6. Cuba: An interview with Fidel Castro that wasn’t given (yet)

Gaby Weber

Gaby Weber (gw): It is well-known that it was Lothar Hermann who, after having survived the Dachau concentration camp and subsequently emigrating to Argentina, had discovered Eichmann in 1957. He had informed first the German prosecutor Fritz Bauer, who tried in vain to convince the Israeli government to take action. For many years nearly all Western intelligence agencies knew the place of Eichmann's residence: The German Bundesnachrichtendienst knew, as did the CIA which had hired former Nazis for the Cold War. Even the Mossad had hired, according to recently released CIA files, Walter Rauff, the inventor of the mobile gas chambers. Facing this lack of interest to detain a major Nazi War Criminal, Hermann also had informed anti-fascists in Argentina. Did this information come to Cuba, where in January 1959 the revolution had triumphed?

Fidel Castro (fc): hmm

Gw: Dictatorships always leave a problem: What to do with the murderers of the ex dictators? In most cases, democratic governments like to avoid this problem and they consider the efforts to find the truth and to do justice rather inconvenient. So, the responsibility for truth and justice falls in the hands of civil society. During these last years, especially in South America, the people found new answers, outing, "Escrache" in Argentina and "funa" in Chile –public demonstrations located where known but protected torturers were living. According to my investigation, at that time parts of the Argentine civil society also was dealing with the question of how justice could be done in the Eichmann case if all states showed only disinterest. But who could have asked Hermann and his friends to undertake something against Eichmann? Who could have reacted to that kind of request? The Argentine Left was, in general, not capable of a "penal action" against the war criminal. Eichmann and numerous known Nazis lived in Argentina without any fear. The political opposition was Peronist, who also had strong sympathies for the Nazis, and while the communists and socialists were talking about "revolution", but they did this, almost totally, in the coffee shops. But, there was one Argentine who had just made a real revolution. And that man’s father was one of the founders of the " Acción Argentina ", which had been brought to life during World War II, with support of the Allies, against the influence of the Nazis in Argentina. That man was Ernesto "Che" Guevara. His father, and later also the sons, actively took part in the anti-fascist fight of the postwar years, during the time when they lived in Alta Gracia, Argentina.

Fc: hmm

gw: Che and his father had different opinions concerning the Peronist movement. The father saw, for example, the coup d'état in 1955 against Perón as a liberation from autocracy, while, like other members of the family, Che Guevara considered Peronismus an anti-imperialistic force with heavy roots in the working class.

Fc: hmm

Gw: Anyway, the news of the appearance of Eichmann in Israel, announced by prime minister David Ben Gurion on the 23rd of May, 1960, probably produced a big astonishment in Cuba as well. What was known, over the years, in Cuba about the background of the Eichmann operation? Did Cuban agents supply information which cast doubt about the official Mossad version?

Fc: hmm

Gw: The transfer of Eichmann to Israel presumably involved William Mosetti, who from 1939 was manager of Standard Oil in New York and Buenos Aires and then, from 1943 on, in the U.S. army. After World War II, he went back to Standard Oil. And between 1960 and 1975 he was executive director of Mercedes Benz Argentina. Is it right that you have known him personally?

Fc: hmm

Gw: According to my research, Eichmann was lured to Uruguay and on the 21st of May, 1960 put on the El Al airplane to Israel. This action could not have taken place without the knowledge of U.S. Intelligence. In 1960, the CIA station within the U.S. Embassy in Montevideo was headed by Tom Flores and then by Ned Holman and Gerry O'Grady, writes the former CIA agent Philip Agee. Is it true that Agee lives nowadays in Cuba?

Fc: hmm

Gw: In 1965, another war criminal was kidnapped (from Brazil) and brought via a commercial flight to Uruguay, he was Herbert Cukurs (the " Butcher of Riga "). Cukurs was killed during the attempt and this affair made headlines throughout the region for months. It is mysterious that neither Philip Agee nor Manuel Hevia Cosculluela wrote about this in their books. Hevia, a Cuban citizen, worked undercover for the Cuban Intelligence Service, for eight years inside of the CIA in Montevideo. His reports are in the archives in Havana. In his book, "Pasaporte 11333", Hevia describes on page 64 how he joined the Uruguayan right wing scene and then "the Company." He mentions a " representative of Mercedes Benz who had come to test the candidates for the job, and I was among them (...) and he had a positive impression of me ". I suppose that Hevia is referring to Mosetti, executive director at that time of Mercedes Benz. Was it Mosetti who helped Hevia to infiltrate the CIA?

Fc: ¡Coño! (no translation)

Gw: The owner of Mercedes Benz Argentina, DaimlerChrysler in Stuttgart, has hired a Berlin professor, Christian Tomuschat, to write a report about how fourteen workers of the Mercedes plant disappeared during the Argentine dictatorship. In this so-called "Tomuschat report", the professor says - in order to defend the company against the fact that the Argentine army was its best customer - that also excellent relations had existed with Cuba and that Mercedes Benz Argentina had sold "special vehicles" to the island. What kind of business was this that U.S. citizen Mosetti, in times of the official American boycott, had done with Cuba?

Fc: Hmm

Gw: When will Cuba have laws regulating the access to information in Cuba? Openly grant access to general information like, for example, the Internet, as well as information of state authorities? Or does the Cuban government consider information private property which it must protect from its own people?

Fc: ¡ Coño!

Gw: Che Guevara once said: "the truth is always revolutionary ". And the experiences in the Real Socialism of Eastern Europe have proven that denying information inhibits consciousness. The CIA and Cuban exiles in Miami are trying for nearly 50 years, with all legal and illegal methods, to move Cuba to the return to capitalism. Who can prevent this? The Cuban government with all it’s policies of secrecy or the Cuban people? And which role promotes within itself the defense of historical truth which is, as we know, always revolutionary? When will Cuba release the documents referring to Nazi War Crime Criminals in Latin America, “penal actions” and Mercedes Benz Argentina etc.?

Fc: hmmmmmmmm