Tag Archives: Cuba

Tonight on CNBC: A Secret Flight to Freedom. A documentary on Operation Pedro Pan

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Tonight CNBC will broadcast Escape from Havana: A Secret Flight to Freedom, an original documentary on Operation Pedro Pan, which I wrote about earlier. Under Pedro Pan, between 1960-1962, a little over 14,000 children, were airlifted out of Cuba and sent to the US to “save” them from communism. The Secret Escape to Freedom covers the stories of six Pedro Pan evacuees . I admit I’m not impressed with the show’s description: It was at the height of the Cold War when Fidel Castro came to power in Cuba. It was supposed to be a democratic revolution, but Castro soon turned to communism and dictatorship. Rumors began to spread among the elites and middle class that Castro would take their children away. Throughout the island, parents panicked. Then, the U.S. offered a way out: it would conduct a secret airlift of Cuban children and bring them to America – without their parents. It was an unbearable choice between raising their children in the oppression of Castro’s Cuba, or setting them free to live in the land of freedom, never knowing if they would reunite. which fails to mention that Pedro Pan was a component of Operation Mongoose, a covert CIA Continue Reading →

HAITI CHILD EVACUATION: A NEW OPERATION PEDRO PAN?

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This is long, but I think it’s important. “Anon guy” was kind enough to post the following article from the Miami Herald as a comment on Haiti’s children to the Pat Robertson entry below this. I am posting it in its entirety: Church, immigrant groups plan to airlift Haitian orphans to South Florida”BY ALFONSO CHARDY AND SERGIO BUSTOS In a move mirroring Operation Pedro Pan in the 1960s, Catholic Charities and other South Florida immigrant rights organizations are planning an ambitious effort to airlift possibly thousands of Haitian children left orphaned in the aftermath of Tuesday’s horrific earthquake. “We will use the model we used 40 years ago with Pedro Pan to bring these orphans to the United States to give them a lifeline, a bright and hopeful future,” Catholic Charities Legal Services executive director Randolph McGrorty said at a news conference in the offices of Rep. Mario Diaz–Balart. “Given the enormity of what happened in Haiti, a priority is to bring these orphaned children to the United States,” he said. Archdiocese of Miami officials and other local organizations have already identified a temporary shelter in Broward County to house the children, McGrorty said. He also said they had been Continue Reading →