Two spy suspects blended easily into community
Neighbors in Rene Gonzalez's apartment building in west Miami-Dade
started
a petition drive to get rid of a dictatorial property manager. When a
neighbor
knocked on Gonzalez's door to get his signature, Gonzalez readily agreed.
When it comes to spying among Cuban exiles, it helps to espouse a
strong
anti-Castro line.
It was the favored modus operandi of South Florida's most famous
spy,
Juan Pablo Roque, and as it turned out, also of his friend, Rene Gonzalez
Sehweret -- best known of the 10 people charged by the FBI with being
Cuban
spies.
Gonzalez, 42, sported the red, white and blue stickers of the exile
groups
Brothers to the Rescue and the Democracia Movement on his car. He was a
regular at anti-Castro demonstrations in the streets of Miami and on
flotillas
at sea. His commitment to la causa, the exile cause, was such that he rose
to
the rank of Democracia's undersecretary of air command.
He also flew Brothers missions to spot rafters, dropping food and
water
to refugees stranded in tiny barren islands.
All that time, the FBI says, Gonzalez was agent ``Castor'' or
``Iselin.''
His job was to monitor the activities of anti-Castro groups, including two
of
the most publicly active, Brothers and Democracia.
He was so convincing in his patriotic fervor that after his arrest,
Democracia founder Ramon Saul Sanchez hesitated to believe he was a spy.
``I'm shocked,'' Sanchez said. ``I find it hard to say bad things about
him.''
The then 34-year-old pilot told reporters he had been desperate to
leave
the island and had spent ``three months planning and years dreaming'' of
his
escape.
The opportunity came, he said, on a Saturday afternoon after he bid his
wife and daughter goodbye and set out to a flying school's practice field
at
San Nicolas de Bari in the outskirts of Havana.
Although he had lost his job there in 1988, Gonzalez said, he remained
friendly with the employees. With few field hands that day, he offered
himself
as a volunteer. During lunch, he was able to gain access to the control
tower
and shut off the radios and controls, he said.
Then he saw a small plane, an AN-2 Colt built in 1947, sitting on a
runway
and a mechanic asking for someone to park the plane.
``I offered,'' Gonzalez said.
He was ready to take off, he said, when two people got in the way. He
didn't want to run them over, Gonzalez said, so he decided to park the
plane
wrong. It worked, he said, because the mechanic told him to take it out
and
try again.
``I gave it power, let go of the brakes at full throttle until I left
Cuba
behind,'' he said.
And then this: ``I'll never forget the last I saw of Cuba,'' he told a
Herald reporter. ``The thermo-electric plant of Santa Cruz del Sur and the
beach at Jibacoa. I will never forget, but I think on that day what
influenced
me most was the fact I had already said goodbye in my mind so many other
times.''
When he spotted land, Gonzalez said, he had only about 10 minutes of
gasoline left.
``When I saw the Keys, I felt like Christopher Columbus,'' he said.
Gonzalez landed at Boca Chica Naval Air Station in Key West -- one of
the
military installations the FBI now says the spy ring was trying to
infiltrate.
With a story that had all the elements of heroism -- courage,
compassion,
feelings of love for the Cuban landscape, regret about having to leave his
family behind -- the daring Gonzalez had no trouble being accepted in
South
Florida.
And as an American citizen -- he was born in Chicago and raised in Cuba
--
he didn't even have to face immigration authorities. He simply produced a
birth certificate to prove his U.S. birth and said he was headed to
Sarasota
to be reunited with his grandmother.
Those who knew Gonzalez best now see questionable patterns in his
behavior
and remember strange coincidences.
And Sanchez now believes Gonzalez thwarted a mission to drop leaflets
in
Havana.
Three years ago, without revealing their true identity and intentions,
Democracia pilots had obtained permission from Cuba to fly over its air
space.
But when the Democracia plane approached the island, Sanchez said, Cuban
air
authorities unexpectedly denied access.
They had to return to Miami, mission aborted, Sanchez said.
After Roque turned up in Cuba following the Brothers shoot down,
Sanchez
thought it had been Roque who had revealed their identity to Cuba that
day.
Now he suspects it was Gonzalez.
Gonzalez's neighbors at 8000 SW 149th Ave. also have few doubts he was
a
spy. Someone spray-painted a gray hammer and a sickle above the front door
of
Gonzalez's apartment A-403.
Fantastic story
Daring flight
Probable connection