and William Morgan was one of the people I wrote extensively on (along with Mike Hoare and 5 Commando in Katanga and the Congo from 1961-1966). Soldier of Fortune magazine had a rather large article about William Morgan that I quoted extensively for my term paper.
“For those deluded young people among us who believe they should spend their brief time on this earth working on behalf of tyrants who claim to stand for freedom and democracy, Morgan’s story should give them pause.”
This reminds me so much of those kids on college campuses that are die-hard supporters of the Palestinians, particularly Hamas and Hezbollah. Hamas and Hezbollah also use terms like “freedom” and “democratically elected officials” and “independence.” Yet if anyone bothered to study how Hamas and Hezbollah do business, you would quickly find out that democracy is the last thing that they want. Yet these naiive kids fall for this propaganda, not to mention many of the elites in Europe. Problem is, if Hamas and Hezbollah ever achieved their dreams of independence and “freedom,” it would also mean the destruction of the state of Israel not to mention the death of God knows how many Israelis.
It is up to us to inform and to teach young people that groups like Hamas and Hezbollah have learned their trade well from people like Castro and Hitler. Their “freedom” will come over the dead bodies of a lot of Jews, and that is one lesson these kids need to understand. Hamas and Hezbollah have no intention of living in peace with anybody, except for possibly other psychotic Islamo-fascist regimes, like the one in Iran. I hope the young people both here and in Europe pick up on this soon before there is some serious bloodshed in the Middle East.
“Problem is, if Hamas and Hezbollah ever achieved their dreams of independence and “freedom,” it would also mean the destruction of the state of Israel not to mention the death of God knows how many Israelis.”
I cannot fathom how Israel should be pointed to as a shining example of human rights. Hezbollah and Hamas are groups that have killed many innocent civilians and should be condemned by the international community. However Israel is on a whole different scale in regards to human rights, equalling (if not already surprassing) the brutalities of the Castro regime. Israelies started the whole concept of “terrorism” and psychological warfare in the 1950s and have inflicted bloodshed on the Palestinian people. This is a highly successful state that has shown it does not care what the international community thinks.
Oh stop with the propaganda. Israel is a country where those of other religions live equally with the Jews. Muslms hold seats in their Parliament. They don’t initiate violence – they retaliate against it.
Plus (and this is most important) there is no such thing as palistinians. Name a pal before the Egyptian Arafat.
Also, please remember that the two state solution was Trans-Jordan and Israel.
Perfect analogy of what’s happening to America. The question is when the true source of success in America will become so marginalized that failure can have said to be the shot to the head.
How do you build libraries without revenue? How do you stop illegal aliens from building shantytowns when they just muscle themselves around and laws either ignore them or adjust to them by race.
If the shot to the head can be said to be when the concept of the greater good died in favor of racialist dogmas put out by the political Left, then the bleeding head wound is probably incurable even now. Think of America in 50 years and be glad you won’t be around, mostly. Say a prayer for your kids and teach them to build rocket ships and a new continent with barbed wire at the same time they speak Spanish. America is Cuba, just a slow motion decades-long fall at this point, complete with la lingua habalada.
My high school physics teacher, an Navy Academy trained engineer, went down to Florida in the late 1950′s and offered to come to Cuba and set up a broadcast radio station for Castro. He had met Batista and figured that Castro just had to be better.
While he and one engineer waited in Miami, a third fellow went down to Cuba to make the offer to Castro. What they got back was not acceptance of their offer of assistance but a ransom note for their friend. They paid to get their friend back and decided that Castro could go to hell. Apparently he took up that very trajectory.
I recommend Jon Lee Anderson’s “Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life” for anyone who doubts that Fidel intended from the start to make Cuba a one-party Marxist state.
Fidel was not publicly known as a Communist prior to his declaration in 1961 that the revolution was socialist in character. This has led many people to say an intrusive US government “forced” Castro to embrace Leninism.
Anderson’s book, based on Che’s own notes and interviews with Che’s wife, shows that Fidel was a dedicated Marxist prior to 1959. Castro told the Soviet ambassador that needed to keep his Communist orientation secret from the Cuban people and the US until his revolutionary government was stronger.
Morgan was but one of the many victims, naive but well-meaning, who fell prey to Castro’s deception. The warning signs were there, but many people chose to ignore them.
This is about half true. Che was a dedicated Marxist. He became more and more fervent as the revolution progressed, and he had great powers of persuasion (for many reasons, partly because of his education, partly because of his upper-class Argentinian accent). He was largely responsible for turning Raul, and he was a strong influence on Fidel. It was largely Che’s influence that led to Morgan’s execution. That said, Fidel would have been more deferential in Che’s presence (no one likes to argue with a fanatic), less likely to argue against him, which no doubt led Che to believe Fidel was more leftest than he was.
Fidel promised elections in 1959, or was in 1960, as soon as he took over.
Post script. We’re still waiting.
For years the leftist press reported Castro to be the leader or president of Cuba. He is nothing of the sort. He is nothing but a hoodlum with a gun terrorizing his neighbors. Too bad Pulitzer, McKinley and Teddy Roosevelt weren’t still around. They’d know what to do.
And how long before the lies and subterfuge of the Obama administration are uncovered and the filth and decadence that is his plan revealed?
Don’t doubt me. Obama would love the opportunity to imprison, torture and “blow the heads off” of people who disagree with him. His anger has always been there, percolating just under the skin. He hates our system, hates ourcitiznes and hates himself, most likely which is where such hate and rage originate from.
I’m pretty sure that his childhood was laden with tantrums and fits of anger, along with holding grudges and trying to figure out ways to get revenge at people. This is where people mis-identify his manipulations as stupidity…whereas in the case of other despots like Castro, they are just diabolical and pretty simple in nature.
Why does he SAY he’s for the working man, when he funnels money to unions and yet sets forth a blueprint to eliminate small businesses? It’s easier to control the big companies, especially if they have communist unions.
Why does he funnel money into “green” companies that go bankrupt? To further the cause of devaluing the dollar and breaking the treasury because once the money’s spent, it’s gone. His is the first presidency where the debt exceeds the GDP. In other words, like the moron down the street, he is borrowing to cover debt and hoping the people don’t see it…until it’s too late and a crisis looms, thus making him “have to” take some sort of action that nobody will like but will be “necessary” to control the collapse.
Then he’ll blame it all on someone else. It’s classic despotic takeover. First prototyped in smaller countries and now D’oh-bama wanting to be the biggest bad-assed mo-fo who took it to whitey and crushed the nation.
OK..so he’s been wildly successful but in the end, the people will NOT surrender their guns and will ignore new restrictive rules and I would say rural and small city government police departments will let them. Bigger cities will have internal conflicts with such heavy-handed regulation of curfew laws and quickly run out of places to put in jail what will become (essentially) political prisoners.
Many people have commented on the temperature of the water and they turn it up until we get used to it…then they turn it up some more until it boils and the frog is dead. But this despot thinks he can do as he pleases and not be called out on it, banking on the guilt trip of being labeled as racist. But, it’s not working so much anymore.
Don’t attribute to conspiracy what can be explained by incompetence. Where do you think Obama learned how to so masterly manipulate so much and so many? He is governed by expediency and the Obambi are governed by immediate gratification of their wishes, Few of his near sighted supporters have experienced the type of economic and security meltdown that will result from Obama’s incompetence. Well, maybe this way they will learn.
Bob, you need to read Marx and Ailinsky, and while your at it, throw in the Humanist Manifestos.
It’s not incompetence.
Not at all.
Wow, P Jay, you are pop psychologist extraordinaire (not). I’m no Obama supporter, but a new book paints him as a sort of laid-back stoner, shooting hoops, drinking beer, and hanging out in the lush areas around Honolulu with friends. At Oxy, he was into pot, playing stupid dorm games, and rapping until the wee hours. No sign of an angry young man at all.
Thank you, Mr. Radosh, for bringing this man and his life to our attention.
Mr William Morgan fought and died for the highest ideals without which we cannot fully live, but only exist. I’ll do my best to talk to my friends about him. He richly deserves to be known and remembered.
The evil which Mr. Morgan faced brings everyone who confronts it to the same place – hand over your soul, or face persecution, and very often, death. Mr. Morgan passed his test with flying colors.
As an aside note – as I read The New Yorker article about William Morgan, I was struck by the parallels between his life, and that of Witold Pilecki.
Is this article supposed to make me feel charitable to the bulk of my fellow citizens who voted for Obama and the communist ideals (liberalism)? Are they in fact seeing the light? Will they become a force to help tear down 100+ years of liberal ramparts (ideologies), and the dismantling of program after program, department after department? If this is indeed the case, and the coming trend – OK.
Two of my far-left friends from the music world have succeeded within the last ten years in entering Cuba from Mexico, with the nostalgic wish to visit a real socialist paradise while its ‘community’ is still unspoiled by vulgar trade and commerce and evil American ideas.
They certainly did not return having awakened to Castro’s totalitarian thuggery. It left them in peace, despite their undocumented entry. But in their refusals to even discuss with me the slightest detail of how such regimes are established and how they treat their subjects when governing, that’s not a surprise. They absorbed when young the romantic fantasy of the egalitarian caring and sharing ‘community’ which one will enjoy after the revolution, and long ago closed their minds to the legions of broken eggs which comprise such an omelette.
The worst aspect of that fantasy is that it’s alive and well all through the Western democracies – and was a factor in Obama’s victory of 2008.
Thank you for calling attention to this story.
People are quick to write off Morgan as a dupe. Well, then one of the heroes of the Right, George Orwell, was also a dupe, fighting in a communist brigade in the Spanish Civil War. Orwell learned, as Morgan did, a thing or two about idealism. And he was lucky to survive and write about it.
Clearly we disagree. You are conflating two completely different things: hero and redemption. I clearly stated that Mr. Morgan would be a useful example of how NOT to live one’s life (in the New Yorker article one of his stated purposes for joining Castro was revenge)and I referenced Samson whose story is one of redemption. I’m far more interested in teaching children to make positive life choices and real heroes are very useful in this endeavor.
This country has produced far too many broken kids who, though redeemed, still have to live with the consequences of their poor choices – as do all those harmed by them as well. Just visit any inner city.
This comment belongs in the #5 thread, where I subsequently put it. I can’t delete this errant post. Sorry
A sad but common tale. Read it before: Big Bill Haywood (though he didn’t get the firing squad). Too many people who thought of themselves as good voluntarily and willing did evil, then discovered evil wasn’t as good as they were led to believe. Duh. The revolution wasn’t betrayed: its goal was reached. The regimes of Castro, Lenin, Mao, Pol Pot, Stalin, Ortega, Chavez were the alpha and omega of the revolution.
History repeats itself over and over. Read about the Kronstadt sailors and how they were rewarded for their part in the Bolsheivk revolution.
RE: “History will absolve me.” (Castro)
Wily devil that he is, Castro must’ve been referring to and anticipating the craven, fawning mindless adulation of the “useful idiots” of the western Leftist elites in the media and academia for Leftist despots in general. He meant history as taught by halfwit nutbags like Ward Churchill or Howard Zinn to their gullible non-thinking college drones, not real history with real facts.
Bittersweet.
The opressed population of Cuba is not “all but fed up”. Quite the contrary. They have been humiliated for three generataions, and there is essentally no one left who remembers anything different–or would say so. They do not yearn to be free. They yearn to be fed, twice a day. When the food truck does not arrive with the rations they go hungry but say, “it will be here tomorrow” and it usually is.
According to the NYT article, Morgan was the only American to fight for Castro during the actual revolution.
“There were a few other Americans who fought with Castro,”