By Thomas R. Collins. c. 2001 Cox News Service.
Postnet.com. Feb. 11, 2001 | 5:06 p.m.
PALM BEACH GARDENS, Fla. -- He trained Cuban-Americans to bomb their
homeland. He fell in love with the cause. He joined the assault on the Bay of
Pigs and flew for his life above the sea. Then Carl Nick Sudano barely mentioned
any of it for 40 years.
He'd let out a whisper now and then about his work in support of "the
agency.'' But for the most part, the CIA code of silence suited Sudano's need to
downplay himself, to go about his business and leave it at that.
On Jan. 20, the CIA honored him with a rare Agency Seal Medallion in
recognition of his support during the embarrassing failure to overthrow Fidel
Castro in April 1961.
He was honored along with the man who flew the B-26 bomber he nearly died in
and the families of two other men, an unusual public display about a chapter in
American history the CIA has good reason to try to forget.
More than 100 died in a mission that the United States tried to portray as a
strictly Cuban uprising it had nothing to do with. It was originally designed as
a gradual escalation of anti-Castro forces, with help from the U.S. It ballooned
into an all-out invasion, its budget jumping from $4 million to $46 million, in
which the American-trained invaders were trapped on the beach by Castro's men.
One of the American trainers, Sudano only had to keep quiet for 20 years, he
said. The next 20 was his decision alone. But secrecy doesn't come so naturally
now.
So the gray-haired Sudano -- then 31, now 70 -- literally breathes sighs of
relief and sits down at his dining room table. And, with Tom Clancy's "Rainbow
Six'' sitting there next to Sudano's bare-bones, hand-written summary of his own
tale of non-fiction, he talks.
His involvement started, he said, when his friend at Alabama Air National
Guard, Riley Shamburger, told him pilots were wanted to help train Cuban exiles
how to fly in combat for some "important'' government mission.
He'd do it.
"I was getting bored a little, sitting around in Birmingham, Alabama,''
Sudano said, his tone a mix of hesitation and seen-it-all cynicism.
He told his wife, who was pregnant, that he was going to technical school.
Pilot Carl Nick Sudano became civilian Nick Sudoli, so everyone could deny
knowing him if things went wrong. Americans were to have no acknowledged role in
the invasion -- President John F. Kennedy said so.
He arrived to a surreal atmosphere at the training ground in Puerto Cabezas
in Nicaragua. News had broken about the CIA's plan to organize democracy-hungry
Cuban-Americans to storm the shores of Cuba and eventually topple Castro, but no
one, no one official at least, ever said the words "Bay of Pigs.''
There was a divide, both culturally and psychologically, between the
Americans and the Cubans. But Sudano -- known simultaneously as drinker,
bar-room-brawler and heck-of-a-nice-guy -- made several Cuban friends right away
in a setting where some reports say the Cubans were treated poorly.
"You eat with him, you drink with him in the night, you shoot the
breeze with him,'' Sudano said. "You talk about families, how homesick they
might be and their cause to try to liberate their country. I became very
attached to their cause, too much so, I think.''
Sudano was the first American to invite him to have a beer, said Cuban exile
and trainee Edward Ferrer. Now 70, Ferrar was a commercial airline pilot.
"More than anything, he fell in love with the cause,'' Ferrer said. "Nick
was very simpatico.''
The Cubans trained by Sudano and many other Americans never had a chance,
Sudano said, because Kennedy decided to withhold U.S. air support that was
needed to obliterate Castro's air power. The invading forces were encircled by
Castro's troops a few days into the mission. The exile pilots, some having flown
10 or more missions, were dog-tired.
The Americans weren't, though. And despite the orders that they not fly to
Cuba, Shamburger had another proposition for Sudano on the invasion's last day,
April 19, 1961.
"Our president said, 'No.' We said, 'Screw you, we're going,''' Sudano
said. He and seven other men in four other planes got their superiors' blessings
and took off in bombers disguised as Cuban. Sudano paired with Joe Shannon.
It was, to anyone not looking through the rosy glasses of military bravado,
a suicide mission. But Sudano was sure he'd be just fine, because, he said,
you're always sure if you're in combat.
After a three-hour flight, the bombers were descending toward their targets.
Then their run stopped before it started. He heard Shamburger say over the
radio, "I'm hit. On fire.''
"I looked behind me and I saw Reilly peeling off, going down toward the
Caribbean,'' Sudano said. One of his best military friends was dead but Sudano,
to survive, had to ignore it. The Cuban T-33 wanted them next. Four of the
group's eight men didn't make it back, Sudano said.
Shannon guided the plane low, because his plane was more maneuverable at low
altitudes than the T-33. Sudano kept telling him where the pursuer was.
"I didn't think we had a spitting chance in hell at that time,'' Sudano
said.
Twenty feet above the Caribbean, Shannon zigzagged for 20 minutes at 325
miles per hour. The Cuban fighter couldn't lock in on them. They lived.
When he got back to Puerto Cabezas, Sudano had several Jack Daniels with
Sprites. A week later, he had a third daughter.
His son, Carl Jr., was 3 at the time, but for more than 20 years, he didn't
even know his father was in the Bay of Pigs invasion.
He didn't know about the chase until about two weeks ago, he said Thursday.
"It's still weird. He still doesn't really open up about it too much,''
Sudano Jr. said.
At the ceremony in Birmingham, though, emotions forced themselves out into
the open.
"I had a frog in my throat about three pounds,'' Sudano said. He was so
moved he couldn't bring himself to deliver his prepared speech, in which he
would have decried "the arrogance and stupidity of decisions made by
political hacks,'' meaning, he says, primarily Kennedy.
The four who died were honored years ago. Sudano received little information
about the choice to honor the survivors now. In a letter to him, the CIA wrote
that "we've located records'' identifying Sudano and others as having flown
but never having been honored. That's it.
His story told, he ponders the medallion's meaning. It'll be a terrific
heirloom for the grandkids, he declares.
At last, he says, "I'm proud of it, no doubt about it.''
Then he goes outside and lights a cigarette. | 