{"id":968,"date":"2014-04-22T09:49:34","date_gmt":"2014-04-22T07:49:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/old.holandaprocuba.nl\/?p=968"},"modified":"2014-04-22T09:56:04","modified_gmt":"2014-04-22T07:56:04","slug":"marquez-en-de-cuban-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/old.holandaprocuba.nl\/?p=968","title":{"rendered":"Marquez en de Cuban 5"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the famed Colombian novelist who died April 17, 2014, played a fascinating cameo role in the story of the Cuban Five. In the spring of 1998, he carried a secret message about a terrorist plot against Cuba from Fidel Castro to Bill Clinton. That session led to an unprecedented sit-down between the FBI and Cuban State Security in Havana in June 1998. And it was those meetings that triggered the events that ultimately led to the arrest of the Cuban Five on September 12, 1998.\u00a0
You can learn more about that backstory in this excerpt from\u00a0What Lies Across the Water: The Real Story of the Cuba Five.<\/em><\/h3>\n

Havana, April 18, 1998<\/strong>
Gabriel Garc\u00eda M\u00e1rquez needed to call Bill Richardson. Immediately. He needed to let the American ambassador to the United Nations know that plans for his upcoming visit to Washington had taken a sudden, \u201cunforeseen and significant turn.\u201d Garc\u00eda M\u00e1rquez, the Nobel Prize-winning author, had stopped in Havana for a few days on his way to the United States to clear up some literary loose ends.<\/p>\n

He was writing an article about Pope John Paul\u2019s recent visit to Cuba. When the Pope made his historic speech three months before to hundreds of thousands of Cubans \u2014 believers and non-believers alike \u2014 Garc\u00eda M\u00e1rquez had been a front-row guest of Cuban President Fidel Castro in Revolution Square. It had been a fascinating speech. The Pope had publicly called for the release of Cuba\u2019s political prisoners while chastising the United States for its ongoing blockade and attacking what he described as a \u201ccapitalist neo-liberalism [that] subdues human beings and nations\u2019 development to the blind forces of the market.\u201d Garc\u00eda M\u00e1rquez was looking forward to writing more about its larger meaning.<\/p>\n

Given that Garc\u00eda M\u00e1rquez and Castro had been friends for decades, it was hardly surprising the author would visit the Cuban leader during this stopover in Havana. Or even that Castro would ask his well-connected friend to carry a message for him to another of the novelist\u2019s good friends, United States President Bill Clinton.<\/p>\n

What was surprising \u2014 shocking, even horrifying \u2014 was the content of the message Castro wanted him to deliver to the president of the United States. Cuba had just discovered what Castro would describe as a \u201csinister terrorist plot\u201d against Cuba, and he wanted Bill Clinton to know about it so he could take appropriate action. But Castro didn\u2019t want to put this information in an official letter in order \u201cto avoid putting Clinton in the predicament of giving an [official] answer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Instead, Castro had prepared a written summary of the plot and \u201cother subjects of mutual interest,\u201d which M\u00e1rquez could crib from when he spoke to Clinton. The note, entitled \u201cSummary of Issues That Gabriel Garc\u00eda M\u00e1rquez May Confidentially Transmit To President Clinton,\u201d touched on seven different subjects, but it was \u201cPoint 1\u201d that really mattered: \u201cPlans for terrorist actions against Cuba continue to be hatched and paid by the Cuban American National Foundation using Central American mercenaries\u2026 Now, they are plotting and taking steps to set up bombs in planes from Cuba or any other country\u2019s airline carrying tourists to, or from, Cuba to Latin American countries.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thanks to Cuba\u2019s many and various intelligence agents inside the many and various plots, Castro was able to describe the plan in detail. The bombers intended to \u201chide a small device at a certain place inside the plane \u2014 a powerful explosive with a fuse controlled by a digital clock that can be programmed 99 hours in advance.\u201d<\/p>\n

While the immediate threat was against Cuba, Castro predicted that the simple, \u201creally devilish procedures\u201d involved and the use of components \u201cwhose detection is practically impossible\u201d made such attacks so easy \u201cthey might become an epidemic as the hijacking of planes once became.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe American investigation and intelligence agencies are in possession of enough reliable information on the main people responsible,\u201d Castro\u2019s note concluded, throwing down the gauntlet. \u201cIf they really want to, they have the possibility of preventing\u2026 this new modality of terrorism. It will be impossible to stop it if the United States doesn\u2019t discharge its fundamental duty of fighting it.\u00a0The responsibility to fight it can\u2019t be left to Cuba alone since any other country of the world might also be a victim of such actions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now, Garc\u00eda M\u00e1rquez picked up the telephone. He had promised to call Richardson a week before he was to arrive in the United States to find out whether Richardson had been successful in lining up his meeting with Clinton. But now it was no longer \u201ca simple personal visit.\u201d On the phone he explained to Richardson he was carrying an \u201curgent\u201d message for the president.<\/p>\n

\u201cOut of respect for the agreed secrecy I didn\u2019t mention on the phone who was sending it,\u201d Garc\u00eda M\u00e1rquez would write later, though he assumed Richardson would make the connection, \u201cnor did I let it transpire that a delayed delivery could be the cause of major catastrophes and the death of innocent people.\u201d He also didn\u2019t mention the \u201ctwo unwritten questions\u201d Castro had suggested he could raise face-to-face with Clinton \u201cif the circumstances were propitious.\u201d<\/p>\n

Washington, May 6, 1998
<\/strong>\u201cAfter a warm embrace,\u201d Gabriel Garc\u00eda M\u00e1rquez would write in his report to Fidel Castro, \u201che sat in front of me with his hands on his knees and started speaking with a common phrase so properly said that it rang of truth: \u2018We are at your disposal.\u2019\u201d But the man sitting across from him in the White House this morning was not \u2014 as both he and Castro had hoped \u2014 U.S. President Bill Clinton. It was Clinton\u2019s oldest and closest friend, Thomas Mack McLarty, the president\u2019s advisor on Latin America.<\/p>\n

Clinton was still in California and would be for another day. Garc\u00eda M\u00e1rquez had only discovered that after he\u2019d arrived in Washington from Princeton six days before. A staffer from Bill Richardson\u2019s United Nations ambassador\u2019s office had suggested he meet with the president\u2019s National Security Advisor Sandy Berger instead. Garc\u00eda M\u00e1rquez had met Berger in September 1997 during an earlier face-to-face meeting with Clinton. Berger had seemed to be on the same wavelength as his boss on the issue of Cuba, but should he agree to meet with him instead of the man he\u2019d been sent to meet?<\/p>\n

Garc\u00eda M\u00e1rquez worried Richardson might be \u201cinterposing conditions\u201d to prevent his message from getting directly to his intended recipient. If it was just a matter of timing in terms of meeting with the president himself, Garc\u00eda M\u00e1rquez told the staffer, he\u2019d be glad to delay his own scheduled departure for Mexico by a day or two. We\u2019ll let the president know, the aide replied.<\/p>\n

Garc\u00eda M\u00e1rquez passed that message on to Cuba\u2019s diplomatic representative in Washington who used a \u201cspecial envoy \u2014 confidential communications are so slow and hazardous from Washington\u201d \u2014 to convey the latest developments to Havana. \u201cThe response was a gentle request to wait in Washington for as long as necessary to fulfill my mission,\u201d Garc\u00eda M\u00e1rquez wrote. \u201cAt the same time I was humbly asked to be most careful to avoid offending Sam Berger for not accepting him as an interlocutor. The funny end of the message [from Havana],\u201d he added, \u201cleft no doubt about the author, even without a signature: \u2018We wish you can write a lot,\u2019\u201d it read.<\/p>\n

Garc\u00eda M\u00e1rquez, for his part, was \u201cnot in a hurry.\u201d During his literary workshop at Princeton, he had managed to produce \u201c20 useful pages\u201d on the memoir he was writing. And \u201cthe pace had not diminished in my impersonal room at the Washington hotel where I spent up to 10 hours a day.\u201d He would write, eat his meals and receive occasional visitors in the room.<\/p>\n

One reason he rarely went out \u2014 even to enjoy the city\u2019s spring blossoms \u2014 was the sobering reality that he had placed Fidel Castro\u2019s written message for Bill Clinton inside his hotel room safe, and \u201cit had no combination lock but a key that seemed to have been bought at a convenience store around the corner. I always carried it in my pocket and, after every inevitable occasion in which I left my room, I checked that the paper was still in its place and in the sealed envelope\u2026 Just the idea that I could lose it sent shivers down my spine, not so much for the loss itself as for the fact that it would have been easy to identify its source and destination.\u201d<\/p>\n

Two nights earlier, however, Garc\u00eda M\u00e1rquez had agreed to attend a private dinner at the home of former Colombian president Cesar Gaviria. Gaviria had invited McLarty and his wife because she was eager to talk to the famous author about \u201csome points\u201d in his books.<\/p>\n

After dinner, Gaviria \u2014 who knew the outlines of the message Garc\u00eda M\u00e1rquez was carrying \u2014 arranged for him to have a private chat with McLarty. \u201cHe did not conceal his apprehension over the terrorist plan,\u201d M\u00e1rquez noted, \u201ceven if unaware of the atrocious details.\u201d McLarty said he hadn\u2019t known about Garc\u00eda M\u00e1rquez\u2019s request to speak directly to Clinton but promised to pass on the message.<\/p>\n

The next morning, Garc\u00eda M\u00e1rquez sent another message to Havana. If he couldn\u2019t get to see the president himself, he asked, should he deliver the message to McLarty or to Berger. Havana\u2019s response \u201cseemed to be in favor of McLarty, but always [being] careful not to offend Berger.\u201d In the end, the Cubans were happy to let Garc\u00eda M\u00e1rquez follow his instincts. \u201cWe trust your talents,\u201d the message said. Garc\u00eda M\u00e1rquez would call that \u201cthe most engaging consent that I have ever been given in my life.\u201d<\/p>\n

After lunch with McLarty\u2019s wife \u2014 they hadn\u2019t found the time to talk at dinner the night before \u2014 the White House called Garc\u00eda M\u00e1rquez to tell him a meeting had been arranged for him the next morning with McLarty and three senior officials from the National Security Council. There\u2019d been no mention of Berger. Had Garc\u00eda M\u00e1rquez\u2019s phone been tapped, or the communications between Havana and Washington been intercepted? He could only guess.<\/p>\n

The next morning at 11:15 a.m., Garc\u00eda M\u00e1rquez was ushered into McLarty\u2019s office at the White House, where he was introduced to the three NSC officials: \u201cRichard Clarke, leading director of multilateral affairs and presidential advisor on all subjects of international policy, especially for the fight on terrorism and narcotics; James Dobbins, senior director at the NSC for Inter-American affairs with the position of ambassador and presidential advisor on Latin America and the Caribbean; and Jeff Delaurentis, director of Inter-American affairs at the NSC and special advisor on Cuba\u2026 The three officials were gentle and highly professional.\u201d<\/p>\n

There was none of the pro forma sabre-rattling or posturing that often opened such gatherings, Garc\u00eda M\u00e1rquez noted with satisfaction. There was \u201cno mention of democratic reforms, free elections or human rights, nor any of the political clich\u00e9s with which Americans pretend to condition any project of cooperation with Cuba. On the contrary,\u201d Garc\u00eda M\u00e1rquez reported hopefully, \u201cmy clearest impression of this trip is the certainty that reconciliation is beginning to grow as something irreversible in the collective consciousness.\u201d<\/p>\n

The preliminaries out of the way, McLarty joined them from another meeting, and M\u00e1rquez proceeded to outline the circumstances that had brought him to the White House today. He then handed McLarty the envelope with Fidel\u2019s translated letter \u2014 six double-spaced pages covering seven topics.<\/p>\n

McLarty quickly read the note, saying nothing, \u201cbut his changing emotions showed on his face as light in the water,\u201d Garc\u00eda M\u00e1rquez would report back to Castro. \u201cI had read it myself so many times that I could practically know which of his expressions corresponded to the different points in the document. The first point, about the terrorist plot, made him grumble and he said: \u2018It\u2019s terrible.\u2019 Later, he suppressed a mischievous smile and, without interrupting his reading he said: \u2018We have common enemies.\u2019 I think he said it referring to the fourth point, where a description is made of a group of senators plotting to boycott the passage of the Torres-Rangel\u2019s and Dodd\u2019s bills and appreciation is expressed about Clinton\u2019s efforts to save them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Once all had absorbed Castro\u2019s message, the rest of the meeting focused, understandably, on the threat to blow up the planes, \u201cwhich made an impression on everyone.\u201d Garc\u00eda M\u00e1rquez understood why. He\u2019d had to overcome his own \u201cterror over a bomb explosion as I was flying to Mexico after having learned of it in Havana.\u201d<\/p>\n

Garc\u00eda M\u00e1rquez knew the circumstances were \u201cpropitious\u201d to raise the two unwritten questions Castro had asked him to raise and that Garc\u00eda M\u00e1rquez had carefully written in his organizer as \u201cthe only thing I was afraid to forget.\u201d The first question: \u201cWouldn\u2019t it be possible for the FBI to contact their Cuban counterparts for a joint struggle on terrorism?\u201d Though it wasn\u2019t part of the unwritten question, Garc\u00eda M\u00e1rquez added \u201ca line of my own making: \u2018I\u2019m sure that you\u2019d find a prompt and positive reaction on the part of the Cuban authorities.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Garc\u00eda M\u00e1rquez was amazed at the \u201cquick and strong reaction\u201d of the NSC officials. Richard Clarke, for one, thought it would be a very good idea. But he cautioned that the FBI wouldn\u2019t be keen if information about such cooperation leaked out during an investigation. Would the Cubans be willing to keep the information a secret?<\/p>\n

Garc\u00eda M\u00e1rquez couldn\u2019t help but smile. \u201cThere is nothing that the Cubans like better than keeping secrets,\u201d he replied.<\/p>\n

His second question wasn\u2019t so much a question as a suggestion, a diplomatic opening: \u201cCooperation in matters of security,\u201d Castro had suggested, \u201ccould open the way to a propitious climate leading to the resumption of American travels to Cuba.\u201d Garc\u00eda M\u00e1rquez told his hosts he had personally met Americans from all strata of society who \u2014 knowing his friendship with Castro \u2014 asked for his help in making contacts for business or pleasure in Cuba. \u201cI mentioned Donald Newhouse, editor of various journals and chairman of the Associated Press, who treated me to a lavish dinner at his countryside mansion in New Jersey at the end of my literary workshop in Princeton University,\u201d Garc\u00eda M\u00e1rquez reported. \u201cHis current dream is traveling to Cuba to discuss with Fidel personally the establishment of a permanent AP bureau in Havana, similar to CNN\u2019s.\u201d<\/p>\n

By the end of their meeting, which had lasted just 50 minutes, Clarke had promised the NSC would take \u201cimmediate steps for a joint U.S.-Cuba plan on terrorism.\u201d Dobbins made a note in his pad that he would \u201ccommunicate with their embassy in Cuba to implement the project.\u201d Embassy? Garc\u00eda M\u00e1rquez joked that Dobbins had promoted the United States Interest Section in Havana to a new level in America\u2019s foreign affairs hierarchy.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we have there is not an embassy,\u201d Dobbins replied with a laugh, \u201cbut it is much bigger than an embassy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey all laughed with mischievous complicity,\u201d Garc\u00eda M\u00e1rquez reported.
And then it was over. \u201cI know that you have a very tight agenda before you get back to Mexico and we have also many things ahead,\u201d McLarty said. Then, looking him in the eye, he added: \u201cYour mission was in fact of utmost importance, and you have discharged it very well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Garc\u00eda M\u00e1rquez couldn\u2019t help but be pleased. \u201cNeither my excessive honor nor my absence of modesty,\u201d he reported to Castro, \u201chas allowed me to abandon that phrase to the ephemeral glory and the microphones hidden in flower vases.\u201d More importantly, \u201cI left the White House with the firm impression that the effort and the uncertainties of the previous days had been worthy. The annoyance for not having delivered the message personally to the President had been compensated by a more informal and operative conclave whose good results would be forthcoming.\u201d Gabriel Garc\u00eda M\u00e1rquez had done his part.<\/p>\n

The complete book is available from the publisher,\u00a0Fernwood<\/a>, or fromAmazon.ca<\/a>. It is also available as an\u00a0ebook<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the famed Colombian novelist who died April 17, 2014, played a fascinating cameo role in the story of the Cuban Five. In the spring of 1998, he carried a secret message about a terrorist plot against Cuba from Fidel Castro to Bill Clinton. That session led to an unprecedented sit-down between the FBI and Cuban State Security in Havana in June 1998. And it was those meetings that triggered the events that ultimately led to the arrest of the Cuban Five on September 12, 1998.\u00a0You can learn more about that backstory in this excerpt from\u00a0What Lies Across the Water: The Real Story of the Cuba Five. Havana, April 18, 1998Gabriel Garc\u00eda M\u00e1rquez needed to call Bill Richardson. Immediately. He needed to let the American ambassador to the United Nations know that plans for his upcoming visit to Washington had taken a sudden, \u201cunforeseen and significant turn.\u201d Garc\u00eda M\u00e1rquez, the Nobel Prize-winning author, had stopped in Havana for a few days on his way to the United States to clear up some literary loose ends. He was writing an article about Pope John Paul\u2019s recent visit to Cuba. When the Pope made his historic speech three months before to hundreds of thousands of Cubans \u2014 believers and non-believers alike \u2014 Garc\u00eda M\u00e1rquez had been a front-row guest of Cuban President Fidel Castro in Revolution Square. It had been a fascinating speech. The Pope had publicly called for the release of Cuba\u2019s political prisoners while chastising the United States for its ongoing blockade and attacking what he described as a \u201ccapitalist neo-liberalism [that] subdues human beings and nations\u2019 development to the blind forces of the market.\u201d Garc\u00eda M\u00e1rquez was looking forward to writing more about its larger meaning. Given that Garc\u00eda M\u00e1rquez and Castro had been friends for decades, it was hardly surprising the author would visit the Cuban leader during this stopover in Havana. Or even that Castro would ask his well-connected friend to carry a message for him to another of the novelist\u2019s good friends, United States President Bill Clinton. What was surprising \u2014 shocking, even horrifying \u2014 was the content of the message Castro wanted him to deliver to the president of the United States. Cuba had just discovered what Castro would describe as a \u201csinister terrorist plot\u201d against Cuba, and he wanted Bill Clinton to know about it so he could take appropriate action. But \u2026 lees meer → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":972,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-968","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nieuws"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/old.holandaprocuba.nl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/Castro-Marquez.gif","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/old.holandaprocuba.nl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/968","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/old.holandaprocuba.nl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/old.holandaprocuba.nl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/old.holandaprocuba.nl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/old.holandaprocuba.nl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=968"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/old.holandaprocuba.nl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/968\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":974,"href":"https:\/\/old.holandaprocuba.nl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/968\/revisions\/974"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/old.holandaprocuba.nl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/972"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/old.holandaprocuba.nl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/old.holandaprocuba.nl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/old.holandaprocuba.nl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}