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Miami Herald
Bioweapon threat still unclear
Waffling language and
intelligence gaps have clouded U.S. allegations
that Cuba constitutes a bioweapons threat.
By Pablo Bachelet, pbachelet@herald.com.
Posted on Tue, Apr. 26, 2005.
WASHINGTON - Does Cuba have a bioweapons
''effort'' or a ''program''? Is it ''developmental,''
or is Havana ''developing'' it? And where
does U.S. intelligence get its information
on Cuba?
Those questions have simmered amid little
media notice since 2002, when the U.S. undersecretary
of state for arms control, John Bolton,
publicly declared Cuba had a "limited
offensive biological warfare research and
development effort.''
But now they are getting much attention
as Bolton, President Bush's nominee as U.N.
ambassador, battles complaints that he tried
to get two U.S. intelligence analysts fired
or reassigned because they disagreed with
his words on Cuba.
Bolton's confirmation hearings and previous
congressional testimonies do not reveal
any hard evidence on whether Cuba is or
is not working on bioweapons. But they do
offer an intriguing vision of how the U.S.
intelligence community has handled the semantics
of the issue.
The dispute arises from a secret National
Intelligence Estimate on worldwide bioweapons
capabilities, produced by the CIA and other
intelligence agencies in 1999. U.S. officials
who have seen it say that, for the first
time, it expressed strong concern over Cuba.
REVELATIONS
Although the NIE's exact language remains
classified, in March 2002, Carl W. Ford,
who at the time was chief of the State Department's
intelligence wing, went public with some
of the NIE's findings.
He told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee
that "the United States believes that
Cuba has at least a limited developmental
offensive biological warfare research and
development effort.''
Ford added that Havana also ''has provided
dual use biotechnology through rogue states''
-- a reference to Cuba's sale to Iran of
biotechnology for medical uses. Cuba has
denied any bioweapons work but acknowledged
the Iran sales.
Ford's statements went largely unnoticed.
But two months later, on May 6, Bolton
made headlines when he used almost the same
language in a speech to the Heritage Foundation
in Washington.
Cuba has a ''limited offensive biological
warfare research and development effort,''
Bolton said. He later told Congress that
he did not use the word ''developmental,''
which Ford had used, because it was "spurious.''
In June 2002, Sen. Christpher Dodd, D-Conn.,
a longtime advocate of improving relations
with Cuba, convened a Senate Foreign Relations
Committee hearing on the issue.
Ford acknowledged to the senators that
distinguishing between bioweapons and legitimate
biotech work was ''a difficult intelligence
challenge'' but stuck by his previous line.
''Clearly, we're suggesting that Cuba is
working on biological weapons,'' he said.
WORD CHOICE
Hinting at some of the semantic hair-splitting
that the intelligence community sometimes
engages in, Ford also explained why he had
used the word '''effort'' and not "program.''
''An effort, in our minds, is the research
and development necessary to create BW weapons
in the laboratory that can be delivered
in conventional means,'' he said.
"A program suggests to us something
far more substantial than what we see in
the evidence.''
And there the issue lay until this year,
when the Senate committee considering Bolton's
U.N. nomination received complaints that
he had attacked two intelligence analysts
-- including Christian Westermann, then
the State Department's top analyst on bioweapons
-- because they disagreed with his Cuba
speech.
Bolton denied that he tried to influence
the intelligence reports on Cuba.
But Senate Committee transcripts show he
had clashed with Westermann, then the State
Department's in-house specialist on bioweapons,
one month before Ford had first addressed
Congress -- when Bolton sent in his Heritage
Foundation speech for clearance by Westermann.
The wording of the draft that Bolton sent
to Westermann remains unknown. But according
to a July 7, 2004, report by the Senate
Intelligence Committee that focused largely
on U.S. pre-war assessments on Iraq's WMD,
Westermann objected to Bolton's proposed
wording.
Westermann proposed alternate language
that said nothing about developing bioweapons:
"Cuba has demonstrated that it is committed
to developing a highly advanced biotechnology
infrastructure and to arranging foreign
collaboration with rogue states that could
involve proliferation of dual-use technologies
to countries assessed to have BW weapons.''
That's when a furious Bolton asked that
Westermann be reassigned.
The speech Bolton eventually delivered
to the Heritage Foundation, presumably by
then approved by U.S. intelligence, included
the much stronger wording on bioweapons.
EVIDENCE
And what about the evidence against Cuba?
Ford testified in June 2002 that it was
''substantial.'' Yet he also acknowledged
that none of the U.S. information on Cuba's
BW capabilities had come from Cubans who
worked directly in such programs.
Of the Cubans interviewed, he added, "none
of them had direct evidence.''
Bolton told a March 2004 House committee
that the ''case for the existence of a developmental
Cuba BW R&D effort is strong'' but added
that some of the U.S. information had come
"from sources of questionable access,
reliability and motivation.''
Bolton also acknowledged that the U.S.
government's ability to assess any Cuban
bioweapons program may have been poisoned
from the start by Ana Belén Montes,
a Cuba analyst at the Defense Intelligence
Agency who confessed to spying for Havana
and was sentenced to 25 years in jail in
2002.
He told the House panel that Montes ''passed
some of our most sensitive information about
Cuba back to Havana'' and that her espionage
had "materially strengthened Cuba's
denial and deception efforts.''
QUESTIONS
Last September, The New York Times reported
that the U.S. intelligence community had
concluded that it was no longer clear whether
Cuba had an active biological weapons program.
It quoted an unidentified intelligence
official as saying that the intelligence
community "continues to believe that
Cuba has the technical capability to pursue
some aspects of an offensive biological
weapons program.''
Shortly afterward, an intelligence official
tried to explain the new position to The
Herald:
''We're not saying with absolute certainty
that they don't'' have a biological weapons
program, the official said. "What we're
saying is that we've lost some confidence
in that judgment that they do.''
Wakeman makes Havana shout 'Yes!'
Legendary former Yes
keyboardist Rick Wakeman and his new band
were given a rousing ovation by Cuban rock
fans.
By Vanessa Arrington, Associated
Press. Posted on Tue, Apr. 26, 2005
HAVANA - Cuban rockers and families alike
went wild for Rick Wakeman in a seaside
concert, rushing to the stage when the former
Yes star grabbed a portable keyboard and
started jamming in the crowd.
Wakeman and the New English Rock Ensemble,
or NERE, played a two-hour set late Sunday
for several hundred Cubans in Havana's open-air
Anti-Imperialist Plaza on the Malecon, the
city's famed seawall.
''This is the best rock music that has
ever been played on this island,'' said
an enthusiastic José Negrin, 40,
who came with his wife and 15-year-old son.
Wakeman came down to play in the crowd,
grabbing a Cuban girl, taking her onstage
and having her hold his portable keyboard
as he continued to play, without missing
a beat.
The British rock star devoted most of the
concert to classic tunes from the 1970s,
including songs from his Journey to the
Center of the Earth album and The Six Wives
of Henry VIII.
The crowd roared when he played ''Arthur''
-- the theme song for a weekly cultural
program on Cuban television called History
of Cinema.
Several father-and-son pairs were in the
crowd, as well as rockers wearing tattered
jeans and heavy-metal T-shirts.
''It used to be that you were discriminated
against in Cuba for having long hair,''
Lazaro Pérez, a 33-year-old ceramic
artist with flowing tresses, said of the
1970s and early 1980s. "Rockers were
persecuted, told they were against the [Cuban]
revolution. But that's long gone -- we're
in 2005 now.''
Sunday's concert was Wakeman's third in
Cuba, after performing Friday and Saturday
nights at Havana's Karl Marx Theater.
Wakeman was also scheduled to visit a memorial
to revolutionary fighter Ernesto ''Che''
Guevara before leaving the island Monday
night.
Although he declined to make any political
remarks about communist Cuba at the two
earlier concerts, on Sunday the rock star
waved a huge Cuban flag on stage during
his finale.
Elián saga altered lives
Today marks the five-year
anniversary of the federal raid that eventually
led to Elián González's return
to Cuba.
By Luisa Yanez. lyanez@herald.com.
Posted on Fri, Apr. 22, 2005
Five years ago today, more than 150 federal
agents stormed a modest Little Havana home,
emerging from a cloud of tear gas with a
6-year-old boy.
Today, Elián González is
11 years old, living in Cuba with his father
and dreaming of a life as a gymnast.
But the saga of Elián still lives
with those who for 149 days fought to keep
him in Miami.
The photogenic Elián, dubbed ''a
miracle child,'' became another symbol of
the 45-year-war between Cuban President
Fidel Castro and the Miami exile community.
His sojourn in the United States sharply
split not only Miami but the nation as a
battle waged in the streets and in courtrooms
to decide whether the boy should be returned
to Cuba to be with his father, or remain
in Miami, the dream of his mother who died
at sea trying to come here.
It began on Thanksgiving Day 1999, when
the boy was found floating off Fort Lauderdale
in an inner tube. It ended with the predawn
raid called Operation Reunion the Saturday
before Easter 2000. Within hours, a smiling
Elián was in the arms of his father,
Juan Miguel.
Today, the people who took Elián
into their hearts and their home -- and
those who reunited him with his father --
have moved on. But they still remember.
MARISLEYSIS GONZALEZ MORENO
Elián's second cousin
Marisleysis González, who emotionally
championed keeping Elián in Miami,
doesn't like to talk about the times when
she was on television with the boy as his
attractive and most-outspoken supporter
at only 21.
But she does say that she never saw or
spoke to Elián again after the raid,
which she has said at first emotionally
destroyed her.
González, now 26, has found success
with Marisleysis Hair Design beauty salon
in Westchester, which she opened in 2002
at 7383 SW Eighth St.
Two years ago, she wed Richard Moreno,
then 19, according to Miami-Dade County
records. Some who know her say the marriage
is over, but records do not reveal a divorce.
Asked about her marriage, González
begged off: "I'm working, I have to
hang up now.''
DONATO DALRYMPLE
Fisherman who found Elián
To this day, Donato Dalrymple says strangers
recognize him and ask: ''Whatever happened
to that kid?'' He knows they mean Elián.
Dalrymple and his cousin, Sam Ciancio,
where among the drama's first players.
They had gone fishing on Thanksgiving Day
1999 and found Elián near death,
drifting on an inner tube off Fort Lauderdale.
The boy's mother was among 11 people who
had perished at sea trying to reach South
Florida.
Dalrymple remained close to the boy and
as the custody battle heated up, Dalrymple
forcefully advocated keeping Elián
here.
He was at the Little Havana home the night
of the raid. He and Elián were frozen
in history in a famous photo of the raid
taken by photographer Alan Diaz.
The shot shows Dalrymple holding a terrified
Elián in his arms as a federal agent
with a gas mask points a gun at the two.
''It's a historical picture,'' Dalrymple
said. But he doesn't own a copy. 'It's not
like I look at it and say: 'Hey, that's
me!' That was a very hard time in my life.''
''That 150 armed agents had to storm into
a home to take away a 6-year-old boy was
wrong,'' he said. "There was an easier
way to do this.''
Dalrymple, 45, of Fort Lauderdale, still
runs a janitorial service company. He said
he has since divorced and lost his mother
in a car accident. He and his cousin, Ciancio,
who felt the boy should be returned to his
father, had a falling-out and are not speaking.
He still visits the Gonzálezes in
Miami-Dade. Otherwise, he said, "I've
moved on.''
ARMANDO GUTIERREZ
Family spokesman
Publicist extraordinaire Armando Gutierrez
became a fixture as the González
family spokesman.
The Elián case, which overwhelmed
his life for seven months, is a bittersweet
memory.
''This was a sad part of the history of
the U.S. -- thanks to Janet Reno,'' he said,
referring to the then-attorney general who
ordered the April 22 raid.
Today, Gutierrez is trying his hand in
radio. He's co-owner of a Latin music station
in Bartow, but still lives in Miami and
does political consulting.
''My life hasn't changed much; I'm still
in politics. I'm still married. I live in
the same house,'' he said.
Gutierrez doesn't see the González
family much anymore. ''They keep a low profile,''
he said.
Gutierrez said he wrote a book about his
Elián experience, fittingly called
The Family Spokesman. He hasn't been able
to publish it, but says he'll do it himself
when he retires from political work.
JAMES GOLDMAN
Federal official who led raid on the house,
retired
James Goldman proudly calls the rescue
of Elián the fastest execution of
a federal warrant in history.
Goldman, then director of investigations
for the Immigration and Naturalization Service,
led 150 federal agents in the raid. He was
the first man at the door, he said.
It took under two minutes to knock down
the barricaded front door of the González
home, find Elián in a bedroom with
Dalrymple and whisk him out to a waiting
white van.
Goldman, 49, of Weston, now working as
a vice president for LexisNexis, said the
5 a.m. raid kept being delayed due to negotiations,
even as the posse of agents drove to the
house. ''We had what I called a flickering
green light'' from Washington, he said.
Inside the van to Watson Island for a helicopter
ride to Homestead Air Base and then a Learjet
flight to be reunited with his father, Elián
at first was ''semi-hysterical.'' But he
soon quieted down and enjoyed his ride on
the chopper ''like any 6-year-old,'' Goldman
said.
Goldman said things could have been handled
more smoothly. "We had golden opportunities
before that night to take the boy and didn't,
and negotiations should not have gone on
as long as they did.''
ALAN DIAZ
Photographer who shot famous raid picture
There was a constant throng of photographers
and reporters at the González home,
but when the raid went down, there was only
one person taking photographs: Alan Diaz.
The ponytailed photographer was working
as a freelancer and felt uneasy that Easter
weekend. He knew the mood at the house,
where he had camped out since Nov. 30, 1999.
''I just had a hunch it was going to happen
and it was such a strong hunch I didn't
sleep that night. So when they came in,
I was ready to shoot,'' Diaz said.
When the agents arrived and the tear gas
began flying, Diaz, Dalrymple and Elián
ran to a bedroom and locked the door. ''The
minute the first agent broke in, my strobe
light hit him in the face,'' Diaz said.
Goldman, the federal agent in charge of
the operation, said one of ''the luckiest
events of the night'' was that Diaz wasn't
fired upon by the agents.
Diaz, 57, of Miami Springs, agrees. "Absolutely,
I could have been killed.''
But Diaz didn't stop shooting, and he captured
a photo that won him a Pulitzer Prize for
breaking news photography in 2001. He landed
a job as a staff photographer for The Associated
Press. Today, he shoots the Miami Heat and
the Florida Marlins.
Diaz said the experience changed him --
and not because he won awards. "I can't
tell you exactly how, but it did. Before
that day, I was someone else. Maybe it's
the day I matured, I don't know.''
LAZARO and DELFIN GONZALEZ
Elián's great-uncles
Like his daughter Marisleysis, Lazáro
González, 54, the boy's great-uncle,
disappeared from the limelight after the
raid.
Today, he works as a bus mechanic for Miami-Dade
County and lives with his wife Angela in
West Miami.
Of all the local relatives, Delfín
González, 68, has worked the hardest
to keep the boy's memory alive.
He purchased the home where Elián
lived at 2319 NW Second St. for $80,000
and turned it into a museum and shrine full
of memorabilia.
JANET RENO
Former U.S. Attorney General
For months, Janet Reno tried to persuade
the González family to return the
boy to his father. In the effort, the boy's
Cuban grandmothers, then his father, then
the family went to Washington, D.C.
The Gonzálezes, who had a team of
top-notch attorneys, would not budge.
Reno negotiated with the family until minutes
before the raid. She finally ordered the
raid, which made her a hero to many and
a traitor to many.
In 2002, Reno ran for Florida governor
and lost in the primary in an election plagued
by technical problems. Reno, who has Parkinson's
disease, lectures and lives quietly in Kendall.
Herald staff writer Charles
Rabin and researcher Monika Leal contributed
to this report.
Juan Pablo's gone, but his music plays
on
By Jordan Levin. jlevin@herald.com.
Posted on Mon, Apr. 25, 2005
Beloved Cuban musician Juan Pablo Torres
succumbed to a brain tumor April 17 at age
59, leaving a new gap in the community of
exile artists. A warm personality and trombone
virtuoso, Torres was an accomplished bandleader
who led the group Cuban Masters, a collection
of Latin exile greats, in 2001, as well
as Las Estrellas de Areito, an ensemble
in Cuba that recorded some legendary jam
sessions in 1979. He excelled in the dying
art of pulling musicians together into a
powerful, vital whole, a talent that may
have helped form his amiable character.
''He was always contemporary, but he always
had this deeply rooted sense of Cuban tradition,''
says Ned Sublette, author of Cuba and Its
Music: From the First Drums to the Mambo.
That was especially true on the Areito jam
sessions, Sublette says. ``What he was doing
on there was to get the great traditional
figures of Cuban music together to jam in
the way only Cubans can do.''
Torres defected from Cuba in 1992 while
on tour in Spain and came to Miami that
year full of hope. ''Here you can prepare
for a broad future,'' he said at the time.
''Anything you want can happen.'' Over the
next 12 years he played and recorded with
many of Latin jazz's greatest musicians,
including Bebo Valdés, Paquito D'Rivera,
Tito Puente and many more, adding 12 albums
to the 10 he recorded in Cuba. He played
benefits and organized jam sessions, immersing
himself in Cuban community and musical life.
He is survived by his wife, Elsa, and their
11-year-old son Juan Jr.; five grown children;
three sons who live in Italy, and two daughters
who live in Cuba, all musicians.
''Juan Pablo was an extraordinary musician
who dedicated all his life to music,'' said
Cuban jazz trumpeter Arturo Sandoval, who
met Torres in 1954 when both were attending
the National School of Art in Havana. ``He
was a great human being, a beautiful guy.''
Sandoval, who played with Torres for years
in the Orquesta Cubana de la Musica Moderna,
says he was almost unequaled on his instrument.
''The first time I heard him playing trombone
I was so impressed,'' Sandoval said. ``Besides
Generoso Jiménez I don't recall another
trombone player with that status and caliber.''
The octogenarian Jiménez was among
the guests at a benefit for Torres at Little
Havana's Manuel Artime Theater last November,
along with D'Rivera and many other stars
of el exilio. Frail and using a wheelchair,
Torres still managed to return hugs and
greetings with his beaming smile. ''He never
quits. His motto is pa'lante, pa'lante (forward,
forward),'' his wife Elsa told The Herald
last fall, as Torres was battling his tumor.
Torres himself may not be able to go forward
any longer, but his music should carry on
for him.
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