Manhattan's Grand Central Station with a dozen incendiary devices and
500 kilos of TNT
Castro and Che's Foiled (and Forgotten) 9/11
Humberto Fontova Saturday, May 7, 2011
"I'm proud of the path of Osama bin Laden," gushed Ilich Ramírez Sánchez
from a French prison in 2002. Ramirez was also known during the 1970's
as "Carlos the Jackal," and "The World's Most Wanted Terrorist." In 1967
Ramirez-Sanchez was an eager recruit into Cuba's "guerrilla" (terror)
training camps started by Che Guevara in 1959. "Bin Laden has followed a
trail I myself blazed," he continued during an interview with the
London-based pan-Arab daily Al-Hayat. "I followed news of the September
11 attacks on the United States non-stop from the beginning. I can't
describe that wonderful feeling of relief!"
"We will bring the war to the imperialist enemies' very home," raved
Carlos the Jackal's idol and spiritual mentor (Che Guevara) in his
Message to the Tri-Continental Conference in 1966, "to his places of
work and recreation. The imperialist enemy must feel like a hunted
animal wherever he moves. Thus we'll destroy him! These hyenas are fit
only for extermination. We must keep our hatred (against the U.S.) alive
and fan it to paroxysm!"
Fortunately, on Nov. 17 1962, J. Edgar
Hoover's FBI foiled the "war" Castro and Che had planned for us
"hyenas," in some of our favorite "places of recreation." On Saturday
morning, November 17th, 1962, FBI headquarters in Washington D.C. took
on "all the trappings of a military command post," according to
historian William Breuer.
As well it might have. The night before an intelligence puzzle had
finally come together. The resulting picture staggered the FBI men. And
these had served at their posts during WWII and the height of the Cold
War. They'd seen plenty. Now they had mere days to foil a crime against
their nation to rival Hideki Tojo's.
The agents and officers were haggard and red-eyed—but seriously wired.
Like hawks on a perch they'd been watching the plot unfold, sweating
bullets the whole time. It was nearing time to swoop down on Fidel
Castro and Che Guevara's agents, busy with a terror plot that would have
made Bin Laden drool decades later.
Alan Belmont was second to J Edgar
Hoover at the time. Raymond Wannall headed the Bureau's Intelligence
Division. That nerve-jangling morning both were in Belmont's office just
down the hall from Hoover's. Both were burning up the telephone lines to
their agents in New York. On one phone they had Special Agent John
Malone who ran the New York field office. On other lines they talked
with several carloads of FBI agents slinking around Manhattan. These
were keeping a touch-and-go, but more or less constant, surveillance on
the ringleaders of the Cuban terror plot.
Castro's agents had targeted Macy's, Gimbels, Bloomingdales, and
Manhattan's Grand Central Station with a dozen incendiary devices and
500 kilos of TNT. The holocaust was set for detonation the following
week, on the day after Thanksgiving.
A little perspective: For their March 2004 Madrid subway blasts, all 10
of them, that killed and maimed almost 2,000 people, al-Qaida used a
grand total of 100 kilos of TNT. Castro and Che's agents planned to set
off five times that explosive power in the three biggest department
stores on earth, all packed to suffocation and pulsing with holiday
cheer on the year's biggest shopping day. Macy's get's 50,000 shoppers
that one day. Thousands of New Yorkers, including women and
children—actually, given the date and targets, probably mostly women and
children—were to be incinerated and entombed.
At the time, the FBI relied heavily on "HUMINT" (Human Intelligence.) So
they'd expertly penetrated the plot, knew the plotters and had them
tapped. One by one the ringleaders were ambushed.
The first and most important was named Roberto Santiesteban and he was
nabbed while walking down Riverside Drive. As the agents closed in,
Santiesteban saw them and –took off! And as he ran, Santiesteban was
jamming paper in his mouth and chewing furiously.
But six FBI agents were after him, all fleet of foot themselves. Finally
they closed the ring and "triangulated" the suspect. Santiesteban fell,
raging and cursing, flailing his arms and jabbing his elbows like a
maniac. They grabbed his arm and bent it behind his back just as he was
reaching for his pistol.
While this group got their man (and a vigorous workout), another FBI
squad had the much easier task of arresting a couple named Jose and Elsa
Gomez-Abad as they left their apartment on West 71st Street. These two
gave in without a struggle. The FBI speculated that as many as 30 others
might have been in on the plot, but these were the head honchos. Had
those detonators gone off, 9/11 might be remembered as the SECOND
deadliest terrorist attack on U.S. soil.
Santiesteban and the Gomezes belonged to the Castro-Cuban Mission to the
U.N., and plead "diplomatic immunity." Other plotters belonged to the
New York Chapter of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee, an outfit that
became MUCH better known a year later on that very week.
"We greeted each other as old friends!" (Jimmy Carter describing his
visit with Fidel Castro last month.)
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