Mr. Picardo’s note of January 17th provides one such perspective. It is one derived from both personal experience and an understandably impassioned interest in the subject. I have little to add to his narrative—indeed much of it is accurate and beyond dispute. But I do take issue with one perception—that Operation Pedro Pan was a purely humanitarian endeavor undertaken by altruistic civilians determined to rescue Cuban children from communism and that the US government (the CIA, in particular) had nothing to do with it. My research indicates that while the program may have had elements that were initially created out of concern for the children, it was also derived from more complex US political and military interests aimed at undermining the Castro regime.

Most respected histories of the era acknowledge the CIA’s direct involvement with long-standing attempts to subvert and overthrow of the Castro’s regime beginning as early as the Eisenhower Administration. In the months immediately following Castro’s coup, the CIA established Radio Swan, the propaganda station set up in the Caribbean to broadcast over Cuba. It is this station that Orfeo listens to in Act II (and that eventually leads to his death). The historical evidence is clear that Radio Swan, under the direction of the CIA, broadcast highly provocative propaganda designed to encourage underground fighters still on the island and to incite the population against Castro. This propaganda increased in the weeks and months leading up to the CIA sponsored Bay of Pigs invasion of April 1961. Whether the CIA directly manipulated the Pedro Pan operation as a means to incite the Cuban middleclass to rise up against Castro is in dispute. But it is clear that the CIA had a direct interest in the program and that CIA propaganda helped to encourage Cuban families to participate.

Trying to find moderate and balanced histories of Castro’s Cuba is a bit like tip-toeing through a minefield. One has to be very careful where one treads. In my research as the dramaturg for this production, I came up with only a handful of useful sources that provide both balance and perspective. Among those, I highly recommend THE LOST APPLE, by Maria de los Angeles Torres. Professor Torres presents an extraordinarily thoughtful and thoroughly researched study of the Pedro Pan operation as well as the CIA’s involvement. As a Pedro Pan child herself, she offers both a riveting personal perspective along with impeccable academic credentials. Hers is, I believe, the definitive study on the subject. For anyone interested in pursuing this subject more, I recommend Richard Gott’s CUBA: A NEW HISTORY, which provides the best overall history of the island and insight into US involvement. Also worth reading is Professor Torres’ article “Uprooted by History, We Are Cuba’s Lost Children In Search of Our Past,” Washington Post, February 1, 1998, C1.

This past October in the company 130 Pedro Pan, family, and friends I attended the very emotional performance of the play Sonia Flew at the Laguna Playhouse in Laguna Beach California. For many of us, the performance brought us back to the day we left our country and the myriad of emotions we experienced as we traveled into the unknown. For our children, friends, and relatives, it brought perspective to a formative experience which is often difficult to articulate.

My cousin, also a Pedro Pan who lives in Chicago, recently attended a performance at the Steppenwolf theatre. She absolutely loved the performance and stayed for the post performance chat where she mentioned that her cousin was in one the pictures. We talked late that evening and she promised to send me the play bill, and mentioned she loved the play but the article was out of place.

For the life of me, I cannot imagine why the Steppenwolf Theatre chose the article by Peter Davis for the playbill. It is slanted and full of inaccuracies as it attempts to legitimize the unproven allegation the CIA was responsible and controlled Operation Pedro Pan.

Mr. Davis assertions regarding Operation Pedro Pan range from being ludicrous “a cold and calculated plot by the CIA to undermine Fidel Castro” to being insulting when stating Cuban families - my Cuban parents - were “unknowingly reacting to a carefully orchestrated CIA plan to undermine support for Castro.” Unable to offer proof to back up his claim of CIA involvement, Mr. Davis is forced to reduce his argument to generalities – many, of course, while others, often – glossing over the lack of facts.

Under the Freedom of Information Act, attempts have been made to obtain government documents linking the CIA and Pedro Pan. In 1998 two separate newspaper articles one in the Miami Herald “Professor plans to sue CIA over Cuba airlift papers” and the New York Times “Cubans Face Past as Stranded Youths in U.S.” document the efforts by Maria de los Angeles Torres to obtain records detailing CIA responsibility and control of Pedro Pan. None were found.

Years later, Cathy Abreu Jones in an Oye Magazine article titled Operation Pedro Pan writes “ ‘We identified several documents that made mention of the unaccompanied children leaving Cuba, but it made it very clear there was no CIA activity with these children’ says CIA spokesperson Anya Guilser. ‘By the context of those documents, it was clear that there was no CIA activity or involvement in that exodus.’ Guilder also added ‘we have uncovered no information to suggest that any unintended or intended purpose… was to induce parents to send their children unaccompanied to Florida.’ “

To date, I have seen no report or article anywhere detailing CIA involvement in Pedro Pan.

El Nuevo Herald published an article by Wifredo Cansio Isla on January 14, 2001, rehashing the old allegations about CIA involvement in Pedro Pan. Shortly after, I was at Barry University in Miami conducting research in the Pedro Pan Archives. During the course of a lengthy conversation with Monsignor Walsh, I asked him point blank about the rumors and allegations of CIA involvement with Pedro Pan. He looked at me in the eye and his unequivocal response was NO!

For me his word is all the answer I need!