The Miami Herald Interview, Unabridged

A few weeks ago, a reporter from The Miami Herald asked me a series of questions about William Morgan, an American-born, rebel-hero-turned-traitor-to-the-revolution who was executed by the revolutionary government in Cuba in March 1961. You can read the complete story of Morgan´s life and death (on paper or Kindle)  in my book, The Americano: Fighting with Castro for Cuba´s Freedom. I linked to The Miami Herald articles in my previous blog post.

The primary reason that Morgan is still in the press is that the Cuban woman to whom he was married when he died, Olga Goodwin, has been leading the effort to have his remains, which were buried in a traitor´s grave, repatriated to the United States. Goodwin is remarried and, interestingly, lives in Toledo, Ohio, Morgan´s hometown.

This is far from a simple case. My answers to the reporter´s questions give some sense of the complexity, the politics and the historical context.

(Reading my answers over, I am tempted to make some slight adjustments or additions to what I said. But I have decided not to, wanting to stay true to the answers I gave in the moment the were asked. If people have questions, I will answer them in future blog posts.)

Reporter: Obviously, this isn't just anyone's remains. Would you agree?

Aran Shetterly: I would agree that the case of William Morgan is not a normal circumstance. However, I don´t think that, for the most part, what is going on with Morgan´s remains is about current tensions or divisions between Cuba and the US. It is about things that happened more than fifty years ago. Remember that a year-and-a-half before Morgan was executed in 1961, the United States had revoked William Morgan´s citizenship and Fidel Castro had called Morgan a “Cuban.” Morgan was tried, not as a foreign instigator, but as a high-ranking, rebel soldier who had betrayed the Cuban revolution. Since his death, he has been labeled, officially, a Cuban traitor on the island.While Morgan´s US citizenship has since been recognized in the US, it wouldn´t surprise me at all if there were internal conflicts in Cuba about how to handle this situation.


R: What are the politics of William Morgan today in Cuba, Aran?  Is there a possibility these politics are playing out in the quest for the remains?

AS: My sense is that the politics involved aren´t so much about the United States but have more to do with controlling the historical record inside Cuba.  At high levels, both the US and Cuba have had moments of real openness when discussing the past. Look at the dialogue that has taken place around the Bay of Pigs and the Missile Crisis. Why should William Morgan´s case be so stuck?

First, I would say that Cuba probably doesn´t want to reopen Morgan´s case to public debate.  I think it is safe to say that they didn´t have a strong case for executing him. Put him in jail for starting to organize against them, fine. But, he didn´t have blood on his hands.

Second, people who are classified as traitors become one dimensional in Cuba. The Cuban government doesn´t make much room for dissent, even in the historical record. When I was there researching my book, if people were willing to talk about Morgan at all, they whispered. Officials closed their office doors or, in more than one case, took me outside to speak. It is risky in Cuba to talk about people who have challenged the revolution, people who are considered traitors.

If Cuba were to allow Morgan´s remains to come back to theUS it might open a can of worms there. They would have to explain why a traitor´s remains were being dignified in this manner. What if they had to  speak about a traitor not just as an enemy, but as a whole person, as someone who had believed in the revolution and changed his mind for specific reasons?  It might challenge the binary “you are either with us or against” way of thinking.

Morgan was very popular in Cuba. He was charismatic. And politically and culturally he couldn´t have been more different than Che Guevara, whom the Cubans have been told to emulate for nearly three generations. For whatever reason, the old guard still seems to think Morgan´s memory represents a threat even though most young Cubans have never heard of him. 


R: I know the exile community has taken up a collection, raising $2,500 to help defray the costs if and when the Cuban gives up the bones. Do you think the fact that they are involved could hurt efforts?

AS: Having the Cuban exile community claim Morgan as a martyr to their cause doesn´t help. It is an uncomfortable fit. Morgan claimed to the end that he was not against the revolution, but was against communism. He described himself in general terms as a social democrat.

Take the experiences in Miami of Morgan´s Cuban friends and fellow rebels of the Second National Front of the Escambray, people like Max Lesnik, Ramiro Lorenzo, Bibe Vazquez. Though they are exiles themselves, they have not been embraced by the larger Miami exile community. Eloy Gutierrez Menoyo decided to return to Cuba. Roger Redondo moved to Costa Rica rather than live the day-to-day political tensions in Miami. Morgan shared a vision of Cuba´s future with these men, not with most of the people who left in 1959 and 1960.

Finally, I think it is worth considering one more, much simpler, possibility: Are we sure that the Cubans know where Morgan´s remains are? Maybe they have been lost and admitting this would be more embarrassing than allowing Olga´s pain and the murky ambiguity of the situation to drag on.