HomeMy WebLinkAboutSubmittal-Cuban Refugee Children ArticleSubmitted into the public
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item PZ.10 on 07/25/13
Todd B. Hannon
City Clerk
MONSIGNOR BRYAN O. WALSH
Episcopal Vicar for Spanish -Speaking Peoples
Catholic Archdiocese of Miami
CUBAN REFUGEE CHILDREN*
uring the past twelve years almost half a million Cubans have
sought refuge in Miami. Among them were over 14,000 unac-
companied children between 6 and 18 years of age. This article
tells for the first time the story of how the children's exodus began. It covers
the period between the middle of November 1960, when we first became
aware of the need, and 1 February 1961, when I met with the Secretary of
the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare to brief him on the
plight of the unaccompanied children among the refugees. Two days later,
President Kennedy announced a government aid program for Cuban refu-
gees which included money for the care of unaccompanied children, "the
most troubled group among the refugee population."'
About 4:30 p.m. on 26 December 1960, Pan American World Air-
ways Flight 422 from Havana touched down at Miami International Air-
port. There were few passengers, if any, on that flight who did not experi-
ence a real sense of relief as they descended from the airplane. Events in
Cuba were rapidly moving toward a climax and those who could were
joining the increasing exodus to Miami. Two teen-agers, a Cuban brother
and sister, were among the passengers. Sixto Aquino and his sister, Vivian,
must have shared in the general relief, but they still had reason to be appre-
hensive. No friends or relatives waited for them outside the doors of U.S.
Customs. They had left their parents behind not knowing when they would
* This article is taken from the introductory portion of the author's comprehen-
sive study of Cuban refugee children in the United States, now in progress.
1 New York Times, 4 February 1961. "Cuban Refugees," p. 1.
378
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CUBAN REFUGEE CHILDREN 379
see them again; and they were going as aliens into a new adult world where
almost everything would be strange and new, including the language.
Although Sixto and his sister did not know it, they were the first of a long
line of youths who would make this same trip during the following twenty-
three months.
Waiting for them at the desk of U. S. Immigration was a social work-
er, Mrs. Louise Cooper, from Miami's Catholic Welfare Bureau. The day
before, in response to a cryptic message from Cuba, Mrs. Cooper and I,
as Catholic Welfare Bureau Executive Director, had begun what was to
become a daily vigil at the immigration desk. Thus it was on Chrisunas Day
1960 that the program of the Catholic Welfare Bureau for the care and
protection of unaccompanied Cuban children in the United States actually
got under way.
News reporters, sworn to secrecy, would christen it Operation Pedro
Pan. Before it ended it would involve thousands of families, Cuban and
American, several foreign governments, numerous officials of federal and
state government, well over 100 child welfare agencies, and the three major
faiths in a unique effort of cooperation to help children, the innocent vic-
tims of power politics and clashing ideologies. Even though Operation
Pedro Pan itself would only last less than two years, the Cuban Children's
Program would go on for many years and would have a very real influence
on the development of cooperative programs between government and
voluntary child welfare agencies in the United States.
It is important to understand the difference between Operation Pedro
Pan and the Cuban Children's Program. The Cuban Children's Program
was inaugurated to provide foster care for Cuban refugee children who
found themselves in the United States without the care and protection of
their parents. Operation Pedro Pan was developed to help Cuban parents
send their children unaccompanied to the United States to avoid Commu-
nist indoctrination. Both programs developed at the same time but, while
Operation Pedro Pan terminated with the missile crisis, the Cuban Chil-
dren's Program is still in operation at the time of writing. Between the 3
January 1961 break in Cuban-U.S. diplomatic relations and the October
1962 missile crisis, 14,048 Cuban students were helped by Operation
Pedro Pan to enter the United States; 6,486 of them received foster care in
the Cuban Children's Program either on their arrival or shortly thereafter.
Cuban refugees had begun to arrive in Miami on 1 January 1959, the
morning after the fall of Batista. During the following year some 4,000
Cubans had taken refuge in Miami. Most of them had either been associ-
ated with the previous government or were of the upper class who felt
threatened by the new regime. However, the increasing radicalization of
380 JOURNAL OF INTER-AMERICAN STUDIES AND WORLD AFFAIRS
the Cuban situation during the summer and autumn of 1960 caused more
and more Cubans of all classes to look toward Miami. The lines of visa
applicants outside the U.S. Embassy in Havana lengthened in proportion
as the crisis grew more serious. By October, Cuban refugees were recog-
nizable on the streets of Miami. The local community and state and federal
authorities were being alerted to their plight by concerned people such as
Miami's Bishop (now Archbishop) Coleman F. Carroll.
It is now calculated that there were 12,000 refugees in Miami in De-
cember 1961, although estiniates at that time placed the figure two to
three times higher. Until the missile crisis forced the end of commercial
air traffic between Havana and Miami, almost 200 new refugees arrived
each day.
During this same period thousands more arrived by small boat across
the treacherous Straits of Florida and through such third countries as
Spain, Jamaica, and Mexico. After the missile crisis in October 1962, these
were the only routes available for three years until President Johnson in-
augurated the Varadero Freedom Flights in December 1965, The refugee
exodus then entered a new phase with the emphasis on the reunification of
families. During the first months of these flights the majority of children
separated from their parents in 1961-1962 were reunited with them in
exile. By January 1971, it is estimated that there were 261,000 Cubans
living in Miami and almost as many throughout the country.
This paper is concerned with how it all began and the first five weeks
of our two programs. By the end of this time the Catholic Welfare Bureau
had built up the basic organization that was necessary to administer both
programs and, with this, came much more adequate record -keeping. The
story of the following years is well documented in Catholic Welfare Bureau
files and its extraction presents a very different type of challenge. In the
beginning however, as in every new operation, there was little time or op-
portunity for record -keeping in the formal sense. This paper, therefore, is
the result of careful gathering of data from correspondence, minutes of
meetings, and appointment books. For their own protection the names of
some people still in Cuba have been purposely omitted. The story of their
contributions to the program must wait for other and hopefully happier
times on that island.
There is one question that is frequently, if not inevitably, raised and
which merits at least some discussion at this time. It is posed in different
ways. Why did Cuban parents send their children into exile alone? How
could a parent do that? Why did the parents not come with them? At times
this question has been asked by the children themselves, especially the
younger ones as they grew older. They have also been posed by Americans
CUBAN REFUGEE CHILDREN
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Todd B. Hannon
City Clerk
381
who have learned of the program. To this question there are no simple
answers and perhaps no one answer which covers all situations and cir-
cumstances. This Cuban phenomenon was not, however, unique or
unprecedented.
In modern times many children have been separated from their par-
ents and have found themselves in foreign lands and among strange people
who differed from them in culture and often in language. The nineteen -
thirties saw Jewish children smuggled out of Nazi Germany and cared for
in foster homes in England and other countries. A number were later
brought to the United States. The Spanish Civil War caused the evacuation
of thousands of children from Spain.2 Basque children were taken to Bel-
gium, France, and England and cared for in special camps and schools.
Children-5,000 it is said —were sent to Russia as the Republican govern-
ment went down to defeat. In 1937 a ship sailed from Barcelona to Mexico
with some 460 children accompanied by a number of their teachers.3 In
1940 during the Battle of Britain approximately 1,000 British children
were sent to the United States for safety,4 With the end of World War II,
and in the years following, some 5,000 war orphans were brought from
Europe to new homes in the United States.
But the Spanish experience was the most important for Cuban par-
ents. Cuba had always been close to Spain. It was the last of the Spanish
American colonies to gain independence. The large Spanish migration to
the island since independence had kept its ties to the motherland close and
strong. As Castro and his leading followers made statement after state-
ment, each more radical than the one before, concerning the education of
the young generation, the fear of the parents mounted. It is my conviction
that, as the threat of communism grew, Cuban parents were greatly in-
fluenced by the memory of the Spanish Civil War.2 They recalled the
2 "The first refugees (from Bilbao) to be evacuated were children, to be par-
celled out among those who agreed to look after them. The CGT in France agreed
to take 2,300 and the Soviet Government undertook the care of Communist children.
A Basque children's relief committee in England, supported by the British branch
of the Roman Church, agreed to look after 4,000 children.. .. Opinion was never-
theless so cautious in America that even a project to bring certain Basque children
there was dropped as a possible breach of neutrality." Hugh Thomas, The Spanish
Civil War (New York: Harper & Row, 1961), pp. 437, 438.
3 Michael Kenny (Washington, D.C., Catholic University), unpublished
manuscript. "From 1937-1943 they (Los Nifios de Morelia') were educated and
cared for in the Espafia-Mexico school or similar institutions entirely at the expense
of the Mexican Government. See 'Los Niiios de Morelia' by Vera Foulkes, Social
Work Thesis presented to U.N.A,M. Mexico D.F., 1953."
4 Kathryn Close, Transplanted Children (New York: The United States Com-
mittee for the Care of European Children, Inc., 1953), p. 79.
"As the revolution entered its second year, it was evident that a large part
of Catholic opinion, particularly among the regular clergy, was opposed to the
382 JOURNAL OF INTER-A1VIERICAN STUDIES AD WORLD AFFAIRS
stories and rumors of children sent to Russia for training, and of other
children held as hostages. They began to fear the same thing happening in
Cuba. They saw that last refuge from indoctrination, the private school,
threatened and they doubted their own ability to offset the effects of in-
doctrination and propaganda on their children.
During 1960 rumors that added to the panic of the parents began to
circulate in Cuba and in exile circles in Miami. The principal one among
these referred to the patria potestad or the rights of parents over their chil-
dren. Purported copies of a new decree circulated throughout underground
circles. According to this decree (as rumored) "all children will remain
with their parents until they are three years old, after which they must be
entrusted for physical and mental education to the Organizacion de Cir-
culos Infantiles" (state day-care centers). Children from three to ten
would live in government dormitories in their home provinces and would
be permitted to visit their parents "no less than two days a month." Older
children would be "assigned to the most appropriate place" and thus might
never come home. 9 Spawned by this basic rumor, other stories related that
children were picked up off the streets and never seen again; that orphan-
ages, such as "Casa Beneficencia," had been emptied and all the children
sent to Russia for indoctrination; that in the town of Bayamo, fifty mothers
had signed a pact to kill their children rather than hand them over to
Castro; etc.
Additional rumors concerning this decree preceded each major anni-
versary in the revolutionary calendar: 1 January 1961, 26 July I 961, 1
January 1962. Although Castro himself branded the patria potestad docu-
government, and that it was hardening daily in direct proportion to the alienation
of Havana from Washington. Early in the new year a document was circulated for
signature among the Spanish clergy in which they reaffirmed their loyalty to Franco.
The meaning of this gesture could not escape anyone in Cuba, where the memory
of the Spanish civil war is more alive than anywhere else in the world outside of
Spain itself. The document amounted to a condemnation of Castro on the grounds
that, as the Republican government had supposedly once done in Spain, Castro
now was culpably betraying the revolution to communism." Leslie Dewart, Cuba,
Church and Crisis (London: Sheed and Ward, 1963), p. 154.
6 Timc, October 6, 1961. "Cuba —And Now the Children," p. 41.
7 "We have beard, of course, from time to time of the efforts, tbe laws that
are being drawn up to prevent any child over the age of five to leave Cuba. Last
July 26th, or prior to that time, when on Fidel's great celebration we knew there
were sitting on his desk laws that would do just that. There was, according to the
information supplied to us by the underground, quite a controversy between two
sets of Fidel's advisers, the economists and party -line Communists. The economists
maintained that it was necessary to keep the flow of U.S. dollars and therefore they
were for continuation of allowing people to leave. The comment of the party line,
of course, as we know, is to grab on to the children. Now the deadline for this to
happen is supposedly January 1st, 1962. And we just expect sooner or later it is
going to happen," Testimony of Wendel N. Rollason, Director, Inter -American
Affairs Commission, Miami, Florida. U. S. Senate Hearings, December 1961, p. 159.
CUBAN REFUGEE CHILDREN
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Todd B. Hannon
City Clerk
383
ment a forgery put out by the underground and the CIA to discredit the
regime, the departure of Fidelito, Castro's own twelve -year -old son, for
Russia helped confirm the rumors. When the government organized the
Association of Youth Rebels and Rebel Pioneers, the fear of the parents
grew as they saw their children become active in these youth groups of the
regime and as they began to reflect the first effects of this indoctrination. A
few parroted phrases of propaganda heard on the radio were enough to put
parents into a panic.
In the beginning of the children's exodus, two groups of parents
seemed most affected by this fear: the small minority, generally of the
middle class, who were practicing Catholics and those of the middle class
who worked in foreign -owned businesses and saw their own world rapidly
disappearing. In general members of the wealthy upper class had solved
their problem —they were already in Miami. Consequently, although fam-
ilies of all classes were represented from the beginning, the majority of
those interested in sending their children to the United States belonged to
the middle class and had sent their children to private schools. This is evi-
denced in the many thousands of letters received by the Catholic Welfare
Bureau from families asking for help in getting their children to the United
States, and by those who succeeded in their quest. For Catholic parents, the
changing attitude of the hierarchy toward the regime confirmed their fears.
On November 21st, 1960 Monsignor Enrique Perez Ser-
antes (the Archbishop of Santiago de Cuba who saved Castro's
life after his 1953 attack on the Moncada Barracks) issued his
third Pastoral on the subject (Communism in the Castro Re-
gime), this time against those Catholics who continued to sup-
port the revolution. On December 4th, the hierarchy issued their
final joint document, this time an open letter to Castro challeng-
ing him for the last time to repudiate communism, and hoping
'that the Lord may illumine you.' On December 16th Fidel
Castro spoke on television and fired the last salvo in the war of
words between the revolution and the Church.a
Another factor that influenced the decisions of a certain number of
parents was that of involvement in the anti -Castro underground. In some
cases it was the parents who were active and in others their teen -aged sons.
The former feared that their children might be used against them by the
regime either as hostages or spies.9 The latter feared that their sons' in-
volvement would get the whole family in trouble.
8 Leslie Dewart, Cuba, Church, and Crisis, p, 161.
9 "They are taking the children of underground members who have been
caught and either jailed or shot and to punish the families these children are being
sent deliberately, being picked and sent to Russia by way of retaliation, as a way of
b 'tt d into the public
384 JOURNAL OF INTER-AMERICAN STUDIES AND WORLD AFFAIRS
By December 1960 opposition to the re.r. ne, already widespread
among Catholic university students, involved the younger age groups, such
as the Juventud Obrera CatOlica and Juventud Estudiantil Catolica, and
students in the various Catholic secondary schools such as Colegio de
Belen arid Colegio de La Salle in Havana.1° These two types of youngsters,
the underground activists and those who had received indoctrination,
showed up among the unaccompanied children in Miami and presented us
with special problems due to their anger against their parents for having
shipped them to Miami.
Some parents had, of course, other reasons for staying in Cuba beside
activity in the underground or the lack of a visa. Many stayed because they
owned property which they hoped to keep as long as possible. Others re-
mained because they expected the regime to be overthrown shortly, if not
by the underground groups or exiles, perhaps by the U.S. Marines. Others
were unwilling to leave because of aged or sick parents, or because a hus-
band or brother, wife or sister was a political prisoner. There were those
who stayed because they felt that it was the proper thing to do. Later, some,
such as certain engineers and medical doctors, were not allowed to depart
because they had special training or qualifications that were needed.
For some, the separation between parents and children was to be
rather short, a few weeks or months. For the majority, it would be about
three GI- four years. For others, it would stretch into several years and, for
a few, forever. During the course of our program some parents and two
children died before they could be reunited. A few parents changed their
minds about the regime. Their children in exile were faced with the ter-
rible decision of having to choose between life in the United States and a
return to their parents in Cuba. One did choose to return after eight years
in the United States. It was against this background of crisis and fear in an
island one hundred miles from our shores that we in Miami became in-
volved in the biggest child refugee program ever recorded in the Western
Hernisp'nere.
Toward the end of September 1960 the staff of the Centro Hispano
a threat to other families of what is going to happen to their own children if they
do not knuckle under. Children are paraded in front of their fathers in prison as a
means of exhorting confession." Ibid., p. 160.
io"Studcnt (university) opposition to the Castro regime was at first amor-
phous, but as the tempo of the revolution increased and the communists gained in
strength, it took on definite form. Later in 1959 and throughout 1960, anti -Castro
organizations established branches within the University of Havana. Among them,
one known as Trinchera (The Trench), whose leaders originated from the Catho-
lic University Association (Agrupacian Cattilica Liniversitaria) soon acquired some
importance. The Church provided the framework for these students' anti -communist
activities, offering them a doctrinal alter -native to Communism." Jaime Suchlicki,
University Students and Revolution in Cuba, 1920-1968 (Coral Gables, Florida:
CTJBAN REFUGEE CHILDREN
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Todd B. Hannon
City Clerk
385
CatOlico became alarmed at the rapid increase in the number of newly ar-
rived Cubans seeking assistance. This agency bad been founded by Bishop
Carroll in 1959 for the specific purpose of helping the Spanish-speaking
newcomer adjust to life in Miami. In recent ye-ars, the number of Spanish-
speaking newcomers in Miami had increased, many of them Puerto Ricans
and Latin American emigrants, in marginal jobs. The social service agen-
cies, including the Catholic Welfare Bureau, were not geared to their needs.
The purpose of the Centro Hispano Catolieo was to provide an agency
where a bilingual staff could make the Latins feel at home. Close working
relationships existed between the Centro and the Catholic Welfare Bureau,
although each had its own administration. When the Centro opened its
doors, Cuban refugees were not a problem. The vast majority of refugees
from Cuba during the first eighteen months of the Castro Regime were able
to provide for themselves."
Events in Cuba during the summer and fall of 1960, however, were to
swell the exile exodus quickly. On 29 June the oil refineries were confis-
cated; 6 July the expropriation with compensation of all U.S. property in
Cuba was authorized; 6 August U.S.-owned sugar mills, as well as other
U.S. business concerns, were taken over by the Cuban goverrunent; 14
October the Urban Reform Law was enacted confiscating urban rental
property. These events in rapid succession caused more and more people
to make the decision to leave for Miami.
This led in turn to the imposition of increasing restrictions on what
people leaving Cuba could take with them. More of the exiles arrived in
Miami destitute for all practical purposes. The burden of assistance fell
first on their own relatives and Cuban friends already established in
Miami.12 Then they turned to the Centro Hispano Catolico, the only
agency in the community, public or private, available to the Spanish -
"Most Cuban refugees arriving in the United States during the first year
and a half after the Castro Revolution were able to bring sizable amounts of money
as they fled Cuba and upon arrival in the United States were self-supporting, Re-
strictions on removal of money and possessions from Cuba became increasingly
severe after mid-1960, Real and personal property of refugees was confiscated. Each
departing refugee was permitted to take only five U.S. dollars and items for per-
sonal use. Later no money could legally be taken from Cuba by refugees and cloth-
ing was restricted to a given number of pieces. Without funds, household goods
and other essentials, refugees were in immediate need of welfare assistance upon
arrival." The Cuban Migration 1959-1960 (Miami, Florida: Research Institute for
Cuba and the Caribbean; Center for Advanced International Studies, University of
Miami, 1967), p. 24.
12 "The weight of welfare assistance fell first on the local Cuban community
in the Miami area. In fact, as Reverend Bryan O. Walsh, Executive Director of the
Catholic Welfare Bureau of Miami, observed it was not until the support resources
of the Cuban colony in the Miami area were reaching saturation that the larger
cOmmlinitv lwarne fultu nf r1.4. n
386 JOURNAL OF INTER-AMERICAN STUDIES AND WORLD AFFAIRS
speaking newcomer. They were not eligible for medical care at Jackson
Memorial Hospital; as yet there was no Cuban Refugee Emergency Center;
Cuban children were not admitted to the Dade County public schools
unless they paid tuition. Therefore, at this time the Centro Hispano Cato-
lico received the full impact of the exile influx.
Through a series of meetings beginning 29 September, the Bishop and
the Centro Staff alerted the community to the presence of a rapidly increas-
ing number of refugees in Miami with insufficient resources. Community
leaders quickly recognized that the problem was beyond their capacity to
solve and appealed to the federal government on the basis that the exiles
were here because of U.S. national policy and that Miami was simply the
most convenient port of entry."
President Eisenhower appointed Mr. Tracy Voorhees, who had head-
ed the Hungarian Refugee Program in 1956-1957, to look into the Miami
situation, and allocated S1,000,000.00 for emergency aid. Mr. Voorhees
came to Miami to evaluate the problem and recommended to the president
that an emergency center be opened in Miami by the federal government.
This recommendation was approved, and on 2 December 1960 the Cuban
Refugee Emergency Center opened its doors in the old offices of the Dade
County Board of Public Instruction on N.W. Third Avenue.
The Cuban Children's Program had its beginnings in the offices of the
Catholic Welfare Bureau, 395 N.W. First Street, Miami, in late November
1960, This Bureau (now the Catholic Service Bureau), the social service
agency of the Catholic Diocese of Miami, was founded in 1933 and in 1945
was licensed by the Florida State Department of Public Welfare for child
welfare programs. In 1960 it was a small, multi -function child and family
agency with a total staff of fifteen persons and one small group home for
children, St. Joseph's Villa. During that year it had cared for about eighty
dependent children in the Villa and in foster -family homes. As a member
of the United Fund of Dade County, which at that time was undergoing
one of its periodic financial crises, the Catholic Welfare Bureau had re-
cently been advised to expect a thirty percent cut in its budget for 1961 due
to the failure of the United Fund Appeal.
Even without the question of coping with the Cuban refugee influx,
the future for all social service agencies in Miami was pretty gloomy in the
fall of 1960. Public welfare agencies, always weak in Florida, were no
better off than the voluntary ones. Florida had for many years competed
with Mississippi for the last place among the states in per capita welfare
13 Minutes, Bonrd of Directors, Welfare Planning Council, 18 October, 1960,
p. 2. Copy in files of the Catholic Welfare Bureau.
CUBAN REFUGEE CHILDREN
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Todd B. Hannon
City Clerk
387
expenditure. Any additional strain on the welfare purse, whether public or
private, would be catastrophic.
Into my office in the Catholic Welfare Bureau about 15 November
1960 a Cuban man brought a fifteen -year -old Cuban boy named Pedro.
He asked me to provide a foster home or boarding school for him. Pedro
had arrived in Miami a month earlier, sent by his parents who expected
their relatives and friends to care for him, not realizing that these people
could scarcely house and feed themselves. The youngster had been passed
from one to another, often on a daily basis, with no one willing or able to
accept responsibility for him. The effect on the boy's physical and mental
well-being can easily be imagined. In his first month in the United States
he had lost twenty pounds. It was a scared and hungry child that stood in
my office that November afternoon.
Temporary arrangements were made for the care of the boy while the
agency studied the situation. Knowing what was happening in our sister
agency, the Centro Hispano Catolico, we realized very quickly that Pedro
was the first of many and that, as the situation in Cuba grew worse, the
number of truly dependent children in Miami would increase.
It was clear to me and my staff that without outside help we could
not render anything more than token assistance. We realized that the ques-
tion of providing for such children within their religious heritage would be
fundamental in the minds of the children themselves and of their parents.
In common with the rest of the community, we saw very clearly that the
only solution lay in the acceptance of financial responsibility by the fed-
eral government.
We turned for help to the Welfare Planning Council, which at that
time was the community agency charged with the responsibility for identi-
fying needs and planning for solutions in the social welfare field. Its mem-
bership included most social service agencies. Since my arrival in Miami
in January 1957, I had played an active role in the work of the council,
serving on many committees and study groups. The council bad a Family
and Child Care Division of which Mr. Robert S. Jones was the executive
secretary. At my request Mr. Jones called a meeting of all the child welfare
agencies in the county, both public and private. The third week of Novem-
ber we met at the offices of the Welfare Planning Council. Present were
representatives of Dade County Welfare Department, Florida State De-
partment of Public Welfare, Florida Children's Home Society, Children's
Service Bureau, Jewish Family and Children's Service, and of course the
Catholic Welfare Bureau.
At Mr. Jones' request I outlined the current situation as I saw it. The
Miami area was experiencing an unprecedented influx of refugees from
388 JOURNAL OF 1NTER-AMERICAN STUDIES AND WORLD AFFAIRS
Cuba. Among the refugees, there was an unknown number of unaccom-
panied children and there was every likelihood that the number would in-
crease. As the child welfare agencies of the community, we were faced
with the prospect of having to care for these children whose relatives or
friends were unable to receive them in their homes. The agency representa-
tives present were well aware of the fact that community leaders bad al-
ready appealed to the federal government for help in meeting the needs of
the refugees in general.
We discussed Mr. Voorhee's mission in Miami and I reminded them
that Mr. Voorhees had directed the federal government's program for the
Hungarian Free Fighters based at Camp Kilmer, New Jersey, in 1956-
1957. It was from this center that the Hungarian refugees were resettled in
various parts of the country. Among them were many teen-agers who were
placed with families without any of the usual investigation and planning
regarded as essential by child welfare agencies. In fact, the voluntary na-
tional resettlement agencies, such as Catholic Relief Services, Church
World Services, and United Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society were not set
up to run child welfare programs. As a result many of their placements, in-
cluding some in Miami, had failed. My worry was that, unless our local
agencies responded to the challenge, it was very likely that responsibility
for the care of unaccompanied Cuban refugee children would be given by
Mr. Voorhees to these same agencies. He had already asked them to come
to Miami to help in the resettlement of the Cubans. My first concern there-
fore was that the program for the care of the unaccompanied children
should be handled by child welfare agencies. My second concern was that
the religious heritage of the child be safeguarded. This was one of the chief
reasons why parents were sending their children into exile. My third con-
cern was how a program of foster care could be funded.
There was relatively little discussion since the agency representatives
present understood these concerns and, indeed, shared my convictions. At
this meeting, it was agreed that a request would be made to Mr. Voorhees
to include in his report to President Eisenhower recommendations for the
funding of a special foster care program for the care of unaccompanied
Cuban refugee children under the auspices of the Miami child welfare
agencies. Three of the agencies offered to care for the children within their
religious heritaec, Since most Cubans were at least nominally Catholic, it
was recognized that the main burden would fall on the Catholic Welfare
Bureau. The Children's Sen-ice Bureau agreed to care for Protestant chil-
dren and the Jewish children would go to the Jewish Family and Children's
Service. Upon recommendation of this meeting, the Cuban Refugee Execu-
tive Committee, on 22 November, requested ". . funds for foster care in
CUBAN REFUGEE CHILDREN
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institutions or family homes for children separated from their parents,
who have been sent here to avoid coercive regimentation." 14
Among the many other items included in this resolution, this was to
be the only one calling for local expenditure of welfare funds which would
be included in .Mr. Voorhees' recommendations to the president.
If it should prove necessary beyond what private charity can do,
such Mutual Security Funds, ($1,000,000.00 allocated by Presi-
dent Eisenhower on December 2, 1960) will also be utilized for
assistance to Cuban Refugee Children in extreme need.15
Meanwhile, other evidence of the flight of Cuban children came to the
attention of the authorities. The dramatic case of two children brought to
Key West Juvenile Court was symptomatic of the problem that was to
mushroom into immense proportions within a very short time —that of
those families without relatives or friends in Florida upon whom they
could call.
In November 1960 a Cuban mother brought her two children to
Key West. She feared that they would be sent to Russia because
she and her husband were actively opposed to the Castro Re-
gime. She asked the Judge of the Juvenile Court to find a home
for them. The Judge assumed jurisdiction and placed the chil-
dren in foster care. The mother returned to Cuba to be with her
husband and to continue her work in the counterrevolutionary
irnovement.16
It was to help such families that Mr. James Baker came to Miami
from Havana about the second week of December 1960. Mr. Baker was
the headmaster of Ruston Academy, an American school in Havana,
whose pupils were drawn from U.S. residents and upper-class Cuban fam-
ilies. Mr. Baker was joined in Miami by several U.S. businessmen formerly
of Havana, and they set out to seek some way of providing shelter and edu-
cation in Miami for those children who did not have relatives or friends
here. Mr. Baker had sent one of his teachers to Miami and Washington the
previous month to look over the situation. As a result of that visit, the de-
cision had been made to open a boarding school in Miami for such chil-
dren, and this was the purpose of the December trip. While looking for a
suitable building for his school, Mr. Baker heard about the plans of the
14 Resolution adopted by the Welfare Planning Council of Dade County, 22
November, 1960. Copy in the files of the Catholic Welfare Bureau.
15 Voorhees, Tracy S., Interim Report to the President on the Cuban Refugee
Problem (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 19 December, 1960),
p. 10.
1(1 U. S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare, Cuba's Children in
Exile, Social Rehabilitation Service, Children's Bureau, 1967, p. 1.
390 JOURNAL OF INTER-AMERICAN STUDIES AND WORLD AFFAIRS
Catholic Welfare Bureau to provide care for unaccompanied refugee chil-
dren and came to see me on 12 December 1960.
Mr. Baker talked about his plans and told me about the fears of many
of his Cuban friends for the welfare of their children. He also explained
that some of these friends were active in the anti -Castro underground and
were afraid that their children would be taken by the government and used
as hostages.
I recall our conversation very aver]. I had become convinced by this
time that uncoordinated and scattered efforts would only do damage to the
cause. Believing also that only licensed child -placing agencies should care
for unaccompanied refugee children, I thought that even the best boarding
school would only be a partial solution. [pointed out to Mr. Baker that this
was a job for a social agency which could plan for the total care of the
child, including the legal questions of custody, which were bound to come
up sooner or later. I also pointed out that some children, especially the
younger ones, belonged in foster families, not in institutions. I noted that
the question of religious heritage would be very important in the minds of
most Cuban parents, Jewish and Protestant, perhaps even more than Cath-
olics, if the separation should prove to be lengthy. I was also able to tell
him that Mr. Voorhees had indicated that funds would be available for the
care of the children. As a result Mr. Baker agreed to work with us. He
would get the children out of Cuba and we would see that they were met
upon arrival in Miami and that they would receive proper care. He esti-
mated that approximately 200 children would be involved in this opera-
tion. Thus began Operation Pedro Pan, our project to fly the children out
of Cuba.
Working with Mr. Baker were several members of the American
Chamber of Commerce in Havana, U.S. businessmen whose properties
had been taken over or confiscated by the Cuban government. These men
were now in Miami waiting to see what would happen in Cuba, and they
had informally reorganized the American Chamber of Commerce here.
They had agreed to raise funds to help Mr. Baker in his plans. One of
them was Mr. Kenneth Campbell, who later wrote:
The idea was that American firrns which had been in busi-
ness in Cuba would provide the funds. Jim (Baker) and his
colleagues in Cuba would make the necessary arrangements to
net the children out, and the group would be responsible for car-
ing for the children once they arrived in the United States. First
funds were obtained by donations from American companies
which had done business in Cuba, and I believe, from one Brit-
ish company. I regret not being able to recall the names of all
the companies which made donations, but I know that one of
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Todd B. Hannon
City Clerk
391
the companies which made a substantial donation was Esso
Standard Oil Company. I am sure that the British company
which made a donation was the Shell Oil Company.
In order to prevent the Cuban Government from tracing
the source of the funds, these first donations as I recall, were
paid to the Catholic Welfare Bureau, which in turn issued checks
to a series of American citizens residing in the Miami arca, who
issued personal checks for one or more airplane fares, which
were transmitted to the W. Henry Smith Agency in Havana -
This was a travel agency owned and operated by H. Gilbert
Smith who was Executive Secretary of the American Chamber
of Commerce of Cuba during the time that I was president of
the Chamber.' 7
The basic plan was as follows:
The American Embassy in Havana would be asked to grant a student
visa. This would require proof that someone would be responsible for the
child while in the United States and that the child was actually enrolled in
a U.S. school. The Catholic Welfare Bureau attempted to meet these re-
quirements by giving a letter to Mr. Baker for the U.S. Embassy accepting
responsibility for any child designated by him and also by making arrange-
ments to have a U.S. Immigration Form I-20 completed by a school for
each child as proof of enrollment.
Mr. Baker returned to Cuba on 13 December to put the plan into
motion. Before he left he made arrangements for all communications be-
tween us to go via U. S. diplomatic pouch, thanks to the cooperation of
Mr. Culver Gidden, U.S. State Department Reception Center in Miami,
and Mr. Daniel Braddock, Charge d'Affairs, U.S. Embassy in Havana.
Two days later, on 15 December 1960, several members of the Amer-
ican Chamber of Commerce came to see me. Among them were Mr. Ken-
neth Carnpbell, Mr. Bob O'Farrell of Esso Standard, and Mr. Richard
Colligan of Freeport Sulphur Company. They brought a letter from Mr.
Baker and the first list of 125 names, which had come over in the diplo-
matic pouch that morning.
Our network of contacts was growing. By this tirne it included Mrs.
Norma Lemberg., a former Havana resident, who was responsible for get-
ting 1-20 forms from Mrs. Agnes Ewald at Coral Gables High School, and
Dr. Sergio Giquel, who relayed many messages to and from Cuba.
Mr. Baker's visit had brought a new dimension to the problem, mainly
the question of children coming to us directly from Cuba, without any
friends or relatives to meet them. In agreeing to work with Mr. Baker, we
17 Kenneth Campbell, personal letter to Monsignor Bryan 0, Walsh, July 16,
1964.
392 JOURNAL OF INTER-AMER1CAN STUDIES AND WORLD AFFAIRS
were accepting responsibility for the reception of the children right at the
point of entry, Miami International Airport, and we were agreeing to pro-
vide foster care for those who had neither friends nor relatives able and
willing to take them into their own homes.
The justification for this for me was simple, even though some social
welfare agencies in Miami questioned our taking on this additional respon-
sibility. Once our agencies had received the promise of government sup-
port, it seemed clear to me that our agencies were obligated to provide a
i.vell-arranged and well -planned reception for those children who would
need care. Our first thought was to provide care and protection, when
necessary, for the children already living here with friends and relatives.
It is important to stress the when necessary. When separation from parents
is necessary, it is always much better for a child to be with relatives or
friends if at all possible. We know that even a poor family is usually better
than any foster family or group care institution.
We knew only too well that as soon as word got out in Miami that we
were taking children under care we would be inundated with requests.
When we talked to Mr. Baker earlier that same week of December 1960,
not one of us could foresee what the future would hold. Within a few short
weeks the whole complexion of things would change. The U.S. Embassy
would be shut down, and a series of events would be put in motion leading
to the Bay of Pigs invasion on 17 April 1961. What most people saw as a
short-term emergency situation in December 1960 would become a long-
term possibility as hope for an early solution to the Cuban question faded.
Even before we had actually taken our first child under care, we had
moved from being. just the Cuban Children's Program into what would be
called in time Operation Pedro Pan. After Mr. Baker's return to Cuba,
there was little we could do in Miami except wait. Since funds would only
be available on a reimbursement basis after the child was under care, we
had nothing to work with. We had no assurance that any of Mr. Baker's
children would actually be able to come, and we did not know whether
any more children would come at all after 1 January. The impossibility of
planning in advance became a way of life for the next several years. We
never knew for the first six years of the program what the next day would
bring.
In the meantime, we had children in Miami like Pedro who needed
care, but because of the uncertain situation we had decided to wait until
January before actually taking them under care. By that time we thought
we would at least know whether or not more would be arriving. If only a
few children required care, then federal funds would not be forthcoming.
We were well aware that the key phrase in Mr. Voorhee's Interim Report
to the President of 19 December 1960 was ". . if it should prove neces-
CUBAN REFUGEE CHILDREN
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Todd B. Hannon
City Clerk 393
sary beyond what private charity can do," and that we could count on
federal funds only after we had exhausted our own resources.
All these agencies were very small as American social agencies go.
The Catholic Welfare Bureau's one small group home for children between
the ages of six and twelve, run by the Sisters of St. Joseph, had 20 children
in residence at that time and nine empty beds. We had about 35 other chil-
dren, mostly infants waiting for adoption placement, in foster family care.
The County Welfare Department bad a group of buildings vacant at their
Kendall complex. These had been used for several years as a home for
dependent and delinquent Negro children. Only a short time before, the
county had integrated its facilities for children and thus vacated these
buildings. The department offered these buildings to us for use in an
emergency. They had been designed to accommodate 60 children. Even-
tually these became known both in Cuba and in Miami as El Campamento
de Kendall, the reception center for several thousand Cuban children.
We also bad another resource available without which it would have
been utmost folly to attempt what we did. We knew that we could fall back
on the more than 130 Catholic Charities agencies throughout the rest of
the country. Thus, although we had little or nothing in the way of material
and physical resources on hand, we did know that once the program got
moving we had places to turn to for help. This unique capability of the
Catholic Welfare Bureau was the source of our confidence in accepting the
responsibility for such a program and in offering leadership to the com-
munity in what was recognized as a serious problem to be faced. History
would testify that this confidence was not unfounded.
So it was that during the month of December we waited in Miami as
people made preparations for the Christmas holidays. Christmas Eve was
a Saturday and our offices were closed when I received word that the first
of the children might be arriving the next day. The staff had dispersed for
the long weekend, and I could not get in touch with our social workers. I
had no idea how many children would come in the next day. Any children
who came in could be taken to St. Joseph's Villa even if they had to sleep
on the floor the first night. There was little else that we could do. The mat-
ter was complicated by the holidays, the shortness of time, the unknown
number of children, and above all by the lack of communication with the
people in Cuba. We were sure that if the authorities there got any wind of a
mass movement of unaccompanied children, they would clamp down
right away and ask questions afterward.
As I drove home that afternoon the enormity of the task ahead slowly
dawned on me. What would we do if all 200 arrived within the next couple
of days? There would not be time to gear up the program, open up the
buildings at Kendall, hire the necessary staff. We could do all of these
394 JOURNAL OF INTER-AMERICAN STUDIES AND WORLD AFFAIRS
things, if we had time. Even a slow buildup over a couple of weeks would
be all the time that we needed. Once we got the children moving out of
Miami to agencies around the country it would become routine. As I drove
home, the faith with which I had made the promise to Jirn Baker was justi-
fied and God gave me a solution to the immediate problem, the first of
many such answers to prayer in the months and years to come. My way
home took me by Assumption Academy, a private girls' boarding school
run by the Sisters of the Assumption. I had never been in the place, but I
realized suddenly that the school would be empty for the holidays and that
about 200 children could be accommodated there, even if they all came on
the same flight. I stopped and went in to make my plea. Mother Elizabeth
was most responsive and agreed to allow us to use the school, providing
everyone could be out by the sixth of January. I remember her remarking
that she could not refuse such a request on Christmas Eve. She did not
realize that many would be teen-age boys and I did not tell her. As it
turned out, we never had to place boys there and the few girls we did place
there were out by 6 January.
Later that same day I went to St. Joseph's Villa to see what we could
do there. We worked it out so that ten or twelve boys could be accom-
modated there, at least overnight. Our imrnediate problem was solved. We
had places to take the children from the airport. Yet we were caught be-
tween two conflicting desires. On the one hand we hoped that not too many
would come in at the same time or even the same day, and on the other
hand we wanted to see the children cet out of Cuba. Over all loomed the
specter of 1 January, the second anniversary of Fidel Castro's assumption
of power. There was nothing else we could do that day, except wait for
the word from Cuba and for the first children to arrive.
After Christmas we could begin to implement other plans. We would
request that the County Welfare Department turn over to us the facilities at
Kendall. We would also begin the task of opening up a large house at 175
S.F. 15 Road, across the street from the Assumption Academy, which had
been offered to us by Mr. Maurice Ferre, a Puerto Rican industrialist in
Miami whose grandparents came from Cuba. This would become our first
all -Cuban receiving home for teen-age boys, since we knew that neither the
Sisters of the Assumption nor St. Joseph's would welcome teen-ag,e boys.
But on Christmas Day none of this could be done.
Christmas Day 1960 was as usual in Florida —warm. About 11:00
a.m. I was ablc to locate Mrs. Louise Cooper, one of our social workers,
as she came home from Mass. I asked her to go to the airport with me to
meet the two flights expected that afternoon, Pan Am's Flight 422 and
National's Flight 452. By this time we ourselves had become emotionally
CUBAN REFUGEE CHILDREN
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record in connection with
item PZ.10 on 07/25/13
Todd B. Hannon
City Clerk
395
involved in the race against the 1 January deadline. No longer were we
simply a social agency concerned about a community problem. We were
now sharing the worries of families we did not even know, hundreds of
miles away in a life and death struggle in the Cold War. Our excitement
rose as time drew near for the first of the flights to arrive.
No children were aboard.
All our anticipation, worry, planning were held in abeyance as we
awaited the second flight. No children arrived that day.
We were deeply disappointed. But we did accomplish one thing that
Christmas Day. We made arrangements to work with the officials of the
U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service and to involve them in iden-
tifying the unaccompanied children arriving on Cuban flights. For some
twenty-two months this would be a daily contact. The officer in charge at
the airport was Mr. Patrick Crowley and from him and his staff we were
to receive the very finest cooperation.
The next day, 26 December, Mrs. Cooper returned to the airport vigil
while I began the task of opening up Kendall and the 15th Road opera-
tions. We took possession of Mr. Ferre's house and began the struggle to
get the necessary clearances from the Zoning Department, the Health De-
partment, the Fire Department, and the Building Department, a struggle
that we would repeat many times in the years to come. After much discus-
sion, we finally convinced these public officials that we were trying to help
the community and that we needed their help to solve the problems and
overcome the difficulties. Often it seemed that the purpose of the appli-
cable rules was to impede rather than to help.
Finally, we got all the necessary clearances to use Ferres house as a
reception center for teen-age boys, although the Fire Department would
not allow anyone to sleep on the second floor until a fire escape was in-
stalled. We could not argue with this. I sent a man and a truck down to
Camp Matecumbe, a summer youth camp owned by the Diocese of Miami
in south Dade County, to borrow bunk -beds, tables, and chairs. We made
arrangements for some household supplies and Mother Elizabeth of As-
sumption Academy agreed to allow our boys to eat lunch and supper in
the school dining room. Breakfast we could handle in the house.
The 26th of December also brought several requests for placements
of children already in Miami. Some of these were children on Mr. Baker's
list who already had tourist visas and whose parents had decided not to
wait for the student visas as time began to run out. They had been staying
with friends in Miami who had put them up for a few days. At the airport,
Mrs. Cooper waited for the plane from Cuba. This time her watch was not
in vain. On the second flight, late in the evening, the first children arrived
396 JOURNAL OF INTER-AMERICAN STUDIES AND WORLD AFFAIRS
and she took them under care, bringing them to St. Joseph's Villa. Thus it
was that Sixto Aquino and his sister, Vivian, were the first unaccompanied
children actually taken under care by the agency. The waiting was over
and the Cuban Children's Program and Operation Pedro Pan were under
way.
No new children came on the 27th. Two came on the 28th, none
on the 29th. There were six on the 30th and 12 on the 31st. All these were
met at the airport and taken under care. However, none of them had a stu-
dent visa, and we could not understand what was delaying the operating of
Mr. Baker's plan. The mass influx that we had both feared and hoped for
did not materialize.
On 29 December the first boys moved into the Ferre house, which was
informally christened "Cuban Boys Home," We still were without staff as
such. Mr, Raymond McGraw, a social worker with the Catholic Welfare
Bureau, was drafted as temporary housefather, alternating with me while
the search for hcuseparents went on.
The time had come to make a formal request that the government im-
plement Mr. Voorhees' report of 19 December to President Eisenhower.
As far as the Catholic Welfare Bureau was concerned, the program had
already gone beyond what "private charity could do." On 29 December
Mr. Jones of the Welfare Planning Council and representatives of the three
voluntary child -welfare agencies and the Florida State Department of
Public Welfare met with Mr, Leo C. Beebe, special assistant to Mr. Voor-
hees, at the Cuban Refugee Center to discuss the situation.
The Cuban Refugee Center had been opened by Mr. Voorhees on 2
December 1960 in the old administration building of the Dade County
Board of Public Instruction, 223 N.W. Third Avenue. Mr. Beebe had been
borrowed by Mr. Voorhees from the Ford Motor Company and was at that
time acting director of the center. The results of that meeting were sum-
marized in a letter sent by Mr. Jones to Mr. Beebe. In addition, he reported
that the agencies concerned felt that the situation as it existed then fell
within the terms of the commitment made by Mr. Voorhees in his Interim
Report of December 19. He requested the implementation of contractual
arrangements between the licensed child -welfare agencies and the federal
government for the care of dependent Cuban children.
We knew that we were breaking new ground with this request Never
before had the U.S. government funded foster care of refugee children in
the United States. Previous child refugee programs had been supported by
private organizations, church groups, and individual donations. Nobody in
Mr. Voorhees' office seemed to know how the recommendation made by
him on 19 December should be implemented.
CUBAN REFUGEE CICLDREN
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item PZ.10 on 07/25/13
Todd B. Hannon
City Clerk
397
Finally, about the middle of January 1961, provision was made for
the funds to be channeled to the child welfare agencies through the
voluntary national resettlement agencies, such as Cathofic Relief Ser-
vices. It was the middle of February, however, before the first monies
actually reached us, by which time we were almost 5100,000 in debt.
The financial base of the Cuban Children's Program was finally guar-
anteed on 1 March 1951 when contracts were signed between the three
child welfare agencies and the Florida State Department of Public Wel-
fare, acting as the agent of the U.S. Department of Health. Education, and
Welfare. These contracts provided for the reimbursement of the agencies
on a per diem per child basis at the rate of 56.50 per day for institutional
care and $5.50 per day for foster care. These funds were for the care of
the children in the United States. Operation Pedro Pan was funded by
donations such as those referred to by Mr. Campbell in his letter.
Meanwhile, on Friday, 30 December, at about 6:30 a.m. I was
awakened by a telephone call from Havana. To my surprise, the caller
was Jim Baker. We had agreed not to call each other directly, since as a
U.S. citizen in Cuba, he was in a very vulnerable position. He explained
very briefly that the U.S. Embassy was holding up the issuance of stu-
dent visas and that I was to call Mr. Frank Auerbach, of the Visa Section
in the U.S. Department of State in Washington, D.C., for details of the
trouble. As soon as the office opened at 9:00 a.m. I called Mr. Auerbach
and told him of the call from Havana and of our keen interest in the
matter. He told me that he would personally look into the matter and
return my call as soon as possible.
Within a few hours Mr. Auerbach called and advised me that the
U.S. government was willing to issue the two hundred student visas re-
quested by Mr. Baker's group, with one condition: a recognized and
established organization in the United States would have to assume ulti-
mate responsibility for the children. The Catholic Welfare Bureau would
be most acceptable to the Department of State, as it was a licensed child
welfare agency. This was the only way that the visas could be issued, since
the U.S. government could not accept this responsibility. Mr. Auerbach
knew that our agency had been promised funds by the government; never-
theless, he had to have an unconditional statement from us accepting
this responsibility. A new element was thus introduced into the problem
and I was faced with the moment of decision.
The rumors were strong in Cuba and in Miami that no children
would be allowed to leave Cuba after 1 January. If so, these children
would have to leave Cuba within two days. There was no time for con-
sultation. 1 decided to sign the required statement on my own authority
398 JOURNAL OF INTER-AMERICAN STUDIES AND WORLD AFFAIRS
and to accept the consequences if the whole thing backfired. Mr. Auer-
bach asked me to send him two copies of the statement, mailing one to
his office and one to his home because of the holidays. He promised to
authorize the visas as soon as he had one of the copies in hand. Within
the hour the copies were in the mail Special Delivery.
Time was running out, but not in the way we had expected. 1 January
1961 came and went with no new law about children. Castro did not
cut off the exodus of Cuban children; instead he demanded that the U.S.
Embassy staff in Havana be reduced to the size of the Cuban staff in
\'Vashineton, from 120 to 15 persons. This brought a quick reaction in
Washington from the President and on 3 January the United States broke
diplomatic relations with the Cuban government. The Embassy in Havana
and the Consulates in Havana and Santiago de Cuba were shut down,
leaving no place in Cuba where people could secure visas for travel to
the United States. For us it seemed to mark the end of Operation Pedro
Pan. No unaccompanied children arrived in Miami on 1, 2, or 3 January.
Our hopes revived when four came on the fourth.
The departure of the U.S. Charge d'Affairs was the signal for most
U.S. citizens to leave also. Mr. Jim Baker and his wife arrived in Miami
on 5 January. He told us that there had been delays in getting the visas
for the children, due to the number of requests, the slowness of com-
munications with Washington, and the surveillance by the secret police.
Nevertheless, at the last moment, as the Embassy was being shut down
and the staff were actually burning papers in the traditional manner, he
was allowed to stamp twenty-five passports himself.
To all of us who met that day in the Catholic Welfare Bureau, it
seemed that the hopes of Mr. Baker and his friends to help Cuban parents
send their children to the U.S. were now finished, since no more visas
could be given in Cuba. In the general gloom as we all shared Mr. Baker's
disappointment, there were two bright spots —children could still come
if they had visas since the rumored law had not materialized, and the
Cuban Children's Program was in operation. We could now return to
our primary responsibility —the task of developing the program for the
children already in Miami who needed care. That same day, Mr. Baker
became a temporary housefather at the Cuban Boys Home, in the old
Ferre house on S.E. 15th Road.
THE "VISA WAIVER"
The closing of the U.S. Embassy marked the end of the first phase
of the Operation Pedro Pan. Despite our disappointment, we quickly
proceeded with our plans for the Cuban Children's Program to meet the
needs of the many children already in Miami who we knew needed our
Submitted into the public
record in connection with
item PZ.10 on 07/25/13
CUBAN REFUGEE CHILDREN Todd B. Hannon 399
City Clerk
care. We also knew that we could still expect many more children from
Cuba, since a great many Cuban families had passports, with multiple
entry Tourist B1 Visas. As soon as their parents knew that care was
available in Miami these children would come. We had much to do. New
staff had to be recruited, houseparents for the Cuban Boys Home and
for Kendall, cooks and janitors, social workers, clerks and typists, and
a good bookkeeper. I believe that it was at this point that we made a
decision which was to be very important for the administration of the
program in the future. The Cuban Children's Program became a com-
pletely separate department of the Catholic Welfare Bureau, with its own
staff directly responsible to the executive director. The original purpose
of this was to protect the regular program of the Catholic Welfare Bu-
reau from being swallowed up in the new project. It also meant that the
regular programs were not affected by the periodic evaluations and audits
carried out by agencies of the federal government.
Mrs. Louise Cooper was the first person formally assigned to the
Cuban Children's Program. We were also able to locate a Cuban man
as a resident housefather at the Cuban Boys Home. This man, Angel
Carrion, was to become so identified with the home that it became known
as "Casa Carrion" to hundreds of Cuban youths. In a few weeks he was
joined by his wife, Nina. The first houseparents at Kendall were Mr. and
Mrs. Fernando Pruna. Since the vacant buildings there needed some re-
pairs and maintenance to make them habitable, the county welfare gave
us temporary use of Cottage No. 1 in their main complex. Because it
was located right in the middle of their own operations close to their
home for the aged, this proved less than satisfactory, and at once there
were complaints that the Cuban children were noisy and undisciplined.
In the meantime Mr. Baker had not given up on his plans to help
those children caught in Cuba without visas. He had organized a group
of trustworthy friends in Havana to keep up the effort at that end. A
plan was devised which would allow them to send children to Kingston,
Jamaica, traveling on a visa granted by the British Embassy in Havana.
They would then be given a visa for the United States by the Consul
General in Kingston and from there come to Miami. For this we needed
the cooperation of the British government and the assurance that there
would be no long wait in Kingston for the U.S. visa. We would also
need a place for the children to stay at least one night there. We thought
the plan worth trying, even though it would be slower and more expen-
sive than the direct Havana to Miami route. However, it would also give
the impression to the Cuban authorities that the children were going to
Jamaica to school and not to the United States. y v
The month of January proved critical in the development of our
400 JOURNAL OF INTER-AMERICAN STUTHES AND WORLD AFFAIRS
two programs, the Cuban Children's Program and Operation Pedro Pan.
Each day brought new developments. By the end of the month the pro-
grams were well under way and there would be no fundamental change,
despite the fantastic growth and development, in either one. It was then
that I began to keep a diary covering most of the month. Each night,
when I was ready to go to bed, I used a dictaphone to record the major
happenings of the day. The following chronicle is based on this record,
supplemented by appointment books and other records in the files of the
Catholic Welfare Bureau.
Friday, 6 January: Mr. Baker, Mrs. Cooper, and I gathered in my
office at the Catholic Welfare Bureau to discuss the situation. Mr. Baker
told us about the last days in Havana, the difficulties in getting visas for
the children's passports. We discussed the prospect for the future and
Jim Baker talked about his Jamaica plan. We decided to call Mr. Frank
Auerbach, our contact at the State Department in Washington. He was
interested, and since I was scheduled to be in Washington on the 8th to
attend the White House Conference on the Aging as a Florida state dele-
gate, Mr. Auerbach invited me to call him on my arrival. Since it would
be Sunday, he asked that I call him at home, which I took to be another
sign of his great interest in our program. Seven children came today.
Saturday, 7 January: I spent this day at the Boys Home, helping to
get it organized, getting to know the youngsters. Two more children
arrived at the airport.
Sunday, 8 January: I flew to Washington and upon arrival, I called
Mr. Auerbach as he had asked. He made arrangements for me to meet
him outside one of the side doors of the State Department at 2:00 p.m.
It was a bright, cold winter afternoon, and the streets around the State
Department were completely deserted. Somehow the weather, the day,
the time, the happenings of the past weeks all combined to create an
atmosphere of intrigue and conspiracy. Promptly at two, Mr. Auerbach
drove up and we met for the first time. We entered the building and
walked along deserted corridors to the office of Mr. Robert F. Hale,
Director of the Visa Office, who was waiting for us. We spent about
three hours discussing the possibility of bringing the children out via
Jamaica on the two KLM flights a week among other possibilities. It
was then that I heard for the first time the words "visa waiver." is
ls Hearing Before the Subcommittee to Investigate Problems Connected with
Refugees and Escapees of the Committee of the Judiciary, U.S, Senate, 87th. Con-
gress, First Session, December 6, 7, 13, 1961.
"When thc United States broke off diplomatic and consular relations with
Cuba on January 3, 1961, the closing of the Embassy at Havana and the Consulate
Submitted into the public
record in connection with
item PZ.10 on 07/25/13
CUBAN REFUGEE CHILDREN Todd B. Hannon 401
City Clerk
Mr. Auerbach proposed at our meeting that on the petition of the
Catholic Welfare Bureau, the State Department would grant visa waivers
for children coining directly from Cuba. This would enable the airlines
to board them in Havana on direct flights to Miami without running the
risk of a fine of S1,000 in each case for bringing a passenger to the United
States without a valid visa. The question was whether the Cuban au-
thorities would cooperate in allowing such a child to leave. This we
could only find out by trying. At any rate, it offered another way of
continuing Operation Pedro Pan.
The meeting ended on the following note. The State Department
would take up the question of visa waivers with the Justice Department
early the following morning. The matter of transit visas for Jamaica
would also be discussed with the British Embassy. I was to check with
the Church in Jamaica on the possibility of enlisting its help in meeting
the children in Kingston, getting them to the U.S. Consulate, putting them
up overnight, and then sending them on to Miami the next day. As soon
as Mr. Auerbach had any news be was to call me at my hotel. He asked
that I wait for the call on Monday and not attend the meetings of the
White House Conference on the Aging. In Miami, two more children
arrived.
Monday, 9 January: I called the Diocese of Kingston in Jamaica by
telephone the first thing in the morning and talked to Father William A.
Connolly, the chancellor. I told him that we needed his help for Cuban
children and he thought that something could be worked out, since they
had both a boys' and a girls' boarding school. He also told me that they
were beginning to get some Cuban refugees. He would talk to the Bishop.
I told him that as soon as I got clearance, I could fly down and discuss
details with him and explain completely what we had in mind. I then
called our office in Miami and asked our Supervisor of Child Welfare,
Miss Rachel Erwin, to be ready to go to Jamaica with me the next day,
Tuesday, 10 January. The KLM flights came in on Tuesday and Thurs-
day and I wanted to be in Kingston on the next flight.
During the afternoon I received the call I was expecting from the
at Santiago shut off the means of escape for the thousands of Cubans besieging these
offices for Visas. Relatives, friends, and social agencies soon began to ask the De-
partment of State to take emergency action in behalf of these peoples.
"As a matter of sound and humanitarian national policy, and in keeping with
the traditional role of the U.S. as a haven for those fleeing persecution, the Depart-
ment concluded that it should ask the Department of Justice to act jointly in waiv-
ing the visa requirement. pursuant to Section 212 (d) (4) (A) of the Immigration
and Nationality Act, in individual cases involving specific elements of unforeseen
emergency." Testimony of Robert F. Hale. Director, Visa Office, Department of
State.
402 JOURNAL OF INTER-AMERICAN STUDIES AND WORLD AFFAIRS
State Department. We were given the go-ahead on both proposals. We
could bring the children out by way of Kingston on British visas, and
then cometoMiami on visa waivers. We could also try to bring them
out directly from Havana on visa waivers, We were given a very big con-
cession regarding the visa waivers which was to make our program of
distribution in Cuba much easier. This was blanket authority to issue
visa waivers to all children between the ages of six and 16, For children
between 16 and 18 years of age, we would have to submit their names
and birthdates to Washington for prior security clearances. We could
not do anything for a child under six nor for anyone over 18. All of
this was verbal; we had nothing in writing.
I immediately called Miami to confirm the trip to Kingston for the
next day and to let Jim Baker and Mrs. Cooper know the new possibili-
ties we had. That same evening I flew back to Miami. Meanwhile, Mx.
Baker called his contacts in Havana and told them to call on the British
Embassy for help. Copies of Mr. Baker's lists were brought up to date,
so that Miss Erwin could take them with her to Kingston the next day.
Our flight was scheduled for 8;30 a.m. so everything had to be prepared
at once. Three more children arrived today.
Tuesday, 10 January: I met Rachel Erwin at the airport and we
boarded the BWIA flight for Jamaica. Rachel was rather upset when she
learned that we would be flying over Cuba. She wondered how we would
explain away all the lists of Cuban children we were carrying if by chance
we made a forced landing. We landed safely, however, in Kingston and
were met by Father Connolly, who took us to lunch at the bishop's house.
There we gave them full details of our mission. Father Connolly had
already talked to the principals of the two boarding schools, St. George
College and Immaculate Conception College. The principal of the latter
was Mother Lucy, former principal of Corpus Christi School in Miami
and a blood -sister of Mother Patrina who had been with me in Home-
stead for several years. Bishop McEleney, the Bishop of Kingston, as-
sured us that we would have full cooperation.
Next stop on our schedule was to return to the airport to see the
arrival of the KLM flight from Havana. While we were waiting, a Cuban
man came up to me and asked if I was there to meet the children from
Cuba. Needless to say his question was a shock, since the whole Opera-
tion Pedro Pan was supposed to be a secret and we were trying to avoid
giving the Cuban authorities the impression that there was a wide -scale
organized effort to help children leave the island. We were sure that this
would bring about reprisals against parents and others in Cuba who were
cooperating. I tried to look innocent and told him that we were simply
CUBAN REFUGEE CHILDREN
Submitted into the public
record in connection with
item PZ.10 on 07/25/13
Todd B. Hannon
City Clerk
403
curious to see the flight. But by now we were beginning to feel that we
were really involved in an international intrigue. We then went to see the
two boarding schools where the children would stay and where we were
to spend the next couple of nights, Miss Erwin at Immaculate Conception
and I at St. George.
Back in Miami two more children came. We learned that the friends
left behind in Havana by Mr. Baker were deliberately sending out the
children in small numbers so as not to attract attention.
Wednesday, 11 January: Father Connolly, who was by now as en-
thusiastic and as emotionally involved in the project as we were, took
us to meet the U.S. consul general and the managers of Pan American
and KLM airlines. The consul general had been alerted by the Depart-
ment of State and had already talked to the Jamaican officials and se-
cured their full cooperation. By noon, we had done all we could and
Father Connolly took us sightseeing for the afternoon.
Thursday, 12 January: I returned to Miami, leaving Rachel Erwin
in Kingston to wait for the first children to arrive. She and Father
Connolly met the KLM flight on the chance that some children might
be on it, but there were none.
Friday, 13 January: After almost a week's absence, I found myself
back in the office. It had been a very fruitful week —each day two or
three children had arrived —and it looked as if our Operation Pedro Pan
was going to continue. There were urgent problems that needed settling
in Miami. We had a total of 50 children under care in three different
locations —the Cuban Boys Home, St. Joseph's Villa, and Cottage No. 1
in Kendall. They were for the most part teen-age boys.
The most urgent problem was school. Since it was the middle of
the year, both public and Catholic schools were refusing to enroll them
unless they had previously attended American -type schools and could
speak English. This posed few difficulties for those children who had
been pupils of Ruston Academy and the American Dominican Academy
in Havana and spoke excellent English, but many of the children had
attended Cuban schools. We spent much of Friday discussing what we
should do with them. Everyone was still hopeful that within a few months
these children would be able to return to Cuba.
Someone suggested that we should open our own school in Miami,
using Cuban teachers and following the Cuban secondary school curricu-
lum, the bachillerato program. I knew that the Centro Hispano Catolico,
located in the old Gesu School building, had empty classrooms. So I
made arrangements to meet with Sister Miriam, O.P., the Supervisor of
Social Services, there the next morning.
404 JOURNAL OF INTER-AMERICAN STUDIES AND WORLD AFFAIRS
Saturday, 14 January: This was a day of great activity in getting the
bachillerato program of the Centro Hispano Catolico organized. The fol-
lowing report was dictated by me that same evening and gives some idea
of how quickly we were able to get things organized to meet newly
identified needs. It should be remembered that all this took place in the
midst of great activity in the overall Cuban refugee program.
The problem of secondary education for Cuban refugee
children in Miami has been brought to a head by the fact that
the Catholic Welfare Bureau has 50 children under care as of
today. We have been faced with the problem of getting these
children in school; both Catholic and the public American high
school systems are unable to provide them with the type of
education they require. I was told last night that when these
children return to Cuba they will be required to begin their
secondary education all over again or at least at the point where
they left off upon their arrival in this country, The American
high school curriculurn is of no use to them as far as continuing
their Cuban education is concerned.
This morning I discussed plans with Sister Miriam of the
Centro Hispano Catolico specifically around the possibility of
establishing a Cuban secondary school at the Centro Hispano
Cau5lico. Sister's enthusiasm encouraged me and I asked about
the possilpility of having some of the Dominican Sisters who
have lately come from Havana assigned to this work. Sister
thought that there was a possibility. She told me that four
classrooms are available and a science laboratory at the Centro
Hispano Catolico and that we could get a program going there.
1 talked with Jim Baker, director of Ruston Academy,
about the possibility of this program and of getting Cuban
teachers to set up this bachillerato. He was enthusiastic in his
support. At nine o'clock this morning I called Bishop Carroll and
told him of our plans and asked his approval and his help in
getting the service of at least two Dominican Sisters who were
experienced in this work, He promised to call Mother Emman-
uel (the Provincial Superior of the Dominican Sisters of Al-
bany, who had operated the American Dominican Academy in
Havana until the break in diplomatic relations and who also had
operated the Centro Hispano Catalico) and ask for them.
At 2:30 p.m. the Bishop called me and told me we had the
go-ahead signal and that we could expect two Sisters, one of
whom would be Mother Daniel and the other Sister Ana Maria,
both of whom are in Miami at the present time. I then discussed
with the Bishop the opening date and at my suggestion the date
was moved up to Wednesday-, 18 January instead of the follow-
ing Monday which the Bishop had suggested. The report of this
has been given to the Voice for publication and on Monday the
Diocesan Superintendent of Schools, Monsignor William F.
CUBAN REFUGEE CHILDREN
Submitted into the public
record in connection with
item PZ.10 on 07 2L5111
Todd B. Hannon
City Clerk
405
McKeever. the former Director of Secondary Education of the
City of Havana. Dr. Ernesto Garcia Tuduri, Mr. Jim Baker,
and the Sisters will meet at Centro to complete arrangements,
the details and plans."
The same afternoon Jim Baker and I reviewed the plans for bring-
ing the children out of Cuba. The latest word from Havana was that the
British ambassador had agreed to stamp all the children's passports with
a British visa and that even the children who were to come directly to
the United States would be supposedly in transit to some British posses-
sion, such as Nassau, Bahamas. This was thought to give them a better
chance to leave Cuba without questions being asked, since the Cuban
government was anxious to maintain friendly relations with Britain. The
children would also have the visa waiver required for them to board the
plane. Today was the first in eight days with no new children arriving.
My former housekeeper in Homestead, Mrs. Mary L. Larkin, agreed
to come and act as housekeeper in the Cuban Boys Home, pending the
arrival of the new houseparents. I talked to Rachel Erwin in Kingston.
I asked her to return to Miami as she was more needed here than down
there. I felt that Father Connolly would be able to handle the program
at that end. She told me that they were expecting, according to KLM,
the first children to arrive 17 January.
Sunday, 15 January: Today we had a long discussion with the boys
at the Cuban Boys Home regarding the school they would attend. Many
of them were disappointed to learn that they would go to a Cuban school,
because they had heard that American high schools were easier and the
course a year shorter. I told them that if they were still here in Septem-
ber, they would all be in an American high school. One boy, a student
of Ruston, was to go to Archbishop Curley High School and some of the
younger ones to Sts. Peter and Paul Elementary School. No children
came today.
Monday, 16 January: I was in Tallahassee all day, but when I re-
turned, Mr. Baker reported to me that the meeting on the bachillerato
had been most fruitful and that no real difficulties stood in the way of
the program. One problem concerned textbooks. Word was sent to IIa-
vana to have the children bring their textbooks with them whenever
possible. There were two children on today's flight.
Tuesday, 17 January: Mr. Baker reported his first problems with
discipline at the Boys Home. Last night the boys had stayed up after the
usual lights out in an apparent test of authority and many had missed
breakfast, floing out to a restaurant without permission. Mr. Baker and
19 Bryan O. Walsh, unpublished diary.
406 JOURNAL OF INTER-AMERICAI STUDIES AND WORLD AFFAIRS
I talked to them and explained that we were in place of their parents
and that we would have to have their cooperation. At Mr. Baker's sug-
gestion we asked them to form a sort of Student Council who could
assist the house administration in matters of this sort. They elected one
of the quietest and least likely boys as their president. Baker and I dis-
cussed at length the whole question of rules and discipline, Cuban cus-
toms of child -rearing, the type and use of punishments and sanctions.
I felt that this would be where our first cultural clash would occur, both
in the house and in school. I was glad I had a few months the previous
summer in intercultural studies at the Catholic University of Puerto Rico.
It gave me at least some insight into what I could expect as well as an
elementary knowledge of Spanish, which was improving rapidly. One
child came today.
Wednesday, 18 January: This was registration day in the new pro -
gam at the Centro, and I took several of the boys to school myself and
introduced them to their new teachers. The program went well, and in
addition to our own children, several children living with their parents
or relatives took advantage of the opportunity offered.
We received word from Kingston that the first seven children had ar-
rived there the previous afternoon on schedule and would be coming to
Miami that same afternoon. Miss Ariela Carbonell, a new social worker
aide on our rapidly growing staff, accompanied me to the airport to meet
them on the 3:00 p.m. Pan Am flight. They were four girls and three
boys. three of them being brothers and sisters. Our work of the previous
week had not been in vain. At least seven children had managed to leave
Cuba without U.S. visas and arrive in the United States. One of the girls
had relatives waiting for her. Her brothers stayed with us, one forthe
Boys Home, and the younger one for St. Joseph's Villa. This was usually
the case. Relatives and friends would take the little girls, but no one
wanted teen-age boys. The other girls went to St. Joseph's Villa and the
boy to our home. Two more children arrived this same night on a direct
flight from Cuba.
Thursday, 19 January: The formal opening of the bachillerato pro-
gram was a Mass celebrated by Monsignor McKeever at which I preached
my first sermon in Spanish. Mrs. Larkin reported for duty at the Cuban
Boys Horne, where we now had 18 boys. This day we were also asked
by two people for help in getting the children of relatives out of Cuba.
We told them that we were working on a program, but that it would be
several weeks before we could do anything about it. We had decided to
work only with those we knew until we were sure that the system was
really working. One child came today.
CUBAN REFUGEE CHILDREN
Submitted into the public
record in connection with
item PZ.10 on 07/25/13
Todd B. Hannon
City Clerk
407
Friday, 20 January: The new bookkeeper for the Cuban Children's
Program was hired. He was Mr. Jesus Gonzalez, lately arrived from
Havana, who would in time become the head of the accounting office
of the Catholic Welfare Bureau and would make great contributions to
the success of the program. I also attended a meeting of the Welfare
Planning Council, the agency which had helped so much a month earlier
in requesting federal funds for our agencies. It was now in a major crisis
because of the failure of the United Fund. Its budget had been cut back
so badly that it was reduced to a staff of two, the executive director and
a secretary. This case illustrates the serious state of social welfare service
in Miami even without the refugee influx. The manager of the Pan Ameri-
can office in Havana visited our office and asked help for a child. The
child had a student visa but needed an I-20 immigration form to go
with it.
News came today that five more children had arrived the day be-
fore in Jamaica. A letter was also received from Father Connolly assur-
ing us that all was going very well. That end of the program seemed to be
working smoothly.
One child also arrived on the direct flight. There was some excite-
ment about the Jamaica group. Since one of the children would turn
eighteen on 22 January, she had to be in the U.S. by that date, or she
might face a long wait in Kingston for a regular visa. Children between
six and 18 coming through Kingston on our program were still being
admitted on the visa waiver. This girl was Sandra Carbonell, the sister
of a Catholic Welfare Bureau social worker aide. She made it just on
time, Sunday morning.
Our program was growing and I was concerned that there was no
sign of any funds from the federal government despite the promises of
Mr. Voorhees. On 18 January he had made his final report to Presi-
dent Eisenhower, who was going out of office. The new president was
John F. Kennedy, and with him came a new administration which we
hoped would be more responsive to the needs of the refugees. We were
existing on monies borrowed from other funds for day-to-day expenses
and the bills were beginning to pile up. Members of the Diocesan Chan-
cery personnel were getting nervous, since they really doubted that we
would ever receive any federal funds. The national Catholic refugee
agency, Catholic Relief Services, had established its offices in the Cuban
Refugee Center, and its programs for the resettlement of refugees was
now in operation. I knew that they too were depending on federal funds.
So I called the national director, Bishop Edward E. Swamstrom, for ad-
vice on how to shake loose the money. He offered to make the necessary
408 JOURNAL OF INTER-AMERICAN STUDIES AND WORLD AFFAIRS
contacts and later assured me that reimbursement would be forthcoming.
Saturday, 21 January: At Kendall we decided that we could accom-
modate about 100 children. We wanted to move the children out of
Cottage No. 1 and we also knew that we needed more staff. Among the
U.S. citizens who had come from Cuba after the break in diplomatic
relations were several Ursuline nuns, who had operated the Ursuline
Academy in Havana for many years. They were staying at the Assump-
tion Academy awaiting reassignment. I talked to Mother Thomas, their
Superior, and asked them to take over the Kendall operation for us. The
advantages seemed great. They were accustomed to dealing with Cuban
children. They spoke Spanish and yet they were Americans and therefore
used to working, in this country. The one difficulty was that this was the
pre -Vatican II era and their rules did not allow them to work with boys.
I went to the bishop for help. As always, he responded at once and went
to visit Mother Thomas that same evening and brought with him Arch-
bishop (now Cardinal) Vagnozzi, the Apostolic Deleaate, who was on
a short visit to Miami and greatly interested in the Cuban refugee situa-
tion. I was present. The bishop and the archbishop assured Mother
Thomas that times were different and that this was an emergency situa-
tion in which they had an obligation to help the people with whom they
worked for so long in Havana. We would get houseparents to assist them
with the boys. but they could supervise the whole Kendall operation. The
Ursuiines agreed to take over Kendall.
The buildings at Kendall consisted of three separate structures, a
girls' cottage, a double -wing boys' cottage, with kitchen and dining room
in the middle, and a new four -classroom building with plenty of recrea-
tion area around. It was about a mile from the main complex buildings
and thus suitable for an independent operation. We would not run into
conflicts with the county welfare programs which included a home for
the aged and a hospital in addition to the county children's home.
Sunday, 22 January: This was the busiest twenty-four hour period
yet in receiving children from Cuba. Seventeen children came into Miami
in the twenty-four hours ending at midnight Sunday, 11 directly from
Cuba and six from Kingston. Not all the children required care. Usually
about half of those arriving had some relatives or friends waiting for
them. However, almost as many already in Miami were requesting care.
Monday, 23 January: Nine more children arrived directly from
Cuba on visa waivers. The number of people coming to the office got
bigger every day as word spread in the Cuban colony that we had a way
of getting children out of Cuba. Fifteen children were taken into foster
care today, the biggest number to date.
CUBAN REFUGEE CHILDREN
Submitted into the public
record in connection with
item PZ.10 on 07/25/13
Todd B. Hannon
City Clerk
409
Tuesday, 24 January: We now had 24 boys in the Cuban Boys
Home. Slow progress was being made by the contractor in installing the
fire escape. All the boys were still sleeping downstairs. Even though we
could use the upstairs during the day for recreation, it was not a very
satisfactory arrangement. It would be another week before it was com-
pleted. I noticed that the boys were beginning to regard the house as
their home. Only three had requested permission to visit relatives over
the weekend, which was a change. The first days they could not wait to
get out of the house.
The bachillerato program continued to grow. As of this date 60
children were enrolled, of whom 30 were under the care of the Catholic
Welfare Bureau.
Mrs. Cooper, Mr. Baker, and I reviewed the program and we de-
cided that Mr. Baker and a friend would take over responsibility for the
airport details, meeting all the flights from Cuba and those from Kingston.
Because of the necessity for secrecy, we had minimum communications
with Havana and therefore we never knew what to expect. We had eight
more children who needed foster care this day.
From the beginning we had known that we could rely on the Catho-
lic agencies around the country to provide foster care for the children.
In December, Philadelphia Catholic Charities had agreed to accept 40
children under 12 years of age. Mrs. Cooper reported that the first five
would travel the next day. While this was a big help and the first break-
through in sending children to other dioceses, it was a limited answer.
We really needed placements for teen-age boys. But again the pattern that
was to prevail for the rest of the program was already apparent. Every-
one wanted little girls, and maybe little boys, but nobody wanted teen-age
boys and few were willing to take them.
This same afternoon I visted Kendall to inspect the operation there
in Cottage No. 1 arid to see what was being done to prepare the other
buildings.
Wednesday. 25 January: We had a staff conference, including the
houseparents, to draw up some general policies for the many teen-agers
we now had under care. Present were Sister Louis Gonzaga from St.
Joseph's Villa, Mr. and Mrs. Fernando Pruna from Kendall, Mr. Jim
Baker from the Cuban Boys Horne, Mr. Raymond McGraw, Mrs. Cooper,
and myself from the Catholic Welfare Bureau. Our problem was two-
fold: (1) we had rarely had a teen-ager under care before in the Catholic
Welfare Bureau and we never had had them in group care; (2) we had
the cultural differences and the problem of helping Cuban teen-agers
adjust to life in the United States. We considered items such as allow-
410 JOURNAL OF INTER-AMERICAN STUDIES AND WORLD AFFAIRS
ances, school expenses, clothing, purchases, visits of relatives, and visits
to relatives.
We received word that there would be a National Resettlement Con-
ference held in Miami the following, Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday to
boost the resettlement process. Among those invited were Catholic Chari-
ties Directors from all over the country. This would give us an opportu-
nity to push for foster -home placements, especially for teen-age boys.
Tonight we had our first medical emergency. One of the children
who had arrived the previous week and was staying with friends in Hia-
leah was knocked down by an automobile and hurt. He was in Hialeah
Hospital and the hospital needed medical authorization which his friends
could not give. I called Judge William R. Culbreath of the Juvenile
Court and he took jurisdiction, declaring the boy dependent, and gave
the necessary authorization to the doctor and the hospital. This was an-
other one for the policy manual, which was growing every day.
Thursday, 26 January: We purchased the first vehicle, a used car.
At the Cuban Boys Home we noticed the first signs of difficulty within
the group when one boy asked to be moved to a foster home, claiming
the other boys were picking on him. Up to now the boys had been nice
to each other since they all had felt themselves to be Cuban brothers
suffering together in exile. Now that they were beginning to settle in,
things were returning to normal "boy life." Today we took 14 children
into care —all new arrivals at the airport.
Friday, 27 January: This day I spent in the office catching up on
my correspondence. The rate of arrivals continued high with ten chil-
dren today.
Saturday, 28 January: The Cuban Boys Horne fire escape was fin-
ished today and we could now use the upstairs bedrooms. It was a short-
lived relief since 13 new boys arrived this same day and we had no beds
for them in Kendall. So we took them to the Boys Home where we now
had a total of 42. It was clear that we had to step up our efforts to place
children around the country.
Sunday, 29 January: The National Resettlement Conference got
under way on this day, and the delegates were greeted by some 2,000
Cuban refugees in Dade County Auditorium. The whole effort of the
conference was to convince the rest of the country that the refugees
posed n national problem and that Miami needed the help of the nation
in solving it.
One problem facing us was how to elicit this support for our Cuban
children without breaking our secrecy on Operation Pedro Pan. During
the conference we decided not to talk about the children, but to work
Submitted into the public
record in connection with
item PZ.10 on QZ/15/13.
CUBAN REFUGEE CHILDREN Todd B. Hannon 411
City Clerk
quietly with individuals who could help, especially the Diocesan Direc-
tors of Catholic Charities, most of whom, including the Secretary of the
National Conference of Catholic Charities, Monsignor John O'Grady,
were in Miami for the conference. Some of the media people, newspaper
reporters and the like, were beginning to get wind of what was going on.
We admitted to the presence of unaccompanied Cuban children, but
would say nothing about helping them get here. We did indicate that
the less said about that the better, since we were convinced that any
publicity would have quick repercussions in Cuba. Today was another
big day at the airport with 12 more children.
Monday, 30 January: The Secretary of the U.S. Department of
Health, Education and Welfare, Mr. Abraham Ribicoff, arrived in Miami
to look into the Cuban refugee situation on behalf of the new president.
I did not attend the public meeting because I did not want to talk publicly
about the children. The secretary asked for me and asked some questions
about child welfare needs and it was just as well that I was not present.
I made an appointment to meet with him privately, together with Bishop
Carroll and Sister Miriam from the Centro Hispano Catolico.
Tuesday, 31 January: At a closed meeting of the Catholic Relief
Services for their diocesan resettlement directors, I spoke at length about
the need we bad for foster family and group care for unaccompanied
children. I stressed the need for keeping secret our participation in getting
children out of Cuba.
One of the first dioceses to respond to our appeal was our neighbor
and mother diocese, the Diocese of St. Augustine, Florida. I met with
Father Sager and Father Lenihaa to discuss turning their St. John's
Youth Camp at Switzerland, Florida, into a home and school for teen-
age boys. Seven children came yesterday from Cuba and seven more
today.
Wednesday, 1 February: 1 met with Secretary Ribicoff and gave him
a written report of the children's program stressing our desire for no
publicity. In my report I wrote:
Current Siluation: For the last two weeks the program has
been functioning very smoothly. As of today 174 children have
come in (from Cuba). Of these 53 have been and are being
cared for by relatives and friends, the rest by the Catholic Wel-
fare Bureau except for two by the Jewish Family Service. Also
15 children who arrived earlier and had been living alone in
Miami have also been taken under care by the Catholic Wel-
fare Bureau.
Arrangements for Care; As of January 31st 120 children
were under the direct care of the Catholic Welfare Bureau in
412 JOURNAL OF INTER-AMERICAN STUDIES AND WORLD AFFAIRS
three group homes, three boarding schools, and some foster
homes. In addition 20 have been sent to the Catholic Children's
Bureau, Philadelphia. It is felt that only about 120 can be cared
for in Miami and therefore arrangements have been made to
have the children now arriving cared for under the auspices of
the Catholic Charities Bureaus throughout the country. Accom-
modations for more than the 510 currently on the list (Mr.
Baker's) are guaranteed.
Secretary Ribicoff told me that he had asked the Children's Bu-
reau to work with us on details of a purchase -of -care contract, which
would formalize the relationship between our agencies and the federal
government.
Thus it was, 39 days after the first fruitless wait at the airport on
Christmas Day, the Cuban Children's Program and Operation Pedro Pan
were now in full swing. We were taking care of children already in
Miami; we were helping children leave Cuba directly for Miami and via
Jamaica; we were placing children in foster care throughout the country;
and our relationship with the federal government was about to be placed
on a formal basis. Come what might our program was now on a firm
foundation.
We could not read the future. We still shared the common hope that
it would not be too long, maybe a year at thc most, until these children
could be reunited with their parents. We still were thinking in terms of
a few hundred children corning from Cuba. We were pretty sure that
sooner or later the Cuban authorities would discover what was going on,
and put a stop to the exodus. It was too early for us to realire that all
these assumptions would within a few months be proved wrong. In the
meantime, however, we had a job to do. The next period would be one
of expansion.
We would continue to grow in all aspects of the program during
the following 21 months. We would receive more than 14,000 children
at the airport. We would take 7,464 children under care. We would place
them in foster care in 35 states under the auspices of 95 different child
welfare agencies. We would set up three large reception centers in Miami
and establish two group -care facilities for teen-age boys in Miami with
a State Department of Public Welfare authorized population of 1,500
children and a total staff in Miami of 465 persons. We would do all of
this before the Cuban Missile Crisis shut off commercial air traffic on
22 October, 1962.
We were able to keep all of this out of the newspaper until 9 March
1962 when the Cleveland Plain Dealer decided to break the spirit of co-
CUBAN REFUGEE CHILDREN
Submitted into the public
record in connection with
item PZ.1O on 1:17j15/11
Todd B. Hannon
City Clerk
413
operation and prepared a story for publication. When all efforts to sup-
press the story failed, we agreed to a press release giving the basic story
but omitting all references to what was being done within Cuba.
Operation Pedro Pan ended with the October 1962 Missile Crisis,
but the work of caring for Cuban children was to go on for many years.
As this is being written we have completed ten years of operation. We
have a total of 165 children under care and have been operating more
or less at this same level since shortly after the Freedom Flights began
on 1 December 1965. The parents of our children were given priority
on these flights and within the first six months of the flights from Vara-
dero, the majority of our children had been reunited with their parents.
Today we continue to receive new children under care. The num-
bers are much fewer, but the program is the same. We offer care and
protection to unaccompanied Cuban refugee children and we expect to
continue to do this as long as there arc Cuban refugee children.
One of our recent cases was a seventeen -year -old Cuban boy, of
campesino background, who swam five miles across Guantanamo Bay to
the U.S. Naval Base in order to come to the United States. This boy was
five years old when Castro took over. All he ever knew was the Castro
regime. He is from the sector of the Cuban population which has been
identified as one of the chief beneficiaries of the Revolution. Yet he left
his family, which he dearly loves, and all that he knew. He came and his
family agreed to his coming, because they knew that he would be taken
care of here on his arrival.
Ten years after its inception the Cuban Children's Program con-
tinues to offer to Cuban parents and their children an alternative to
Communist indoctrination, and that choice is still being made after ten
years of indoctrination.
EPILOGUE
Sixto Aquino, who with his sister were the first children to come
on 26 December 1960, wrote me a letter dated 12 May 1971 in which
he describes those events:
As to our feelings on December 26, Vivian and I remember
being scared and sad and also to have had a sense of an adven-
ture about to begin.
After we left St. Joseph's Villa, we went to live at the home
of cousins of my mother's, Mr. and Mrs. Antonio Santos of
Hialeah, Fla. Vivian attended Immaculata and St. Patrick's
High Schools, graduating in 1963. Since, she has attended Char-
ron Williams Business School in Miami and the University of
Maryland. She married Eduardo Latour, a professional photog-
414 JOURNAL OF INTER-AMEFOCAN STUDIES AND WORLD AFFAIRS
rapher in 1967 and became the mother of a daughter, Vivian
in 1969. She is expecting a second child within the month.
I graduated from SL Patrick's High School, 1965, and en-
rolled at Georgetown University in Washington where I ob-
tained an A.13., Economics in 1969 and where I will shortly
obtain an M.A., Economics. I am presently working for the
Inter -American Development Bank.
CHRONOLOGY
1 January 1959 Castro assumes power in Cuba.
January 1959— Gradually increasing exodus of Cuban refuge -es
June 1960 to Miami,
29 June 1960 Foreign -owned oil refineries confiscated.
6 August 1960 U.S. sugar mills seized.
September 1960 Cubau refugees noticed in Miami. Meeting at
Centro Hispano Catolico to discuss means of
helping them.
14 October 1960 Urban Reform Law promulgated in Cuba.
October 1960 Series of community meetings to alert govern-
ment officials to needs of Cuban refugees.
November 1960 Mr. Tracy Voorhees is appointed by President
Eisenhower to look into Miami situation.
$1,000,000.00 in Mutual Security Funds is allo-
cated for emergency aid.
November 1960 First Cuban refugee child in need of foster care
is brought to the Catholic Welfare Bureau,
Cuban mother brings two children to Key West
and returns to Cuba.
22 November 1960 Welfare Planning Council of Dade County
adopts resolution calling for federal government
to establish a federally -funded program for Cu-
ban refugees.
2 Dezember 1960 Cuban Refugee Center in Miami opened by
U.S. government_
CUBAN REFUGEE CHILDREN
12 December 1960
15 December 1960
24 December 1960
25 December 1960
26 December 1960
29 December 1960
29 December 1960
3 January 1961
9 January 1961
25 January 1961
3 February 1961
22 October 1962
1 December 1965
415
Mr. James Baker from Havana is in Miami
seeking help for unaccompanied Cuban chil-
dren.
First list of unaccompanied children is received
in Miami from Mr. Baker.
Word received that first children would arrive
on 25 December.
No children.
First children arrived in Miami under Opera-
tion Pedro Pan.
First shelter for unaccompanied Cuban refugee
children in Miami is opened.
The Welfare Planning Council requests funds
from the federal government for the care of
Cuban children.
United States breaks diplomatic relations with
Cuba.
Visa waiver program approved by the State
Department.
First unaccompanied Cuban children to be re-
located out of Miami left for Philadelphia.
U.S. Department of Health, Education and Wel-
fare is assigned responsibility by President Ken-
nedy for all Cuban refugee programs.
Cuban Missile Crisis. Last commercial flight be-
tween Havana and Miami —the end of Opera-
tion Pedro Pan.
Freedom Flights between Varadero and Miami
begin with first priority for parents of unaccom-
panied Cuban children already in United States.
Submitted into the public
record in connection with
item PZ.10 on 07/25/13
Todd B. Hannon
City Clerk