The Miami News
November 14, 1968

Bosch Names Cuban Power Leader

By IAN GLASS
Miami News Reporter
    Ernesto, the mysterious head of the secret Cuban Power organization and the man who took the credit for its bombings, was identified yesterday.
    "His name is Pablo Vega," a reluctant Dr. Orlando Bosch said in federal court here.
    Bosch said he originally met Ernesto on Anguilla Key in the Bahamas two years ago.  He described him as about 5-feet, 4-inches, dark, muscular.
    He believed Ernesto who, he said, was military chief of Cuban Power, had left the country after the shelling of the Polish liner Polancia Sept. 16.  He did not know where he was now.
    Bosch 42, and eight other Cuban exiles are accused of plotting to bomb foreign ships.
    Bosch's identification of Ernesto was wrung from him by defense attorney Melvyn Greenspahn, after Greenspahn asked him: "Dr. Bosch, are you Ernesto?"--which is the government's contention.
    The doctor replied in the negative.
    Bosch also said it was Ernesto that fired the 57 mm. recoilless rifle at the Polancia, although it was greed another of the defendants, Jose Diaz Marejon, would take the blame.
    This he said, was to protect Ernesto, and also to confuse Ricardo Morales, the 29-year-old exile who had turned government informer and infiltrated the organization for the FBI.  The group had become suspicious of Morales.
    "Ernesto told me he had to punish the Communists for what they did to Czechoslovakia, and uphold the dignity of the freedom-loving world," said Bosch.
    Government  attorneys Donald Bierman and Theodore Klein showed earlier that, over the last six months, Morales had been supplying Bosch with phony dynamite supplied by the FBI.
    Bosch admitted he had accepted the dynamite, but only to be sent to insurgents in Cuba.  He paid $300 for three shipments.
    He began to get suspicious of Morales when they tested the dynamite and it was dud.  He and Morales threw the shipments into a canal behind the Miami International Airport.
    Greenspahn has said he will call about a dozen witnesses.  The government produced 52 witness who testified over 4 1/2 days.
    The case is expected to go to the jury late today or tomorrow.