The Toledo Blade
March 17, 1961.p. 40.

‘History of Lies’

Letter Left By Morgan Explains Fate

Was Last Anti-Red With Rank, Note To Attorney Says

HAVANA, March 17 (AP)—American adventurer William A. Morgan, executed by a Castro firing squad last Saturday, left behind a letter charging he was killed because he was “the last anti-Communist with the rank of commandante (major) in the rebel army.”

The 32-year-old Toledo soldier of fortune, whose career in Cuba moved from that of top Castro hero, to alleged traitor, wrote that his military trial was “a history of lies and injustice.”

Major Morgan’s six-page letter was handed to the defense attorney, Edilberto Marban. It became available here after the lawyer fled Cuba because pressure from young rebels had cost him his job as director of Vedado High School.

Food Was Poisoned

Major Morgan, who was executed with his aide, Maj. Jesus Carreras, claimed his captors three times tried to kill him with poisoned food to avoid the necessity of trial.

Major Morgan began his testimonial: “At this moment I have just heard that my death penalty was signed and approved.”

The ex-paratrooper who came to Cuba to join Fidel Castro’s forces in the hills during the revolt against former dictator Fulgencio Batista, described the events leading to his arrest and trial.

He accused Mario Marvin, his former driver and chief prosecution witness, of testifying falsely in order to save his own life. The military court which condemned Major Morgan gave Marvin 15 years imprisonment.

Captured Fighting

“. . . Marvin was taken prisoner in the mountains with gun in hand fighting the militia,” Major Morgan wrote. “He surrendered when he was out of ammunition and two days later accused me of sending him to the mountains. But he went to the mountains two weeks after I was in solitary confinement. The law of the revolution says a man caught fighting receives the death penalty—he accused us falsely to save his own life.”

Major Morgan said other witnesses against him included an 18-year-old soldier “who was a homosexual and who I caught stealing spare parts for his new car.”

He said the military prosecutor failed to produce any evidence that he or his associates had arms or had contacts with the U.S. embassy.