Spycraft - Melton [143]
SECTION V
PRISON, BULLET, PASSPORT, BOMB
CHAPTER 16
Conspicuous Fortitude, Exemplary Courage in a Cuban Jail
You are not expected to take anything with you in the field that would reveal your identity or in any way show that you are an agent of the government . . .
—U.S. Army order to an intelligence officer posted to Latin America in 19051
On September 8, 1960, three American businessmen stepped off a plane in Havana. The passports and tourist visas they presented to Cuban officials identified them as Daniel Carswell, age forty-two, an electrical engineer from Eastchester, New York; Eustace Van Brunt, thirty-four, a mechanical engineer from Baltimore, Maryland; and Edmund Taransky, a thirty-year-old electrical engineer from New York City.2
Along with their official travel documents, the three carried credit cards, driver’s licenses, and other pieces of identification confirming their identities. However, their names and all the material that supported their identities were fictions. TSD artists skilled in document fabrication and reproduction had created all the mundane contents of their wallets—“pocket litter,” in CIA parlance.3
Eustace Van Brunt was TSD engineer Thornton “Andy” Anderson, while Edmund Taransky was really Walter “Wally” Szuminski, an audio tech. The third tourist, traveling as Daniel Carswell, was Dave Christ (pronounced “Crist”). The most senior of the three, Christ had recently become head of TSD’s audio operations. In that capacity, Christ carried in his head worldwide knowledge of the CIA’s bugging capabilities, equipment, targets, and current installations.4
Cloaked in their false identities and a cover story, the trio entered Cuba on a weeklong mission to install clandestine listening devices. The target for the operation was not Cuban, but rather, the future embassy of a critical hard-target country. This rare opportunity was the result of Cuba’s decision to embrace diplomatically America’s adversaries.
The CIA learned where the embassy would be located and reached an agreement with the owner to allow Agency techs access to plant the bugs. Not only was the chance to install listening devices in a major target a golden opportunity, the plan was virtually risk-free. The owner could authorize access to his building to anyone, even three American tourists, at any time. No one would ask questions.
With open access to the building, the Christ-led team planned to conduct a thorough preinstallation survey and then work without fear of interruption. The team’s single concern lay with the Cuban government’s growing antagonism and suspicion toward the United States. Since American tourism to the once popular Caribbean island was becoming increasingly rare, the arrival of three Yankee engineers in search of tropical fun could very well attract the attention of Castro’s immigration or counterintelligence officials.
While Cuba was still presenting a welcoming façade in the summer of 1960, unsettling changes were occurring under Castro’s new government. During the eighteen months following the revolution, Cuba’s reputation as a Caribbean playground was in rapid decline. Refugees were streaming into Florida while Havana increasingly became a city of civil unrest. Protests, which Castro aggressively countered with mass arrests, were becoming more common. Businessmen, who had supported the deposed dictator, General Fulgencio Batista, were branded as potential counter-revolutionaries and growing increasingly fearful of their new government.
Despite these troubling developments, Castro’s true political orientation was still uncertain. In power less than two years, after seizing control on New Year’s Day in 1959, he continued to deny communist leanings, although his 1960 decision to embrace the Communist Chinese at the expense of the Taiwan government should have