>X-eGroups-Return: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > >Miami Herald Casts Doubt on INS Spy Tale > > >Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit > >What can this portend? The Miami Herald, the only newspaper so >far that has highlighted the sordid past of Faget's father as hed >of Batista's special anti-communist repression unit, has now suddenly >cast doubt on the FBI's INS Spy Fantasy. This, the week after they >published graphical reproductions of some of the anti-Cuba affidavits >filed in the Elian case by the gusano witnesses. (The ideas in those >affidavits are probably the source of the Lying Nun's hysterical notions >about Elian's fate if he returns to Cuba, and all political motivations >aside, they are also likely to have influenced Judge Moore, assuming he >is as ignorant of Cuba as the average anti-communist, Catholic Amerikkkan. >They paint a picture of Elian as a potential "brainwash" victim in Cuba, >and employ lurid 1950s Cold War prose about how the Cuban Government >will "indoctrinate Elian in the Communist ideology" and make him forget >his stay in the United States, etc. etc.) > >If the fix is in, there may no longer be a need for an INS spy, and perhaps >Faget will be turned loose. It is ironic that the Herald is the first US >mainstream media source to agree with the Cuban press in ridiculing the >absurd case concocted by the FBI against the INS official. > >The Cuban analysis, based on Fidel's remarks this week, seems to be that the >case in Miami will be lost but that after a negative judgement in Moore's >court, the appeal process could take the case to Federal court in in >Atlanta, and thus make it possible for Elian to return home rather quickly. >The reasoning behind this idea, that the case must be removed from the >politically polluted atmosphere of Florida to be resolved, makes good sense. >This might also explain a rather bizarre development this week -- the >announcement by one of Clinton's Yale Law School classmates, who represented >Slick Willy during his impeachment trials, and who also served as Ted >Kennedy's Cuba expert, that Juan Miguel Gonzales has "hired" him to >represent his interests in the US legal labyrinth, and that Juan Miguel is >prepared now tocome to the US tocollect Elian. Perhaps the case is nearing a >successful conclusion in Atlanta after one more negative decision in >Florida, although it is hard to reconcile this idea with the deplorable >performance so far by INS and their attorneys. -- NY Transfer > > >MIAMI HERALD HEADLINES THIS STORY WITH: >"WAS INS OFFICIAL SPYING, OR IS CASE A MISTAKE?" [sic!] > >Published Sunday, March 12, 2000, in the Miami Herald > >Faget: 'Spy' talk was only business >Accused INS official lays claim to anti-Castro past > >BY ALFONSO CHARDY >[EMAIL PROTECTED] > >Accused Cuban spy Mariano Faget Jr. has lived a life filled with ironies. > >He's referred to as a member of Fulgencio Batista's aristocracy, but the >vast majority of his childhood and all of his adult life have been spent in >Miami. > >He's accused of being in league with Fidel Castro, but one of the most >terrifying moments of his life was being shot at by Castro revolutionaries >as a teenager in Cuba. > >He holds a ''secret'' security clearance, but former colleagues at the >Immigration and Naturalization Service don't recall him ever handling secret >or sensitive cases. > >And he's been charged with withholding from his supervisors his involvement >in a company designed to do business with Cuba, even though there is no >evidence that the company has ever done a business deal. The address given >for its offices is a two-story house belonging to one of the partners. > >''He was just an administrator, someone who moved paper competently,'' said >Tammy Fox, a former INS prosecutor from 1983 to 1988 who knew Faget. ''The >really sensitive cases were handled in Washington.'' > >Mariano Faget has been the subject of intense speculation ever since the FBI >announced a month ago that he had been arrested for revealing classified >information to a childhood friend just before the friend was to meet with >Cuban officials. But a search through Mariano Faget's life turns up little >that suggests intrigue. > >He took a job as a government interpreter at age 20 because his father could >no longer work, and he later sought a mid-level bureaucrat's post so he >could spend more time with his family. He once sold Amway products to bring >in extra money. He was looking forward to retirement in July. > >''I was looking forward to a change in my life,'' Faget said. ''I had no >definite idea about what I was going to do, just general plans about either >becoming a stockbroker or a consultant to an immigration lawyer.'' > >Now those plans are on hold as Faget fights to stay out of prison -- and to >restore his reputation. > >ANTI-COMMUNIST LEGACY > >Mariano Faget Sr. ferrets out suspected communists in Cuba > >Mariano Faget Jr. is Cuban-born almost by accident. When he entered the >world July 2, 1945, his parents actually lived in a one-story house south of >Flagler Street in Miami. > >Faget's father and his wife, Elena, had moved to Miami after Gen. Fulgencio >Batista, who had been Cuba's strongman since the early 1930s, stepped down >in 1944. > >Always a Batista supporter, the elder Faget had made a name for himself as a >police officer during the early years of World War II by ferreting out >German and Japanese spies in Cuba, including the owner of a women's clothing >store whose information to the German high command about ship movements in >Havana harbor led to the torpedoing of allied ships off Florida's coast. The >store owner was executed. > >''Since that time, the word in Cuba -- at high levels of the Batista >government -- was that Faget was the FBI's man in Cuba,'' recalled Pedro >Aloma, a former Havana councilman who now lives in Miami. > >Batista's departure touched off a purge of Batistianos. Dozens of officers >chose to leave Cuba in 1944, among them Faget Sr. > >Faget Sr. took to designing one-story, single-family homes in Miami. Elena >became pregnant, and in the summer of 1945, nine months pregnant, returned >to Havana to see her family doctor. She went into labor and Mariano was born >in the Havana suburb of Santos Suarez. > >But Havana in those days was no place for a Batistiano to raise a family, >and Elena and Mariano Jr. returned to Miami when he was 1 month old. > >In 1951, little Mariano enrolled at Auburndale Elementary, 3255 SW Sixth >Street, across the street, Faget remembers, from his home. Later, the Fagets >would move to a house at 75 SW 32nd Ct. Rd.. > >''My first memory is going to class at Auburndale and speaking English, to >the surprise of my classmates who didn't think that someone with a Spanish >surname could speak English,'' Faget recalls. > >Little Mariano was a second-grader when on March 10, 1952, Batista suddenly >returned to power -- overthrowing President Carlos Prio Socarras in Havana. > >And on July 26, 1953, Faget was in third grade when Castro undertook his >first armed assault on the Batista regime. > >By 1956, Castro had been freed from jail, sent into exile and had returned >to Cuba with a clandestine guerrilla group. Batista summoned Faget's father, >who was still a lieutenant colonel in the Cuban National Police, back to >Cuba to head the Bureau for Repression of Communist Activities or BRAC, its >Spanish acronym. > >It was an important job for Faget Sr., but Faget Jr. was not thrilled to >leave Miami. > >''I grew up here,'' he says. ''My friends were here.'' > >He was so homesick that at one point his father flew a group of his >classmates to Havana for a week of fun. > >Eventually, however, Havana grew on Faget Jr. He attended classes at the >private Colegio Cima where the children of many Batista military and police >officers were enrolled. > >Around this time, Faget Jr. met Pedro Font, a man almost four years older >who was then a young investigator at Faget's father's BRAC office. The >meeting was to prove fateful. Font is the man to whom Faget is accused of >leaking secrets. > >SON IS TARGETED > >Mariano becomes the object of kidnap conspiracies in Havana and Miami > >As the months went on, Cuba became increasingly dangerous for people with >Batista connections. In 1957, Cuban intelligence officials discovered a plot >to kill or kidnap Faget Jr. at Colegio Cima. The boy's physical education >teacher was involved. > >''My father decided that it was not safe for me or my mother to be in >Havana,'' Faget said. ''He sent us back to Miami.'' > >The Miami police chief, Walter Headley, ordered round-the-clock protection >for the young Faget and his mother, who were back at the house on 32nd Court >Road. Faget enrolled in Shenandoah Middle School. > >But within three months, Miami police uncovered a plot by Castro supporters >in Miami to kidnap him. > >''So my mother and I packed up again and went back to Cuba,'' Faget recalls. >''This time, my father had me under virtual lockup. I couldn't go out >because the Castro revolutionaries were everywhere.'' > >Once, Faget Jr. went for a bike ride in town when a man in a car opened fire >with a machine gun. Faget believes the gunman was shooting at him. He ducked >and bullets struck a wall behind him. It was 1958. Faget's brief time in >Cuba was coming to an end. > >Faget still remembers the call that came to the Faget household at midnight >on Dec. 31. > >''My father picked up the phone and was told that Batista was leaving,'' he >says. ''After he put down the phone, he told me 'Put on your best suit.' I >saw my mom getting dressed in a nice gown and I asked her, 'What's going on? >Where are we going?' and she said to me, 'We're going to a party.' '' > >But instead of a party, the Faget family headed for Camp Columbia, a >military airfield where planes were already lined up on runways -- their >engines running. > >The first plane to leave was Batista's. The third was the Fagets', which >flew to New Orleans. > >As the C-47 took off, heading north, Faget Jr. peeked out. > >''My last view of Havana were the blue flashes of guns fired by Castro >rebels shooting up at the planes,'' Faget said. Batista's government had >fallen. In a week Castro would be in Havana. > >The C-47 cargo plane was packed with Batista officials. It left Havana at 3 >a.m. Jan. 1, 1959 -- just after Batista himself fled. > >Faget said his father chose New Orleans as the plane's destination, in >consultation with the pilot, because he was afraid that Miami was swarming >with Castro sympathizers. > >Faget was 13. > >Within days, the Faget family was contacted by the elder Faget's CIA and FBI >associates and was taken to a CIA safe house near Washington, D.C. > >After three weeks there, the family flew home to Miami. > >In 1960, Faget enrolled at Miami Senior High School. The family moved so >Faget Jr. could be within walking distance of the school. > >Also in 1960, an old acquaintance from Cuba arrived: The person was Font. > >He started visiting the family frequently until he moved to South America to >pursue business opportunities several years later, Faget said. > >When the CIA began recruiting exiles in Miami for the ill-fated 1961 Bay of >Pigs invasion, Faget Jr. volunteered but was rejected because he was too >young. > >The 1963 edition of Miahi, Miami Senior High's yearbook, contains a picture >of the young Faget and lists him as a member of the Pan American Club, a >group that -- according to the publication -- was organized ''to further >understanding between North American and Latin American students.'' > >BECOMING AN AMERICAN > >Faget Jr. becomes a U.S. citizen on the day John F. Kennedy is assassinated > >Eduardo Padron, also a Miami Senior High graduate and now president of >Miami-Dade Community College, remembers founding the Pan American Club and >meeting Faget. > >''He was an outgoing, popular and helpful person,'' Padron recalled. > >What impressed Padron most was Faget's English. > >''I had just arrived from Cuba myself and didn't know English like he did, >and he did a lot to help me find my way around the school,'' Padron said. > >While Faget attended classes, his father went to work at the INS -- helping >the CIA and the FBI screen the growing numbers of Cuban refugees. > >After graduating in June 1963, Faget began preparing for his U.S. >citizenship test. He was sworn in as an American citizen on Nov. 22, 1963, >the day President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas. > >Faget also enrolled at Dade County Junior College, where he received an >associate of arts degree. Then he volunteered for the U.S. Army Reserve. > >In 1965, his father suffered a detached retina and stopped working full >time. > >Faget applied to the INS as an interpreter. He was hired and was assigned to >help immigration inspectors interview the first wave of seaborne Cuban >refugees from the Cuban port of Camarioca. > >In 1970, Faget applied for a higher INS position, as entry-level clerk. He >got it. > >The promotion was fateful. That's how he met his wife, Maria. > >A Cuban refugee herself, whose family arrived in 1962, Maria had gone to the >INS to request a citizenship application form. > >Faget was the INS clerk on duty, filling in for an absent employee. > >''We would have never met if the regular employee had been there,'' Maria >now recalls. > >When she returned a few days later with the completed form, Mariano was >waiting for her. > >''He asked for my phone number and I gave it to him because I thought he >looked like a very honest guy,'' Maria Faget recalls. ''Later, he told me he >wanted to go out with me because it was love at first sight.'' > >They went to a movie theater on Coral Way on their first date. The movie was >The Out of Towners, a 1970 Neil Simon screenplay starring Jack Lemon. > >On Sept. 5, 1971, they exchanged vows and celebrated at a party hall in >Coral Gables. > >''That was a good day,'' Maria Faget recalls, fighting back tears. ''It's >the best marriage anyone could have asked for.'' > >The couple moved to a small house in Southwest Dade, where they began >raising a family. > >Faget began moving up the ladder at the INS. He was promoted to immigration >inspector and posted at Miami International Airport in 1971. In 1977, he was >given an immigration examiner's position at INS headquarters. By then, both >his parents had died of cancer: his father in 1972 and his mother in 1975. > >''I changed jobs because the work at the district office offered regular >hours and I wanted to see my children more,'' he said. > >In 1979, after some Miami Cuban Americans spearheaded an effort to improve >relations with Cuba, Faget was assigned to help process the 3,600 political >prisoners released by Cuba as a sign of good will. > >Faget said the INS wanted to send him to Havana to do the processing there, >but the Cuban government rejected him because of his father's past. > >In 1980, Faget played a key role in interviewing many of the 100,000 >refugees who fled Cuba during the Mariel boat lift. And he got himself in >trouble for labeling them as vagrants and low-class people. > >''Someone from the White House called and asked me to describe the people >who were arriving, and they didn't like what they heard, because President >Carter was planning to say he welcomed these refugees with open arms and >open hearts, and my supervisors pulled me out of Key West and back to Miami >the next day,'' Faget said. > >Faget today doesn't deny making the remarks, but he says he does regret >them. > >''In hindsight, I no longer believe that the majority of Mariel Cubans were >low-class or criminals or homosexuals or lesbians,'' Faget said. > >By the 1990s, Faget had become well known to refugee rights advocates, >particularly those representing Haitian and Cuban immigrants. He headed a >refugee subcommittee that was part of a broader organization known as the >Miami Area Refugee Task Force. > >A task force member, who asked not to be identified, said Faget surprised >some participants at the meetings because he was often critical of INS >policies. > >''He was very open,'' the task force member recalled. ''He would tell us >stuff about INS policy. I would say he was indiscreet.'' > >Other immigration attorneys said Faget seemed devoted to his job. > >''He showed up to work at 6:15 or 6:30 a.m.,'' remembers Mary Kramer, an >attorney who befriended Faget. ''Employees liked him very, very much, and >the attorneys respected him.'' > >He also tried to recruit some of the attorneys to sell Amway products, >Kramer recalled. > >''It was part of his enterprising streak,'' she said. > >Maria Faget said she and her husband stopped selling Amway products because >it was difficult to convince other people to join. > >A SUDDEN ENDING > >Faget was arrested after he allegedly took the bait in an espionage sting > >The fateful act that led to Faget's downfall at the INS was a two-minute >telephone conversation that he had with his old friend, Pedro Font. In it, >Faget revealed the name of a Cuban official that Faget had just been told >would be defecting from Cuba. > >In fact, the official wasn't about to defect; Faget had been given the name >to see whether he would leak it and give federal officials the evidence they >were seeking to arrest him. No evidence has been made public suggesting that >Font then passed the name to Cuban officials, and Font has not been charged. >Font declined comment. > >When the FBI first announced Faget's arrest, a week after his telephone call >to Font, Faget was accused of ''knowingly and willfully'' disclosing secret >information, even if it was the fabricated defection story, without regard >to the ''injury'' that such action could cause the United States. He also >was charged with lying to a federal agent because he had not revealed how >well he knew the Cuban official who reportedly was going to defect. > >When the indictment was announced March 3, federal officials added three >charges. One of the new allegations in the indictment was that Faget had >violated INS rules by not getting authorization to engage in business or >employment outside the agency. > >Faget says now that he was just speaking out of turn to a friend, not >committing espionage for Cuba. He says his meetings with Cuban officials >have been blown out of proportion by the government -- that he was not >passing secrets but trying to find out when it would be possible to do >business with Cuba. > >He says the America-Cuba company in which he and Font were partners was more >talk than business. He says he wasn't even a partner when the company was >originally formed in 1993 but joined in 1996 or 1997 when one of the >original partners dropped out. > >''It was Font who came up with the idea of America-Cuba with a view to >getting ready for Castdiscussions had to do about the business of the >company and how we could sell goods to Cuba once the embargo was lifted, and >political and ideological changes occurred,'' Faget said. > >A phone call from his home to the Cuban Interests Sec years that I pulled >out three or four files that were classified,'' Faget says. > >People who have worked closely with Faget at the INS say they do not recall >instances in which he was directly involved in intelligence or sensitive law >euring a 2 1/2-hour interview last week at the Federal Detention Center in >downtown Miami. He seemed subdued but pleased to discuss his background. He >cried whenever he talked about his wife. > >''My whole life has been to achieve the American dream and my values are the >values of my father, who was very anti-communist and very pro-American,'' >Faget said. ''He once told me, after Castro had taken over Cuba, 'We lost >our country and we have no place else to go if we lose this one.' '' > >Herald Staff Researcher Liz Donovan and Staff Writers Don Bohning and Juan >Tamayo contributed to this report. > > >================================================================= > NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems > Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us > 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 > http://www.blythe.org e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >================================================================= > >nytcari-03.12.00-10:22:26-23905 > >------------------------------------------------------------------------ >Cuba SI: http://www.egroups.com/group/cubasi/ >Imperialism NO! Venceremos! >Information and discussion about Cuba. >Discussion of the path of Ernesto Che Guevara. > >------------------------------------------------------------------------ >Special Offer-Earn 300 Points from MyPoints.com for trying @Backup >Get automatic protection and access to your important computer files. >Install today: >http://click.egroups.com/1/2344/0/_/30563/_/952874578/ > >-- Check out your group's private Chat room >-- http://www.egroups.com/ChatPage?listName=cubasi&m=1 > > __________________________________ KOMINFORM P.O. Box 66 00841 Helsinki - Finland +358-40-7177941, fax +358-9-7591081 e-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.kominf.pp.fi ___________________________________ [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe/unsubscribe messages mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] ___________________________________
