6
Finally, the Russian ships turned around and the international crisis was defused. But in Cuba things did not go back to normal. All people like myself that had been in the process of leaving Cuba, plus many others that had been prompted to try to escape by the “missile crisis,” began looking for alternative ways of getting out. People lined up by the hundreds, day and night, at foreign country consulates, anxiously seeking nearly impossible to obtain visas to travel to those countries. I went to the Mexican consulate once and left in deep despair. People who could not claim a direct link to that country were being turned away, thus my chances of being able to leave in that manner were non-existent. My future life prospects were dim. I could not try to go back to school, for admission to the State universities would have required me to become a member of the Communist Party. So, I entertained myself by studying French and German at schools sponsored by the respective embassies, and read a lot, but tried to keep as low a profile as possible, always under the watchful eye of our block’s Comité de Defensa de la Revolución, the vigilante group that spied on us and our neighbors to ensure we did nothing proscribed by the state.
7
In the meantime, the United States and Cuba had been negotiating a resolution of the problem posed by the imprisoned 2506 Brigade members. Talks had been going on for a year and a half when, in the aftermath of the missile crisis, a deal was finally struck. In an effort financed by the U.S. Government and some private enterprises and fronted by Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt, Cuba agreed to release the prisoners and allow them and their immediate families to be transported to the United States in exchange for fifty-three million dollars’ worth of food. medical supplies, and tractors, which Castro touted as great benefits to Cuba from the deal. Ferries were engaged to bring the food, the tractors, and other supplies to Cuba. On their return, the same ferries would take the released prisoners and their families to Miami. The ferries, however, had more capacity than what was needed to take the prisoners back, and an addition was made to the deal. There were several thousand unaccompanied minors in U.S. government facilities, at great cost to this country and considerable pain to the children and their parents in Cuba. Space would be provided in the ferries for the children’s parents and underage siblings to come to the United States, under what became called the “family reunification program.” The Castro government agreed to this expansion of the deal, for it cost Cuba nothing and allowed it to get rid of a large number of undesirables.