"We lost Cuba.... But we won Miami."

[mia]

Link to tweet

Eugenio Rolando Martnez, Watergate burglar and former CIA asset in Miami, dies at 98

...Martínez, a CIA contract agent who ran hundreds of covert missions from Miami to his homeland, was among four Miami Cuban exiles recruited by top Nixon aides to break into the Democratic National Committee’s Watergate headquarters in May and June of 1972 along with a security coordinator for Nixon’s reelection campaign. They were told to tap phones and look for financial connections between Cuban dictator Fidel Castro and George McGovern, Nixon’s opponent in his reelection bid....

In a column he penned in 1974, Martínez described the scheme as a bungled affair that reminded him of the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba — an ill-fated, poorly planned attempt by the CIA to spur revolution by attacking communist dictator Fidel Castro’s troops with Cuban exile troops....

“I can’t help seeing the whole Watergate affair as a repetition of the Bay of Pigs,” he wrote. “The invasion was a fiasco for the United States and a tragedy for the Cubans. All of the agencies of the U.S. government were involved, and they carried out their plans in so ill a manner that everyone landed in the hands of Castro — like a present.”

...While Martínez will be known first in history books as one of the Watergate burglars, it was this work — his efforts to topple the Castro regime and end a mass exile of Cubans in Miami — that earned Martínez his reputation in his hometown.

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/article248915714.html

[mia]

1. Re Kennedy brothers:" ...they all were committed to get the Cubans free. They tried many times."

Fascinating interview with Eugenio Martinez.

In Killing Oswald, Eugenio Martinez speaks about the Kennedys, the Bay of Pigs and his role in the secret war on Castro. Here's the rest of the interview, filmed in Miami in August 2013.

https://vimeo.com/84462659