‘Under the noses

of the imperialists’

By Deirdre Griswold

 

It was April 16, 1961. Cuba was about to be invaded by thousands of counterrevolutionaries organized, trained and armed into a military force by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.

Young men and women in berets were crowded into the New York office of the pro-Cuban Revolution group, the 26th of July Movement, on West 139th Street in Spanish Harlem. Static sputtered from a shortwave radio and everyone grew quiet. Fidel was about to speak.

My Spanish was barely adequate, but I got the thrust of his talk: A declaration of defiance aimed at those who were trying to undo the glorious Cuban Revolution, which had finally brought justice to the common people of Cuba.

Suddenly, everyone cheered. Berets were thrown in the air. There was hugging and jumping for joy.

“What did he say?” I asked.

One compañero took pity on me and translated: “He said we have made a socialist revolution right under the noses of the Yankee imperialists!”