EDITORS NOTE: Cuba and North Vietnam established diplomatic relations in 1960, and Castro visited Vietnam three times. His 1973 wartime visit can be read about here. He even apparently said in 1973 that ‘for Vietnam, Cuba is willing to donate blood’.

VIDEO: Cuban President Fidel Castro’s visit to Hanoi, Vietnam.

Cuba’s bloody dictator Fidel Castro visited North Vietnam and sent three torturers to extract information from the 585 pilots and other POWs.

One of the torturers, Fernando Vecino Alegret, assassinated a Navy pilot, Earl Cobeil. He sent thousands of soldiers of the Giron Brigade to repair the Ho Chi Ming Trail and kill American soldiers and some Cuban soldiers attacked Saigon at the end of the war. Communist pilots flew Migs to shoot American pilots. Castro took 17 American pilots from Hanoi to Villa Marista in Cuba, the G2 headquarters in Havana, to experiment with the worst tortures ever done including cutting off their noses and ears and giving electric shocks to these brave Americans in Mazorra Hospital for the insane. These 17 pilots could never be released since they were very disfigured. They were murdered in Havana. These crimes against humanity by the communist Cuban regime have been committed with complete impunity.

Why has America tolerated so much abuse from the mass-murdering Cuban regime for over 62 years? Why did the Defense Department cover-up these crimes and Cuba’s involvement in this war for so many years? Why did the State Department give a visa to the murderer Vecino Alegret when he was a General and Minister of Education to come to speak at Harvard and MIT in 1979?

Since the Biden administration is soon going to reverse all of President Trump’s strong sanctions on the Cuban regime, it is important to know the role Cuba played in the Vietnam War, including the torturing, and killing of American pilots in Hanoi and Havana. The Biden administration is going to return to the failed policy of the Obama administration, which consisted on giving Cuba unilateral concessions in return for nothing, except more repression of the Cuban population and increased cooperation with China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, Bolivia, Nicaragua, and Venezuela.

Some articles and at least one book have been written on this subject. On March 22, 2016, Judicial Watch sued the government seeking information on the 17 pilots killed in Havana. On April 9, 1995, Juan O. Tamayo wrote an article in Spanish titled “Torturadores Cubanos en Vietnam” that was published by the website El Veraz.com. and by the Miami Herald and el Nuevo Herald on August 22, 1995.  On February 10, 2015, John Lowery wrote an article in the Accuracy in Media website explaining the terrible role of communist Cuba in the killing and torturing of Americans during the Vietnam War in Hanoi and Havana.  On May 18, 2016, Elmer Davis wrote an article titled “Cuba’s Vietnam War Involvement” that was published by the website bwcentral.org. On January 15, 2021, Dr. Pedro Roig wrote an article titled “No Limits to Cruelty” that was published in the website Cuban Studies Institute. An extensive article published by the website of Amigo Pais Guaracabuya titled “Cuban War Crimes Against American POWs During the Vietnam War.” The book, Honor Bound: The History of American Prisoners of War in Southeast Asia, 1961-1973, was written in 1999 by Stuart Rochester and Frederick Kiley.

Cuba sent three torturers to Hanoi. The cruelest and most vicious was Fernando Vecino Alegret, known as “Fidel,” who later became a brigadier general and Minister of Higher Education.

Vecino was born on June 24, 1938, in Banes, Holguín. He studied in Banes until the age of 14 and then transferred to Colegio Champagnat of the Marist Brothers in Camagüey where his grandparents lived. Vecino finished “segundo año de bachillerato” (second year of high school). This writer was in the fourth grade and his brother Jorge in sixth grade in the same school during this time. The following year Vecino transferred to Colegio Dolores of the Jesuit order in Santiago de Cuba as an intern. He finished the last year of high school in Holguín.

In 1954, Vecino began with other students to protest the government of Fulgencio Batista and was beaten by the police. He joined the 26 of July Movement led by Fidel Castro and his parents, fearing for his safety, sent him to study in the United States. Vecino began to study chemical engineering at the University of Alabama and traveled to several cities in America. He withdrew from the university and went to Mexico to be trained as a soldier to invade Cuba with Pedro Miret Prieto. Later, he traveled to Miami where he met Haydée Santamaría, who wrote a letter on his behalf to Fidel Castro and one to Vilma Espín, the future wife of dictator Raúl Castro.

On June 23. 1958, Vecino joined Fidel Castro in the Sierra Maestra Mountains in Cuba’s province of Oriente. He fought in the revolution against Batista under the command of Juan Almeida Bosque. Vecino was promoted to captain and participated in the capture of Santiago de Cuba, where Raúl Castro shot several men without a trial and began to implant a terror regime in a nation that never had the death penalty, not even for murderers.

After the establishment of the dictatorship of Fidel Castro in January 1959, Vecino worked in the Agrarian reform in several municipalities in Oriente. He was recalled to Havana and attended the University of Havana to study engineering and served as a leader of the Union of Young Communists. Vecino studied in the Soviet Union military technology and strategic weapons. In 1965 he oversaw a unit of missiles FKR. In 1966, he became director of a Military Institute in the former Colegio Belén. Vecino’s official military biography hides the year and one month he spent in Hanoi, along with Eduardo Morejón Estévez and Luis Pérez Jaén, severely torturing American pilots prisoners of war from 1967 to 1968. A Congressional investigation indicated that Morejón served as military attaché of the Cuban embassy in Hanoi during that time and Pérez was identified by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) in 1979 according to Juan O. Tamayo

Shamefully, Fernando Vecino Alegret tortured for many days Earl Cobeil, a Navy F-105 Pilot at the Zoo prison, until he became catatonic and died. This assassin later was sent to Angola in late 1975. In 1976, he was named brigadier general and Minister of Higher Education, where he served for almost 30 years. The murderer Vecino was invited to speak to Harvard and MIT in 1979 during President Jimmy Carter’s last year in office. Shamefully, the torturer of many American pilots in Hanoi and the murderer of Navy pilot Earl Cobeil, instead of being arrested, indicted, given a trial, convicted, and send to the electric chair or life in prison, was given a visa by the State Department.

Where was the Department of Defense that should have been aware of what Vecino did in North Vietnam? How about President Carter?

Dr. Roig explained that Fidel Castro visited Hanoi in 1973 during the Vietnam War to demonstrate public support to North Vietnam. For several years, Cuban communist military officers were involved in secret operations in that war. The most terrible one was the torturing of American POWs. Dr. Roig wrote that from July 1967 to August 1968, Cuban Captain Fernando Vecino Alegret “tortured American POWs in a savage interrogation known as the Cuban Program to crush the prisoners into total submission.”

In April 1999, the story of the torturing of American POWs in Vietnam by Cuban communist officers was described in the book Honor Bound: American Prisoners of War in Southeast Asia, 1961-1973.

This immensely detailed 592-page book was written by Stuart I. Rochester and Frederick Kiley.  Drawing from memoirs, interviews, classified documents, and other sources, the historians provided the most sweeping view of American POWs since the return of the prisoners in 1973.

Amazon describes this book as follows: “Honor Bound, a collaborative effort researched and written over the course of more than a decade by historian Stuart Rochester and Air Force Academy professor and POW specialist Frederick Kiley, combines rigorous scholarly analysis with a moving narrative to record in unprecedented detail the triumphs and tragedies of the several hundred servicemen (and civilians) who fought their own special war in North and South Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia between 1961 and 1973.”

“The authors address a gamut of subjects from the physical ordeal of torture and deprivation that required clarification of the Code of Conduct to the sometimes more onerous psychological challenges of indoctrination, adjustments to new routines and relationships, and mere coping and passing time under the most monotonous, inhospitable conditions. The volume weaves a winding trail through scores of prison camps, from large concrete compounds in the North to isolated jungle stockades in the South to mountain caves in Laos, while tracing political developments in Hanoi and Washington and the evolution of the “psywar” that placed the prisoners at the center of the conflict even as they were removed from the battlefield. From courageous resistance and ingenious methods of organization and communication to failed escapes and questionable conduct — “warts and all”— Honor Bound examines in depth the longest and perhaps most remarkable prisoner-of-war captivity in U.S. history.”

Dr. Roig pointed out that on November 4, 1999, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, then Chairman of the House Subcommittee on International Economy and Trade, held a congressional hearing during which several American POW officers discussed in great detailed the brutal tortures inflicted upon them by Cuban communist torturers in Vietnam. The total submissive behavior set by the Cuban communist psychopaths included the making of tape-recorded statements to be published by the Communist propaganda media.

In his book Faith of my Father the late Senator John McCain, a pilot POW in Hanoi, wrote: “In the Zoo, mass torture was a routine practice.  For a time, the camp personnel at the Zoo included an English-speaking Cuban, called “Fidel” who delighted in breaking Americans, even when the task required him to torture his victims to death.”

Dr. Roig wrote the following: “On September 9, 1999, the Miami Herald offered the testimony of Air Force Colonel Ed Hubbard a POW in Vietnam who identified the leader of the Cuban interrogation team that tortured him: That’s the guy, Hubbard said, visibly shaken, as he held a picture of Cuban General Fernando Vecino Alegret.  “Fidel” was described by several POWs as being over six feet tall, young, muscular, with full command of English with American slangs and personal knowledge of many cities in the Southeastern United States from Miami to the Carolinas.  “Fidel has been identified by some of the POWs in the “Cuban Program” as Fernando Vecino Alegret.  Fernando Vecino Alegret lived in the United States for extensive periods of time, including Miami, and studied at the University of Alabama, until he joined the Castro’s guerrillas in 1958.  Today he is a retired brigadier general of the Cuban FAR.”

Air Force F-105 Pilot Lieutenant Colonel Earl G. Cobeil was assassinated at the age of 33 in November,1967. This is the worst case of torture ever recorded by debriefers in the “Cuban Program.” This picture was courtesy of his widow, Mrs. Cobeil.

The sight of Cobeil walking back from the torture chamber was a horrible scene. The pilot could barely walk. He shuffled slowly and painfully. His clothes were torn to shreds.  He was bleeding everywhere, terribly swollen, dirty, black, and purple from head to toes.  His head was down, and he made no attempt to look at anyone.  He had been through much more than the daily beatings.  His body was ripped and torn. Silvers of bamboo were embedded in the bloodied shins and there were what appeared to be tread marks from hose across his chest, back, and legs. He reportedly died of these injuries on or about November 5, 1970. His remains were identified and returned to the United States on March 6, 1974.

For his extraordinary courage and fortitude in the face of savage torturing, Coronel Earl Glenn Cobeil received the President Air Force Cross Award (posthumously) for Extraordinary Heroism in Captivity.  He is buried at the Arlington National Cemetery.

Juan O. Tamayo wrote that Fernando Vecino Alegret as well as Eduardo Morejón Estévez and Luis Pérez Jaén, who both served as military attachés in the Cuban embassy in Hanoi, implemented the Cuba Program. Two groups of 10 men were chosen to show North Vietnamese new inhumane techniques to torture American pilots severely and force them in complete submission to get military intelligence and use them for propaganda. The North Vietnamese regularly beat and torture all prisoners of war (POWs) and kept them isolated in individual cells up to two or more years. But the three Cuban torturers sent by the mass-murderer Cuban dictator Fidel Castro wanted to show the Vietnamese new and more successful methods of torture. The leader Vecino was called “Fidel” and the other two “Chico” and “García” by the POWs pilots.

An article published by the website of Amigo Pais Guaracabuya titled “Cuban War Crimes Against American POWs During the Vietnam War” said that “in 1977-78, Morejón Estévez served under diplomatic cover as a brigadier general at the United Nations in New York and no attempt was made to either arrest or expel him.”

Another article written in Spanish by Pablo Alfonso in el Nuevo Herald stated that Morejón was a former Coronel of the Counter Military Intelligence in Cuba. Morejón was born in Camagüey, Cuba in 1941 and graduated from Colegio Champagnat of the Marist Brothers in 1960. After his graduation, he went to Havana and became an officer in the Army. Morejón fought against the anti-communist guerrillas who were fighting for the freedom of Cuba in the Escambray Mountains. Morejón then went to the Soviet Union to receive additional military training. He speaks English well. Morejón’s parents sent him to study in the United States in March 1958, according to immigration records. Alfonso explained that Morejón is a high executive of the regime corporation Artex S.A.

My brother Jorge was in the fourth year of bachillerato (high school) and this writer was in the second year of bachillerato when Morejón was in the third year of bachillerato at Colegio Champagnat of the Marist Brothers in Camagüey. Many of our friends from Colegio Champagnat fought at the Bay of Pigs while the traitor Morejón became a communist army officer and a torturer of American POWs pilots in Hanoi.

The Cuban Program was evaluated by two of the Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office’s (DPMO) analysts

The extensive article published by the website Amigo Pais Guaracabuya titled “Cuban War Crimes Against American POWs During the Vietnam War” explained how the Cuban Program was evaluated by Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office’s (DPMO) chief analysts Robert Destatte and Chuck Towbridge. It said that in an email to Commander Chip Beck, an intelligence officer who at the time was working at DPMO, Destatte said he had concluded that the Cuban Program was nothing more than a program “to provide instruction in basic English to North Vietnamese Army personnel working with American prisoners.” According to Destatte, “it was an English language program that had gone awry.” It was incredibly stupid and incorrect evaluation!

However, the Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office’s (DPMO) later did document the atrocities committed by the three Cuban torturers in Hanoi. And as explained earlier, on November 4, 1999, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, then Chairman of the House Subcommittee on International Economy and Trade, held a congressional hearing during which several American POW officers discussed in great detailed the brutal tortures inflicted upon them by Cuban communist torturers in Vietnam.

The article published by the website Amigo Pais Guaracabuya explained the following: “According to a February 1971 State Department cable, a former aide to Fidel Castro offered …to ransom POWs in North Viet Nam through the Castro Government. The cable concluded: Propose doing nothing further unless advised. Evidently no advice was forthcoming, and there is no evidence of any other agency investigating this matter… As part of their propaganda program, Dr. Fernando Barral, a Spanish-born psychologist, interviewed Navy Lt. Commander John Sidney McCain Jr. (Later a Republican Senator from Arizona who has died since) for an article published in Cuba’s communist newspaper Granma on January 24, 1970. Barral was a card-carrying communist international residing in Cuba and traveling on a Cuban passport.”

Cubans on the Ho Chi Minh Trail

The article published by the website Amigo Pais Guaracabuya stated the following: “The Cubans were heavily involved in the Vietnam War. Cuba had a very large contingent of combat engineers, the Giron Brigade, that was responsible for maintaining a large section of the Ho Chi Minh Trail; the supply line running from North Vietnam through Laos and Cambodia to South Vietnam. The contingent was so large that Cuba had to establish a consulate in the jungle. Many American personnel serving in both Vietnam and Laos were either captured or killed along the Ho Chi Minh Trail, and in all likelihood, many by the Cubans. One National Security Agency SigNet report states that 18 American POWs are being detained at the Phom Thong Camp… in Laos, and “…are being closely guarded by Soviet and Cuban personnel with Vietnamese soldiers outside the camp.”

Cubans and other POWs

The article published by the website of Amigo Pais Guaracabuya pointed out the following: “According to CIA documents Cuban communist party committee members, Cuban journalists Raúl Valdés Vivó and Marta Rojas Rodríguez, visited liberated areas of South Vietnam where they interrogated U.S. prisoners of war being held by the Viet Cong. Many of the American POWs held in the South Viet Nam, were in fact under the command-control of the North Vietnamese’s Enemy Proselytizing Bureau, but temporarily farmed-out to Viet Cong. Rojas told of her interviewing American POWs in South Viet Nam at the Bertram Russel mock war crimes tribunal in Denmark in 1967.  Photographs of some of the POWs, and related articles, appeared in Cuban and various other communist media. American POWs Charles Crafts, Smith, McClure, Schumann, and Cook were among those interviewed and photographed by Rojas and Vivó. This leads one to ask, why hasn’t DOD pursued questioning Cubans about the fate of American POWs?”

“One POW camp holding many Americans was located about 100 km from the Chinese border between Monkai and Laokai, (an area where Cuban engineers were constructing military installations after 1975). According to an intelligence source, one day the camp just disappeared, guards and all. The disappearance of American POWs near the Cuban facilities at Monkai and Laokai wasn’t an isolated incident. American POWs also disappeared in the vicinity of two other Cuban installations. One American POW camp, located at Work Site 5 (Cong Truong 5) just north of the DMZ, was adjacent to a Cuban field hospital that Fidel Castro visited in 1972. None of the POWs held in that camp were ever released, including black American aviator Lt. Clemmie McKinney. McKinney was shot down in April 1972, approximately the same time as Castro’s visit. McKinney’s remains were returned on August 14, 1985. The Vietnamese claim that McKinney died in November 1972; however, “A CILHI (U.S. Army Central Identification Laboratory, Hawaii) forensic anthropologist states his opinion as to time of death as not earlier than 1975 and probably several years later.”

“Another Cuban installation was near Ba Vi, where numerous sightings of white buffalos [i.e., American POWs] were made by South Vietnamese undergoing reeducation in the North. According to one of the recently returned Vietnamese 34-A commandos, he saw 60 American POWs at the Thanh Tri Prison complex in 1969. Also in the same prison complex were approximately 100 French and Moroccan POWs captured in the early 1950s. Later the French and Moroccans were transferred to the Ba Vi Prison complex near the Cuban facility. There were a small number of American POWs held for a while in a section of the Thanh Tri Prison complex, appropriately dubbed Skid row. However, they numbered about 20, not 60, and none had been held with French and/or Moroccan POWs.”

Other Cuban military involvement

The article published by the website Amigo Pais Guaracabuya indicated the following: “Several reports said that Cubans were piloting MIGs in aerial combat with American pilots over North Vietnam. One American advisor flying in an H-34 used a M-79 grenade launcher to shoot down a Cuban flying a biplane in Northern Laos. This was the same kind of plane used in the attack against Lima Site 85–the top-secret base in Laos providing guidance for American planes in the bombing of North Vietnam.”

“The involvement with American POWs was just a part of Cuba’s long history of commitment to assist the Vietnamese communists, and just another chapter in their role as communist internationals on behalf of the Soviet Union. The Cubans first showed up in Vietnam not too many years after they consolidated power on their own island in the early 1960s. Soon after, the Cubans soon began operating en masse alongside their Vietnamese brethren. They even accompanied the North Vietnamese through the gates of the South Vietnamese Presidential Palace in Saigon on April 29, 1975.  However, the Cuban’s assistance to the North Vietnamese continued well beyond 1975.”

Dr. Roig ended his article by writing the following: “The factual story of the excruciating pain inflicted by Cuban officers in Vietnam against American POWs is a gruesome testimony of the terrible punishment suffer by Cuban political prisoners in Castro’s chambers of torture. Throughout over 60 years of dogmatic intolerance thousands of Cuban freedom’s fighters faced this criminal system where there are no limits to cruelty.”

Both John Lowery and Elmer Davis wrote similar accounts on the little-known role of the bloody mass-murdering Cuban regime in the Vietnam War. They explained the following: “There is a great need to account the American servicemen captured in the Vietnam War and imprisoned in Cuban-operated POW camps. Of utmost importance is an accounting of the 17 American airmen captured in North Vietnam and then taken to Cuba for medical experiments in torture techniques.”

The communist Cubans had facilities, including a POW camp and field hospitals extremely near the DMZ, just inside North Vietnam. Meanwhile, Cuban torturer interrogators severely abused American captured pilots in Hanoi at a prison known as the Zoo. We know of these operations thanks to Juan O. Tamayo, John Lowery, Elmer Davis, Dr. Pedro Roig, the book by Stuart I. Rochester and Frederick Kiley, and reports of POWs who managed to survive and be repatriated during Operation Homecoming in 1973.

 After spending 2,221 days as a POW in Hanoi, Major Jack Bomar, a Zoo prisoner survivor, was released during Operation Homecoming on March 4, 1973.

Bomar was later promoted to colonel. Jack Bomar retired from the Air Force on March 1, 1974 and died on May 21, 2009.

Air Force Lt. Colonel POW Earl G. Cobeil was assassinated by Fernando Vecino Alegret.

Elmer Davis wrote that after his release Major Jack Bomar, a Zoo survivor, described the brutal beating of Air Force Lt. Colonel Earl G. Cobeil, by Cuban officer Fernando Vecino Alegret, known by the POWs as “Fidel.” Regarding Captain Cobeil, Bomar related that “He was completely catatonic. His body was ripped and torn everywhere…Hell cuffs appeared almost to have severed his wrists…Slivers of bamboo were imbedded in his bloodied shins, he was bleeding from everywhere, terribly swollen, a dirty yellowish black and purple [countenance] from head to toe.” To force Cobeil to talk “Fidel smashed a fist into the man’s face, driving him against the wall. Then he was brought to the center of the room and made to get down onto his knees. Screaming in rage, Fidel took a length of rubber hose from a guard and lashed it as hard as he could into the man’s face. The prisoner did not react; he did not cry out or even blink an eye. Again, and again, a dozen times, “Fidel” smashed the man’s face with the hose.”

Because of his grotesque physical condition, Captain Cobeil was not repatriated. Instead, he was listed as “died in captivity,” and his remains were returned in 1974 (Miami Herald, August 22, 1999 and Benge, Michael D. “The Cuban Torture Program, Testimony before the House International Relations Committee, Chaired by Benjamin A. Gilman, November 4, 1999.)

Major James Kasler flew 91 combat missions on a F-101 when his aircraft was hit and forced to eject on August 8, 1966. He was captured and spent 2,401 days in captivity.

For more than a month in 1967, Kasler was the target of nearly continuous daily torture. He received his third Air Force Cross medal for resisting torture inflicted on him over a two-month period during the summer of 1968 to coerce his cooperation with visiting anti-war delegations and propaganda film makers.

Major Kasler described his worst treatment:

“My worst session of torture began in late June 1968. The Vietnamese were attempting to force me to meet a delegation and appear before TV cameras on the occasion of the supposed 3,000th American airplane shot down over North Vietnam. I couldn’t say the things they were trying to force me to say. I was tortured for six weeks. I went through the ropes and irons ten times. I was denied sleep for five days and during three of these was beaten every hour on the hour with a fan belt. During the entire period I was on a starvation diet. I was very sick during this period. I had contracted osteomyelitis in early 1967 and had a massive bone infection in my right leg. They would wrap my leg before each torture session so I wouldn’t get pus or blood all over the floor of the interrogation room. During this time, they beat my face to a pulp. I couldn’t get my teeth apart for five days. My ear drum was ruptured, one of my ribs broken and the pin in my right leg was broken loose and driven up into my hip.”

At one point, during the fall of 1967, Kasler’s guards took his clothes and his mosquito net. For three days, they denied him food and water and beat him on his back and buttocks with a truck fan belt, every hour on the hour, 6 a.m. until 10 or 11 p.m. His torturer asked if he surrendered. Kasler finally said yes.

The torturer Fernando Vecino Alegret, nicknamed “Fidel” by the POWs, returned to Kasler’s cell the next day and demanded that he surrender. Kasler refused and the beatings resumed and continued for another two days.

Kasler suffered a fractured rib, a ruptured eardrum, and broken teeth. He was left with the skin hanging off his rear end down to the floor. His face was so swollen, and it hung like a bag. His eyes were almost shut. Kasler’s mangled and infected leg, which tormented him throughout his captivity and for years afterwards, swelled to the point he feared it would explode. Major Kasler was severely tortured by Vecino Alegret but somehow managed to survive horrendous Cuban criminal’s tortures.

Major Kasler was released on March 4, 1973 and treated in a hospital. He resumed his Air Force career and was promoted to colonel. He retired in 1975. Colonel Kasler died on April 24, 2014 in West Palm Beach, Florida and was buried with full military honors at Crown Hill Cemetery.

Seventeen U.S. pilots were taken to Havana and all severely tortured and assassinated  

Elmer Davis explained that there is less information regarding the 17 captured pilots taken to Cuba for “experimentation in torture techniques.” They were held in Havana’s Villa Marista, a secret Cuban prison run by Castro’s G-2 Intelligence service. A few were held in the Mazorra (Psychiatric) Hospital and served as human guinea pigs in the development of improved methods of extracting information through “torture and drugs to induce American prisoners to cooperate.”

After being shot down in April of 1972, U.S. Navy F-4 pilot, Lt. Clemmie McKinney, an African American, was imprisoned near the Cuban compound called Work Site Five. His capture occurred while then-Cuban mass-murderer dictator Fidel Castro was visiting the nearby Cuban field hospital. Although listed as killed in the crash by DOD, his photograph standing with Castro, was later published in a classified CIA document.

Navy F-4 pilot, Lt. Clemmie McKinney, was severely tortured and assassinated in Havana.

More than 13 years later, on August 14, 1985, the North Vietnamese returned Lt. McKinney’s remains, reporting that he had died in November 1972. However, a U.S, Army forensic anthropologist established the “time of death as not earlier than 1975 and probably several years later.” The report speculated that he had been a guest at Havana’s Villa Marista prison. His remains were returned to Vietnam for repatriation. (United States paid large amounts of money for the remains—delivered in stacks of green dollars to Hanoi aboard an AF C-141 from Travis AFB, California.)

Judicial Watch filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the Department of Defense and filed for records of the American pilots who were assassinated in Havana on March 22, 2016. The Judicial Watch lawsuit was filed after the Defense Department refused to comply with a June 1, 2015 FOIA request seeking access to the following: “Any and all records depicting the names, service branch, ranks, Military Occupational Specialty, and dates and locations of capture of all American servicemen believed to have been held captive by Cuban government or military forces on the island of Cuba since 1960. Responding to the lawsuit, the Department of Defense initially claimed to have no responsive records.”

As explained earlier on February 10, 2015, John Lowery wrote an article in the Accuracy in Media website explaining the role of communist Cuba in the killing and torturing of Americans in Hanoi and Havana during the Vietnam War. Judicial Watch wrote “In 1999, during testimony before Congress, Mike Benge, former prisoner of war (POW) and POW historian stated: I have also uncovered evidence of the possibility that American POWs from the Vietnam War have been held in Los Maristas, a secret Cuban prison run by Castro’s G-2 intelligence service.”

“The fact that we had to sue the Obama administration to get simple answers as to whether Cuba held and tortured American POWs strongly suggests that a cover-up is underway,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.  “The Obama administration admires Castro’s Cuba so much that even the fate of the regimes victims, even American POWs, is of little concern. I have a feeling that President Obama won’t be raising this issue with the Cuban regime this week.”

Barack and Michelle Obama and their family visited Cuba and did the wave at a baseball game while sitting next to the bloody dictator Raúl Castro. Earlier, Castro answered a question by an American reporter and lied while standing next to Obama and said there were no political prisoners in jail in the island. Castro said if someone gives him the names of political prisoners in jail, he will set them free immediately. Obama had the list of political prisoners and kept quiet.

Captain Wayne Smith graduated from the Air Force Academy in 1965.

Captain Wayne Smith flew 69 missions over Hanoi and 21 over Laos. At age 24, on his 90^th mission over Hanoi, his F-4D aircraft was hit by a missile and he ejected.

Captain Smith and I at a Naples, Florida conference where we both spoke on April 24, 2021. He published a book of poems written in the cells of Hanoi called Voices from the Dark.

Captain Smith was captured and severely tortured during several weeks and then kept in solitary confinement for two years. After the two terrible years in isolation, he was moved to the Hanoi Hilton prison. Captain Smith learned four languages and many other subjects from other POWs. Since he had studied German at the Air Force Academy, Captain Smith taught German to other POWs. All the POWs were released during Operation Homecoming on March 4, 1973.

In April 2021, John Di Lemme interviewed Wayne Smith, now age 77, for the Conservative Business Journal television podcast.  It was very inspiring to hear this brave American patriot describing his five years and two months of brutal imprisonment and how his faith in God sustained him during those horrible years. Captain Smith explained that of the approximately 1,400 American pilots who were shot down during the Vietnam War, only 591 survived and today less than 200 hundred are still alive.

Unfortunately, many American pilots and other servicemen held in the Cuban POWs camp near Work Site Five (Cong Truong Five), along with those in two other Cuban run camps, were never acknowledged, nor accounted for, and the prisoners simply disappeared. Our honor code of “Duty, Honor, Country” and our national policy of “No man left behind” are more than meaningless slogans.

Raúl Valdés Vivó visited Hanoi as a journalist, but this was only a cover. He was a DGI (Cuban Intelligence) officer and a high-ranking Cuban Communist Party member. He wrote a book, El gran secreto: cubanos en el Camino Ho Chi Minh, that was published in Havana in 1990 (The Great Secret Cuban on the Ho Chi Minh Trail).

Raúl Valdés Vivó explained that Cuba was supplying several thousand soldiers to build, maintain and guard a sizeable portion of the Ho Chi Minh Trail, and providing a large amount of other technical and material assistance. Cubans also killed Americans who were near the Ho Chi Minh Trail. He also said in his book that Cubans were with the North Vietnamese communists in 1975 when they took over Saigon, “although a modest presence.” These statements are especially important since historians have yet to admit the extent of the involvement of Cuba in the Vietnam War.

Raúl Valdés Vivó was Cuba’s envoy to the South Vietnamese region during the Vietnam War. He lived for some time areas of that country. Valdés Vivó was the Cuban Communist Party representative to the Indo-Chinese Communist Party from 1965 to 1974. Later, he became the Cuban envoy to Laos and Ethiopia. He wrote several other books.

Before the Biden administration begins its appeasement policy with the bloody Cuban regime, their murderous leadership must account for the American POWs including Earl Cobeil, who was murdered in Hanoi, and the 17 pilots taken to Havana who were severely tortured and so terrible disfigured that they could not be set free and were killed. Other POWs in Cuban camps during the Vietnam War simple disappeared

Retired Brigadier General Fernando Vecino Alegret, who murdered Earl Cobeil in Hanoi and severely tortured many American pilots in Hanoi, needs to be indicted by a U.S. court as well as Eduardo Morejón Estévez and Luis Pérez Jaén, who served as military attachés in the Cuban embassy in Hanoi. The rest of the Cuban communist murderers need to be identified and indicted. The civilized world, patriotic Americans, and specially our veterans demand it.

Bay of Pigs veterans fought, and some died and were wounded in the Vietnam War

It must be pointed out that many Cuban Americans fought in the Vietnam War in the different branches of the Armed Forces as soldiers and officers. Some were injured and died. My friends former Mayor of the City of Hialeah Julio Martinez served as a sergeant in the Vietnam War, the Vice President of the Cuban Patriotic Council Eduardo Macaya, Past Commander of Veteran Post 10212 Rafael Morales, and Bill Peraza fought in the Vietnam War.

Some of my Bay of Pigs veteran friends fought in Vietnam, including Colonel Johnny López de la Cruz, my cousin Colonel José Raúl “Yayo” de Varona was wounded, Colonel Manuel Granado Díaz was shot several times in the chest, Colonel Juan Armando Montes, Colonel Matías Farías, Major Modesto Castañer, Captain Amado Gayol Tabares, Captain Máximo Cruz González, Pilot Eduardo Sánchez Cadenas, and Captain Hugo Suerio who was severely wounded in combat.

Hugo Suerio was the commander of the Second Battalion of the Assault Brigade 2506. He fought bravely at Playa Larga in the Bay of Pigs. Hugo Suerio was severely wounded in Vietnam.

Green Beret Captain Celso Pérez Rodríguez died in combat on June 4, 1967.

José M. Fajardo Montano contracted Agent Orange and died in Miami. He is the father of singer Gloria Estefan.

Captain Félix Sosa Camejo died in combat on February 13, 1968.

Captain Irenaido F. Padrón died on May 6, 1965 in Vietnam.

Also wounded were Captain José Dorta García and Captain Segundo Martínez Granja.

Army Colonel Johnny López de la Cruz

Air Force Colonel Matías Farías

Army Colonel Manuel A. Granado Día

Army Colonel Juan Armando Montes

Army Colonel Néstor Pino Marina

My cousin Army Colonel José Raúl “Yayo” de Varona González

The colonels who fought in Vietnam were the following: Johnny López de la Cruz, Matías Farías, Reinaldo García Martínez, Manuel Granado Díaz, Juan A. Montes, Néstor Pino Marina, José Raúl “Yayo” de Varona, and Orlando Rodríguez.

The lieutenant colonels were the following: Luis C. Bárcenas, Esteban Beruvides, Evelio Borrego Carballo, Rodolfo Díaz Hernández, Erik Fernández del Valle, Ramón J. Ferrer Mena, Mario J. de Lamar, Reinaldo Lazo, Juan R. López, Humberto S. Olivera, Francisco Padrón Hernández, Demetrio J. Pérez Rodríguez, Félix Pérez Tamayo, José S. Pérez Álvarez, Luis O. Rodríguez Martínez, Raúl de la Torre, and Raúl Vázquez Martín.

The majors were the following: José E. Alonso Lamar, Luis E. Martínez Castro, Modesto L. Castañer, Alfonso Cereceda, Florencio de Peña Flores, Benjamín Garay Saavedra, Óscar Martínez Roig, and Héctor E. de Varona.

The captains were the following: Bernardo J. Bosh Rodríguez, Conrado Caballero Acosta, Máximo L. Cruz González, Rolando P. Cuervo Galano, Juan L. de Sosa Chabau, Lomberto Díaz Pérez, Eduardo J. Fernández Uriarte, Federico García Geli, Amado Gayol Tabares, José A. González Castro, José Dearing González, Rafael A. Grenier Martínez, Eulogio R. Lavandeira, Roberto Macía Vinet, Cándido Molinet Pérez, Manuel J. Pérez Márquez, Reynold Prendes Paz, José Rojas, Arturo M. Sánchez González, Julio C. Soto Camacho, Raúl E. Taboada Reguera, Tomás Vázquez Casanova, and José L. Vivanco Pardo.

Eduardo Sánchez Cadenas was a helicopter pilot who rescued many wounded and Félix Rodríguez Mendigutía served in the CIA during the Vietnam War.

Conclusion

President Lyndon B. Johnson was partially responsible for the needless deaths 58,159 Americans in the Armed Forces including 1,400 pilots who died and tens of thousands wounded in the Vietnam War. The horrible rules of engagement set by the Johnson administration prevented American pilots from destroying the Surface-to-Air Missiles (SAM) being brought by Soviet Union ships to the port of Haiphong in North Vietnam for fear of expanding war. If the Johnson administration wanted total victory, Haiphong, and any other ports where military equipment, especially SAMs and anti-aircraft weapons, were being sent to North Vietnam had to be destroyed. In war America needs to fight to win or not begin one. Limited wars, such as the one in Korea and Vietnam, should not be fought. There is “No Substitute to Victory” as General Douglas MacArthur said regarding the Korean War.

United States lost 205 aircraft shot by North Vietnamese surface-to-air missiles. During the Vietnam war, the Soviet Union delivered 95 S-75 systems and 7,658 missiles to the North Vietnamese. In total, the U.S lost 3,374 aircrafts in combat during the war; in both North and South Vietnam. According to the North Vietnamese, 31% were shot down by S-75 missiles (1,046 aircraft, or 6 missiles per one kill); by anti-aircraft guns; and 9% by MiG fighters. The S-75 missile system significantly improved the effectiveness of North Vietnamese anti-aircraft artillery, which used data from S-75 radar stations.

During the Vietnam War, President Johnson continued to trade with the Soviet Union materials he called non-strategic but, were utilized in the war directly or indirectly. It was shameful that while American soldiers, sailors, and pilots were dying and being injured, President Johnson kept selling materials to the Soviet Union that were killing these brave Americans. America could have won the Vietnam War, but the treasonous rules of engagement prevented it. This was dereliction of duty and treason!

It has always astounded me how much abuse America has endured since 1959 by the diabolical Cuban regime, including Fidel Castro playing an important role in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. If the American public would have been made aware of all the enormous crimes made by communist Cuba against America and its allies, Americans would have demanded an immediate regime change in the island. But the corrupt mainstream media and the communists in America, especially the Democrats in Congress and the White House, over the years were successful in keeping the public ignorant of the tremendous damage done by the Cuban regime to America and its allies.

How many Americans are aware that Cuba was deeply involved in the Vietnam War? How many know that the Cuban bloody regime had an engineering battalion called the Girón Brigade killing American soldiers and maintaining Route Nine, a major enemy supply line into South Vietnam? How many are aware the Cuban communist pilots flew Migs shooting at American pilots? How many are aware 17 American pilots were taken to Havana and so badly tortured and so terrible disfigured released they could never be released and were assassinated? I suspect that very few know what the bloody and mass-murdering Cuban communist regime did to America during the Vietnam War.

It is now time that Cuba’s role in the Vietnam War and all the atrocities and despicable human rights violations are well known by Americans and the world.