April 22, 1957.p. 6.
New word on the three United States youths who joined the Cuban revolutionary movement, and a rebel version of the futile attack on the President’s Palace in Havana on Marcy 13, have been received by The New York Times.
Ironically, the signers of the account of last month’s assault included three of the four student leaders who were killed in Cuba Saturday afternoon.In the March attempt, about forty youths lost their lives.Their aim had been to assassinate the President Fulgencio Batista.
José Antonio Echevarria, leader of the student movement, was killed March 13.Shortly before the assault had been launched, he wrote a “political testament” pledging to “do my duty.”
In the account signed by Señor Echevarria’s successors, the failure was attributed to a “betrayal” by certain named men who were supposed to have given a signal whereby truckloads of arms were to be delivered to the party assaulting the palace.The effect was to strand those who actually got inside.Most of them were shot down trying to escape.
Last December, Señor Castro, who had been exiled to Mexico, headed a small invasion party that landed on the coast of Oriente province.This area takes in Guantanamo, where the United States has a naval base, and Santiago, Cuba’s second city.The Government reported it had wiped out the party, including it’s leader, but later denied the report of Señor Castro’s death.A correspondent of The Times found Señor Castro in his hideaway.
The three United States youths with Señor Castro are sons of United States naval personnel at Guantanamo. The boys are Victor J. Buehlman, 17 years old; Michael L. Garvey, 15, and Charles Edward Ryan, whose age has been given variously as 17, 19 and 20.In an appeal to President Eisenhower, dated in February, the three had […] to justify their action but also to avoid its being interpreted as renunciation of United States citizenship.
The new set of documents included a Photostat of a letter dated March 11 from the youths to Arthur Gardner, United States Ambassador to Cuba.Mr. Gardner’s transfer to Portugal was reported unofficially in Washington April 1.
In the letter to the envoy, written in the first person but signed jointly, the boys deplored United States military aid to the Batista regime, charging that such arms were “given to him to fight Communists,” but that “the Cuban people feel that the guns are given to him to fight them in their move for freedom from his dictatorship.”
The letter concluded: “I personally will fight Batista until Cuba is free or I have not any life in my body.”
Another letter, also dated March 11, was purportedly dictated by young Ryan to his comrade, Mike [Garvey]. In it, the former observed to his parents that, “as you know, I hate to write letters, so I dictated this.”
The police early this morning said José Westbrook Rosales, student of administrative law, was killed, not Eugenio Perez Cowley, as previously reported.According to the police, two students, one of whom was believed to be Cowley, escaped when the police surrounded the building.