The Miami News
December 20, 1975, page 1

Bay of Pigs vets gain in quest of their flag

By CAROL GENTRY
Miami News Reporter

The flag that accompanied Brigade 2506 into battle during the Bay of Pigs invasion may be returned to the survivors, attorney Ellis Rubin announced today.

Eight months after the U.S. government dismissed a suit filed by the veterans for the return of the flag, the Department of Justice has proposed a settlement.

In a letter to Rubin, government officials said the flag will be returned if:

The veterans can gain the approval of the U.S. archivist for a method of preserving the flag permanently.
The flag will be on public display.

The veterans who accept the flag can provide documents that prove they are representatives of the 2506 Brigade.

If the veterans can prove that a majority of the survivors of the invasion and the families of those who died there want the flag returned.

Rubin announced that an all-out effort would be started to locate the survivors and families -- not only in Miami, but in Puerto Rico, New Orleans and New York -- so that they can have the opportunity to sign the petition requested by the government.

Brigade 2506 entrusted the flag to President John F. Kennedy in 1962 in an emotional ceremony at the Orange Bowl. The President promised it would fly again over a free Cuba.

The Bay of Pigs Association, which represents more than 1,000 of the veterans, voted early this year to ask the return of the flag after Kennedy's brother, Sen. Edward Kennedy, proposed that the Cuban embargo be lifted.

Sen. Kennedy said he could not return the flag because it had been given to the Kennedy Library in Waltham, Mass.

Library officials said they considered the flag to be U.S. government property and could not return it.

The brigade members voted to sue of its return. But the government's answer in U.S. District Court was that it would not waive its official immunity to suit.