New York Times
April 20, 1961. p. 10.
Mounting Flow of
Americans Rejected by Miami Center
By Richard Eder
Special to The New York
Times
MIAMI, April 19—Cuban rebel recruiting organizations here are turning down applications from a mounting number of Americans who want to fight in Cuba.
The applications, and frequently the applicants, have been coming in from points as distant as Alaska. Those volunteering their services have included students, former Hungarian freedom fighters and a planeload of self-styled former marines from Denver.
The recruiting agencies here connected with the Cuban Revolutionary Council, the rebel coordinating body, say that they have notified all American applicants that they cannot be accepted. These agencies say they are determined to avoid any justification for the charges by Premier Fidel Castro that the Cuban rebel forces include many foreign mercenaries.
They also do not wish to jeopardize the tolerant attitude shown thus far by United States immigration officials and the police authorities here toward their work of enlisting Cuban refugees.
Esteban Echeverria, chief of personnel of the rebel naval recruiting center, said that more than twenty American applicants had visited his office in the last three days. Previously he said, they had been coming in at the rate of one or two a day. Señor Echeverria said that the increase in volunteers was probably a result of the reports of the fighting in Cuba, following the rebel landings there.
Most of those applying are under the age of 25, he said. Two men who visited the center today told him that they had friends “up north” who wanted to come along too.
Telephone calls received by the Cuban Emergency Refugee Center, a United States Government agency that provides settlement aid and relief to Cuban exiles, have included inquiries from California, Alaska and Italy.
A few days ago a man called to say that he and thirty-seven other former Hungarian freedom fighters in Delaware were planning to come to Miami, bringing their own weapons with them. They did not show up, however.
Another attempted group enlistment, which police authorities here had made preparations to stop, appeared to have come to an ignominious end today in Chicago.
A man who described himself as a former marine major had notified officials that he and forty other former marines would be flying in from Denver to join the Cuban rebels. But word was received that they had been taken off their plane in Chicago when it was discovered that they had paid for their flight with an invalid check.
Recruiting for the Cuban rebels forces continued yesterday at the New York office of the Democratic Revolutionary Front, 341 West Forty-fifth Street. Several scores of women tried to join up but were turned away. Also rejected were six Americans, three of them former Marines.