pp. 75-77

The most interesting figure in the Sierra de Escambray was the tough, uneducated young American, William A. Morgan, who could hardly speak Spanish when he arrived. He wrote me several times, once to complain of other groups in the Sierra, and once to grumble against Che Guevara, who refused to see Morgan's command.

The interesting thing about Morgan, which entitled him to a passing fame as a child of our times, was that he had ideals. On February 24, 1958, he wrote and sent me a "credo" headed "Why am I Here." Considering that Morgan's American citizenship was taken away from him, and considering also the contemptuous way the American press treated him, one owes him the tribute of quoting a few sentences:

" I cannot say I have always been a good citizen," he wrote, "but being here I can appreciate the way of life that is ours from birth. And here I can realize the dedication to justice and liberty it takes for men to live and fight as these men do whose only possible pay or reward is a free country....

"Over the years we as Americans have found that dictators and communist (sic) are bad people with whom to do business yet here is a dictator who has been supported by the communist and he would fall from power tomorrow if it were not for the American aid. And I ask myself why do we support those who would destroy in other lands the ideals which we hold so dear?"

Morgan was consistent. He went on fighting for liberty and against communism until be was stood against a wall in the dry moat of La Cabaña fortress on March 11, 1961, and shot. So far as I am concerned, William Morgan was a good American.