WEBVTT 00:01.000 --> 00:05.000 BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. 00:05.000 --> 00:08.000 You're about to listen to Havana Helmet Club. 00:08.000 --> 00:10.000 New episodes will be released weekly, 00:10.000 --> 00:12.000 wherever you get your podcasts. 00:12.000 --> 00:13.000 But if you're in the UK, 00:13.000 --> 00:15.000 you can listen to the latest episodes a week early 00:15.000 --> 00:18.000 on BBC Sounds. 00:18.000 --> 00:20.000 One dollar make you happy. 00:20.000 --> 00:22.000 No fine, no happy people. 00:22.000 --> 00:24.000 Havana Syndrome is about things like 00:24.000 --> 00:28.000 espionage, weapons design, neuroscience. 00:28.000 --> 00:31.000 But all those things are subject to politics. 00:31.000 --> 00:33.000 And the political heart of our story 00:33.000 --> 00:35.000 isn't in Cuba or Washington. 00:35.000 --> 00:39.000 It's in the streets of Little Havana, Miami. 00:39.000 --> 00:41.000 We're just passing by in Cuba. 00:41.000 --> 00:42.000 In the old days, 00:42.000 --> 00:44.000 used to have peanut vendors in the street. 00:44.000 --> 00:45.000 Oh yeah. 00:45.000 --> 00:46.000 And there's even a song called 00:46.000 --> 00:48.000 El Manicero, the peanut man. 00:48.000 --> 00:50.000 Eat the peanut, happy people. 00:50.000 --> 00:52.000 One dollar, one dollar very good. 00:52.000 --> 00:53.000 This is Victor Trié, 00:53.000 --> 00:55.000 a Cuban-American historian. 00:55.000 --> 00:57.000 He's giving me a tour of the neighborhood 00:57.000 --> 01:00.000 founded by people who fled Castro's revolution, 01:00.000 --> 01:03.000 including Victor's own parents. 01:03.000 --> 01:05.000 Anybody who can get out gets out. 01:05.000 --> 01:07.000 And yet you still have people, you know, 01:07.000 --> 01:09.000 who go around with the Che Guevara t-shirts 01:09.000 --> 01:11.000 and the pro-Castro slogans 01:11.000 --> 01:14.000 because they fall for that myth of the revolution. 01:14.000 --> 01:15.000 I mean, if the revolution was so good, 01:15.000 --> 01:16.000 this neighborhood wouldn't exist. 01:16.000 --> 01:18.000 Trié says that a lot of these people 01:18.000 --> 01:20.000 had at first supported Castro. 01:20.000 --> 01:22.000 It was only when he began seizing property 01:22.000 --> 01:23.000 and suppressing dissent 01:23.000 --> 01:25.000 and cozying up to the Soviet Union 01:25.000 --> 01:27.000 that many got out while they could. 01:27.000 --> 01:29.000 There was like almost zero communication 01:29.000 --> 01:32.000 between the exile community and Cuba. 01:32.000 --> 01:34.000 The Cuban government wouldn't permit it. 01:34.000 --> 01:35.000 You would have to call an operator 01:35.000 --> 01:36.000 and then wait by your phone 01:36.000 --> 01:38.000 possibly two or three or four days 01:38.000 --> 01:40.000 until they got your relative in Cuba. 01:40.000 --> 01:43.000 They're, you know, basically their KGB 01:43.000 --> 01:44.000 would listen in on the calls. 01:44.000 --> 01:46.000 Any letters that were sent were opened. 01:46.000 --> 01:48.000 They would get to your relatives 01:48.000 --> 01:50.000 with glue on them very visibly. 01:50.000 --> 01:52.000 So the amount of communication was minimal. 01:52.000 --> 01:54.000 Eventually, the island itself 01:54.000 --> 01:56.000 became an abstract memory, 01:56.000 --> 01:59.000 an idea of a place preserved in amber. 01:59.000 --> 02:00.000 To me, Cuba had disappeared. 02:00.000 --> 02:02.000 To me, Cuba could have been in the South Pacific. 02:02.000 --> 02:04.000 It could have been the planet Krypton 02:04.000 --> 02:06.000 that blew up and our parents got away. 02:06.000 --> 02:08.000 But Cuba had not been blown away. 02:08.000 --> 02:11.000 It was still there, just 90 miles offshore. 02:11.000 --> 02:12.000 It could still be recovered 02:12.000 --> 02:15.000 and the exiles could do it with help. 02:15.000 --> 02:17.000 The new Cuban Americans, 02:17.000 --> 02:19.000 unlike most other immigrant communities, 02:19.000 --> 02:22.000 saw America more as a staging ground 02:22.000 --> 02:23.000 than a new home. 02:23.000 --> 02:25.000 They wanted to overthrow Castro. 02:25.000 --> 02:26.000 And to do that, 02:26.000 --> 02:28.000 they set about transforming themselves 02:28.000 --> 02:30.000 into a political force in Florida. 02:30.000 --> 02:33.000 When Havana Syndrome came along in 2018 02:33.000 --> 02:35.000 with its mysterious symptoms 02:35.000 --> 02:37.000 experienced by American spies and diplomats, 02:37.000 --> 02:39.000 it became the latest flashpoint 02:39.000 --> 02:41.000 and a hot topic for one Cuban American in particular, 02:41.000 --> 02:44.000 Marco Rubio, then a senator, 02:44.000 --> 02:45.000 now Secretary of State 02:45.000 --> 02:47.000 and the president's chief diplomat. 02:47.000 --> 02:48.000 People were hurt, 02:48.000 --> 02:50.000 and the Cuban government knows who did it. 02:50.000 --> 02:54.000 They just won't say, for some reason. 02:54.000 --> 02:57.000 Rubio catapulted Havana Syndrome 02:57.000 --> 02:58.000 from medical mystery 02:58.000 --> 03:01.000 to grand political conspiracy. 03:01.000 --> 03:04.000 To understand the power of Rubio's narrative alchemy 03:04.000 --> 03:07.000 and the implications for those trying to make sense of Havana Syndrome, 03:07.000 --> 03:10.000 we need to go way back before the first case, 03:10.000 --> 03:12.000 back to 1959, 03:12.000 --> 03:14.000 when a bunch of young Cuban guys 03:14.000 --> 03:16.000 landed on the shores of Miami. 03:16.000 --> 03:18.000 We wanted to go back to Cuba. 03:18.000 --> 03:20.000 We are the only country that can say that. 03:20.000 --> 03:23.000 We came to this country to go back where we came from. 03:27.000 --> 03:30.000 From BBC Radio 4, this is Havana Helmet Club. 03:30.000 --> 03:31.000 I'm Sam Bunge. 03:31.000 --> 03:52.000 I'm Jennifer Ford, and this is Episode 5, The Lobby. 03:52.000 --> 03:54.000 We knew that we had to fight. 03:54.000 --> 03:57.000 We knew there was not going to be a swimming competition 03:57.000 --> 03:59.000 or any other nation. 03:59.000 --> 04:02.000 I met Humberto Arguelles along with three of his friends 04:02.000 --> 04:05.000 who have all known each other since they were children in Cuba. 04:05.000 --> 04:08.000 They arrived in Miami in 1959, 04:08.000 --> 04:10.000 straight after the revolution, 04:10.000 --> 04:11.000 with one goal in mind, 04:11.000 --> 04:13.000 to take back their country. 04:13.000 --> 04:15.000 My father could not go and fight. 04:15.000 --> 04:17.000 My grandfather could not go and fight. 04:17.000 --> 04:19.000 It was my turn to go and fight. 04:19.000 --> 04:22.000 Still, overthrowing a regime must have seemed like a long shot 04:22.000 --> 04:25.000 to even the most idealistic among them. 04:25.000 --> 04:26.000 We were 18 years old, 04:26.000 --> 04:28.000 so we're not going to plan a revolution on the date of life. 04:28.000 --> 04:31.000 And we left Cuba with five dollars, 04:31.000 --> 04:34.000 literally five dollars on a small suitcase. 04:34.000 --> 04:36.000 They had been in the US for less than a year 04:36.000 --> 04:38.000 when, in the winter of 1960, 04:38.000 --> 04:41.000 word started going around about American-backed training camps 04:41.000 --> 04:45.000 for some kind of covert operation against Cuba. 04:45.000 --> 04:47.000 These men were interested. 04:47.000 --> 04:49.000 It sounded like someone, somewhere, had a plan. 04:49.000 --> 04:52.000 I was an engineering student at Georgia Tech. 04:52.000 --> 04:54.000 This is Rafael Montalvo. 04:54.000 --> 04:56.000 I was an honours student. 04:56.000 --> 04:57.000 I was doing really good. 04:57.000 --> 04:58.000 I had a job. 04:58.000 --> 05:00.000 And I left that. 05:00.000 --> 05:03.000 When I had to make the decision, it was a hard decision. 05:03.000 --> 05:05.000 It wasn't an easy decision. 05:05.000 --> 05:07.000 I went, there's a convent in Georgia, 05:07.000 --> 05:09.000 a Trappist monk convent, 05:09.000 --> 05:12.000 that I went in a retreat there for three days. 05:12.000 --> 05:13.000 The Trappist monks don't talk, 05:13.000 --> 05:15.000 so you have to be quiet for three days for a Cuban. 05:15.000 --> 05:16.000 That's very hard. 05:16.000 --> 05:18.000 That is a... 05:18.000 --> 05:19.000 I can't imagine it. 05:19.000 --> 05:20.000 Torture. 05:20.000 --> 05:23.000 I basically tried to answer this question, 05:23.000 --> 05:26.000 what is my duty here and what should I do? 05:26.000 --> 05:29.000 And I came to the conclusion by myself 05:29.000 --> 05:31.000 that there's only one thing to do is to fight, 05:31.000 --> 05:34.000 and the only place that was serious enough to fight 05:34.000 --> 05:35.000 is the training camps. 05:35.000 --> 05:37.000 So you always needed the US in some... 05:37.000 --> 05:38.000 We needed somebody. 05:38.000 --> 05:40.000 If Satan had come at that time 05:40.000 --> 05:42.000 and offered me a training camp, 05:42.000 --> 05:44.000 I would have gone to the training camp. 05:44.000 --> 05:47.000 Well, it wasn't the Prince of Darkness. 05:47.000 --> 05:49.000 It was the CIA, 05:49.000 --> 05:51.000 who had their own anti-Cuba agenda. 05:51.000 --> 05:54.000 The existence of a Soviet foothold, 05:54.000 --> 05:56.000 90 miles from the Florida coast, 05:56.000 --> 05:58.000 enraged Washington. 05:58.000 --> 06:01.000 And it was in what Defence Secretary Robert McNamara 06:01.000 --> 06:04.000 would later describe as an atmosphere of hysteria 06:04.000 --> 06:08.000 that one of the CIA's most catastrophic plans was born. 06:08.000 --> 06:11.000 They would invade and overthrow the Castro regime. 06:11.000 --> 06:13.000 And these angry young Cuban students 06:13.000 --> 06:14.000 were just the men to do it. 06:14.000 --> 06:16.000 The more grassroots it looked, the better. 06:16.000 --> 06:18.000 It would end in a fiasco, 06:18.000 --> 06:21.000 known after the inlet on the southern coast of Cuba 06:21.000 --> 06:22.000 where they landed, 06:22.000 --> 06:25.000 Bahía de Cochinos, the Bay of Pigs. 06:25.000 --> 06:27.000 The way it began seemed serious enough. 06:27.000 --> 06:29.000 The men were picked up in Miami at night, 06:29.000 --> 06:31.000 driven west across the Everglades, 06:31.000 --> 06:34.000 and taken to a private island off the coast. 06:34.000 --> 06:37.000 There, they were subjected to psychological tests, 06:37.000 --> 06:40.000 medical tests, and lie detector tests. 06:40.000 --> 06:43.000 They were given numbers starting at 2501, 06:43.000 --> 06:45.000 to give the impression that there were 2,500 men 06:45.000 --> 06:47.000 in training somewhere else. 06:47.000 --> 06:50.000 In fact, at the start, there were fewer than 100. 06:50.000 --> 06:53.000 The men were shipped around Central America, 06:53.000 --> 06:55.000 first trained in guerrilla warfare, 06:55.000 --> 06:58.000 then infantry fighting, the plan apparently shifting. 06:58.000 --> 07:01.000 In fact, the men were only briefed once they were at sea, 07:01.000 --> 07:05.000 in April of 1961, days from landing in Cuba. 07:05.000 --> 07:10.000 What they weren't told was that things were fraying at the edges. 07:10.000 --> 07:14.000 Expecting to steal into Cuba, under cover of darkness, 07:14.000 --> 07:18.000 on April 17th, the 1,400 Cuban exiles landed in daylight 07:18.000 --> 07:20.000 and under massive fire, 07:20.000 --> 07:24.000 met by 25,000 Cuban troops armed with Soviet weapons. 07:24.000 --> 07:27.000 So, we stopped them. We stopped them completely. 07:27.000 --> 07:30.000 Montalvo says that for a time, against all odds, 07:30.000 --> 07:32.000 they fended off Castro's men. 07:32.000 --> 07:34.000 But then the boats carrying their supplies 07:34.000 --> 07:36.000 were forced to retreat out to sea. 07:36.000 --> 07:37.000 And we run out of ammunition. 07:37.000 --> 07:40.000 We actually run out of ammunition. 07:40.000 --> 07:44.000 We have no more anti-tank mortars left, 07:44.000 --> 07:46.000 and we have no bullets left. 07:46.000 --> 07:49.000 There were paratroopers that had to bury their weapons, 07:49.000 --> 07:51.000 because they didn't have any ammunition. 07:51.000 --> 07:52.000 After three days of fighting, 07:52.000 --> 07:55.000 the men were told to prepare the beaches for landing. 07:55.000 --> 07:58.000 Full air and sea support from the US was on the way. 07:58.000 --> 08:02.000 So, we did that. We cleared the beaches out. 08:02.000 --> 08:04.000 We pushed almost two miles. 08:04.000 --> 08:06.000 The columns of—so the beaches were clear. 08:06.000 --> 08:09.000 This was Wednesday morning, the third day in the morning. 08:09.000 --> 08:12.000 So, at 4 o'clock in the afternoon, we're sitting there. 08:12.000 --> 08:15.000 Well, two destroyers came right close to shore, 08:15.000 --> 08:17.000 and they were moving their cannons like that and so on, 08:17.000 --> 08:19.000 and you could see the people in there. 08:19.000 --> 08:20.000 We were so fired up. 08:20.000 --> 08:23.000 And then, all of a sudden, those destroyers turned around and left, 08:23.000 --> 08:24.000 and that was it. 08:24.000 --> 08:26.000 And I was the young one, so I kept saying, 08:26.000 --> 08:28.000 we were ordered to stay here, we stay here. 08:28.000 --> 08:30.000 And one of the older guys says, 08:30.000 --> 08:32.000 Rafaelito, look at that. 08:32.000 --> 08:34.000 And I look, I look at the boats going and said, 08:34.000 --> 08:36.000 oh my God, they're leaving us. 08:36.000 --> 08:37.000 They're not coming in. 08:37.000 --> 08:41.000 I do remember just sending in desperation, 08:41.000 --> 08:45.000 and mayday, mayday, mayday, with our codenames. 08:45.000 --> 08:46.000 Carlos Leon. 08:46.000 --> 08:48.000 Silence on the other side. 08:48.000 --> 08:51.000 They'd been led to believe they would be the advance party, 08:51.000 --> 08:54.000 and that U.S. military support was right behind them. 08:54.000 --> 08:58.000 And they say they could see U.S. Navy destroyers out on the horizon. 08:58.000 --> 09:01.000 But it seemed like the Americans had got cold feet. 09:01.000 --> 09:05.000 Our mind, at that moment, is very difficult to convey. 09:05.000 --> 09:07.000 Physically, you were drained, 09:07.000 --> 09:11.000 because we haven't had sleep or food in about four days. 09:11.000 --> 09:15.000 And then, all of a sudden, mentally, 09:15.000 --> 09:18.000 here is young guys like us, 09:18.000 --> 09:21.000 all of a sudden, without experience, 09:21.000 --> 09:23.000 asking ourselves, where is our help? 09:23.000 --> 09:28.000 And we kept thinking, where is our support to continue fighting? 09:28.000 --> 09:30.000 I was a radio operator. 09:30.000 --> 09:32.000 This is Ernesto Freire. 09:32.000 --> 09:38.000 I heard when the support was offered and, 09:38.000 --> 09:42.000 unquote, give me the coordinates 09:42.000 --> 09:47.000 so we can have artillery fire on them. 09:47.000 --> 09:49.000 When is that going to happen? 09:49.000 --> 09:51.000 Question from our side. 09:51.000 --> 09:53.000 In two hours. 09:53.000 --> 09:55.000 Then I remember time going by, 09:55.000 --> 09:58.000 and communications started again. 09:58.000 --> 10:00.000 Where is the support? 10:00.000 --> 10:02.000 And I say, you're on your own. 10:02.000 --> 10:03.000 Good luck. 10:03.000 --> 10:06.000 I heard with my own ears. 10:06.000 --> 10:07.000 You're on your own. 10:07.000 --> 10:09.000 Good luck. 10:09.000 --> 10:11.000 What these men didn't know was that at this point, 10:11.000 --> 10:14.000 Washington had well and truly screwed the pooch. 10:14.000 --> 10:16.000 It should have been a precision military operation, 10:16.000 --> 10:19.000 originally laid out by President Eisenhower, 10:19.000 --> 10:22.000 who had masterminded the D-Day landings. 10:22.000 --> 10:24.000 But then John F. Kennedy came to power, 10:24.000 --> 10:26.000 and it had gone south in an incredible case 10:26.000 --> 10:28.000 of last-minute jitters. 10:28.000 --> 10:30.000 The point of invasion was moved. 10:30.000 --> 10:31.000 The number of airstrikes was cut, 10:31.000 --> 10:34.000 and the timing brought forward ahead of the men's landing. 10:34.000 --> 10:38.000 For Kennedy, the changes had been about plausible deniability 10:38.000 --> 10:42.000 and a worry that the plan had America's fingerprints all over it. 10:42.000 --> 10:46.000 But the upshot was that the whole world was learning about the invasion, 10:46.000 --> 10:49.000 while the men were still en route to the landing site. 10:49.000 --> 10:53.000 I would have understood, not that I would have agreed with Kennedy, 10:53.000 --> 10:55.000 if he had cancelled it. 10:55.000 --> 10:56.000 Cancel it, OK? 10:56.000 --> 11:02.000 Have the balls to accept your political laws that way, 11:02.000 --> 11:04.000 because they didn't have to die. 11:04.000 --> 11:08.000 Their commander sent out a final, desperate radio message to the CIA 11:08.000 --> 11:10.000 before retreating from the beachhead. 11:10.000 --> 11:13.000 I'm destroying all my equipment and communications. 11:13.000 --> 11:15.000 Tanks are in sight. 11:15.000 --> 11:17.000 I have nothing to fight with. 11:17.000 --> 11:19.000 I cannot wait for you. 11:19.000 --> 11:22.000 How do you jump to the water, swim to the horizon? 11:22.000 --> 11:24.000 Do you go to the mangroves and the swamps? 11:24.000 --> 11:25.000 And do what? 11:25.000 --> 11:28.000 We decided to go to the mangroves and the swamps. 11:28.000 --> 11:31.000 And we had no food and no water, 11:31.000 --> 11:33.000 just the water we carry on our canteen. 11:33.000 --> 11:38.000 And when the water ended, you had to create something. 11:38.000 --> 11:43.000 And it was the mist of the early morning on the leaves. 11:43.000 --> 11:48.000 We would put that into our mouth in order to wet our lips. 11:48.000 --> 11:50.000 We would drink urine. 11:50.000 --> 11:55.000 We would drink even water that was contaminated. 11:55.000 --> 11:56.000 Anything. 11:56.000 --> 11:58.000 You're living without food, no problem. 11:58.000 --> 12:01.000 We ate live crabs. 12:01.000 --> 12:04.000 We ate anything we could find in between. 12:04.000 --> 12:05.000 But water? 12:05.000 --> 12:06.000 My dear. 12:06.000 --> 12:08.000 That's another story. 12:08.000 --> 12:12.000 Some of our people were in small boats trying to get away. 12:12.000 --> 12:17.000 And they were going towards the American ship. 12:17.000 --> 12:19.000 They didn't pick them up. 12:19.000 --> 12:20.000 I saw that. 12:20.000 --> 12:21.000 I witnessed that. 12:21.000 --> 12:22.000 I witnessed the boats. 12:22.000 --> 12:23.000 Yeah. 12:23.000 --> 12:25.000 Heading out and the destroyer going away. 12:25.000 --> 12:26.000 Yeah. 12:26.000 --> 12:27.000 How many died? 12:27.000 --> 12:28.000 Nine. 12:28.000 --> 12:29.000 Nine died. 12:29.000 --> 12:30.000 Why didn't they pick them up? 12:30.000 --> 12:31.000 They couldn't. 12:31.000 --> 12:33.000 They had orders not to. 12:33.000 --> 12:40.000 And that was an extremely frustrating evidence of the, and I don't have a better name, I'm 12:40.000 --> 12:43.000 sorry, betrayal. 12:43.000 --> 12:47.000 The CIA official line is that the fiasco came down to bad decisions made during that last-minute 12:47.000 --> 12:49.000 panic at the White House. 12:49.000 --> 12:54.000 But the veterans we spoke to have spent the years since thinking about those few days while 12:54.000 --> 12:59.000 helping to set up a museum dedicated to the battle, which is where we met. 12:59.000 --> 13:02.000 And they now have their suspicions that there was another plan. 13:02.000 --> 13:05.000 We are not people who believe in conspiracies or any of that. 13:05.000 --> 13:09.000 But being in charge of this museum, and we're in the process of expanding it, and we have 13:09.000 --> 13:12.000 a tremendous amount of attention on it. 13:12.000 --> 13:16.000 We have made an effort to get the history of the Bay of Pigs correct so we can tell it. 13:16.000 --> 13:24.000 And in doing so, we have found a number of coincidences that put together cannot be a coincidence. 13:24.000 --> 13:30.000 We believe now that there is tremendous evidence that the intent was for us to fail. 13:30.000 --> 13:36.000 We had a military plan that was done under the Eisenhower administration by military people 13:36.000 --> 13:39.000 that had a chance of succeeding. 13:39.000 --> 13:44.000 Kennedy changed it, and Kennedy changed it, you know, in March. 13:44.000 --> 13:46.000 This is one month before the invasion. 13:46.000 --> 13:52.000 They believe that the real plan was to set a trap for Castro, and that Castro figured it out. 13:52.000 --> 13:57.000 And I remember perfectly we're being in the dirt, and they were shooting not to kill us. 13:57.000 --> 14:03.000 They were shooting above our heads, and I remember in the dirt still to this day, the head of that group said, 14:03.000 --> 14:07.000 remember that the commander wants him alive. 14:07.000 --> 14:10.000 Why is Castro saying keep him alive? 14:12.000 --> 14:16.000 They show me a picture where you can see those American battleships out on the horizon. 14:16.000 --> 14:21.000 And here is a whole armada behind us, and they never fired a shot. 14:21.000 --> 14:24.000 They left us there to be killed. 14:24.000 --> 14:28.000 Now you tell us why Castro left us alive. 14:28.000 --> 14:32.000 Because he knew that we were going to be the excuse for these people. 14:32.000 --> 14:36.000 There were 15,000 Marines ready to land in Cuba. 14:36.000 --> 14:40.000 Like my uncle told me, you're going to fight for a free Cuba, but you're not going to see a free Cuba. 14:40.000 --> 14:42.000 You're going to be a dead Cuban. 14:42.000 --> 14:47.000 And then the Americans are going to land in Cuba saying they cannot allow a civil war in Cuba. 14:47.000 --> 14:50.000 And they will have their armada out there waiting for that. 14:50.000 --> 14:53.000 And that Fidel also knew that's why he kept us alive. 14:53.000 --> 14:54.000 They were right there. 14:54.000 --> 14:55.000 They were there. 14:55.000 --> 14:56.000 Let me tell you something about his thing. 14:56.000 --> 14:57.000 You read what this says? 14:57.000 --> 15:00.000 My mother showed me this when we arrived from prison. 15:03.000 --> 15:04.000 In Miami newspaper. 15:04.000 --> 15:06.000 This is a picture of you guys training. 15:06.000 --> 15:07.000 Yes. 15:07.000 --> 15:08.000 Look at the date of this thing. 15:08.000 --> 15:09.000 Okay, wait. 15:09.000 --> 15:11.000 So this says end of training. 15:11.000 --> 15:12.000 Yes. 15:12.000 --> 15:13.000 What is the date? 15:13.000 --> 15:16.000 Friday, the 10th of March, 1960. 15:16.000 --> 15:17.000 And when did we land it in Cuba? 15:17.000 --> 15:18.000 The 17th. 15:18.000 --> 15:19.000 April. 15:19.000 --> 15:20.000 April 17th. 15:20.000 --> 15:25.000 Freely distributed in the streets of Miami a month before the invasion. 15:25.000 --> 15:26.000 And what did they say here? 15:26.000 --> 15:33.000 Oh, here's the army that's going to liberate Cuba from communism and ready to go and all that 15:33.000 --> 15:34.000 stuff. 15:34.000 --> 15:36.000 That's the underlying of the picture. 15:36.000 --> 15:39.000 So people asked if Fidel Castro knew about the invasion. 15:39.000 --> 15:40.000 Of course he knew. 15:40.000 --> 15:42.000 This was supposed to be a secret operation. 15:42.000 --> 15:44.000 What secrecy is there? 15:44.000 --> 15:52.000 We can all sit down in here and tell you about things so absurd, mistakes so unbelievable, 15:52.000 --> 15:59.000 that there's no conclusion, but this had to have been done on purpose. 15:59.000 --> 16:01.000 The numbers are disputed. 16:01.000 --> 16:06.000 But over three days of fighting, at least 100 men were drowned or shot dead. 16:06.000 --> 16:11.000 The rest were captured and sentenced to 30 years hard labour. 16:11.000 --> 16:16.000 It was only at this point that the true scale of America's failure became clear to the men. 16:16.000 --> 16:20.000 Not only did they fail to extinguish a communist regime in their own backyard, 16:20.000 --> 16:27.000 they helped solidify a bond between Cuba and the Soviet Union and catapult Fidel Castro onto 16:27.000 --> 16:28.000 the world stage. 16:28.000 --> 16:30.000 There's no way to be worse than this. 16:30.000 --> 16:32.000 This made Castro a hero. 16:32.000 --> 16:37.000 Because he didn't defeat a bunch of young, you know, guys that went there. 16:37.000 --> 16:39.000 He defeated the empire. 16:39.000 --> 16:42.000 Put your mind back in 1961. 16:42.000 --> 16:46.000 Castro at that moment was a very unknown person. 16:46.000 --> 16:52.000 He was just a guy with a beard that came down from the mountains and so forth and so on. 16:52.000 --> 16:55.000 What made Castro big was the Bay of Pigs. 16:55.000 --> 17:00.000 It took more than a year, but JFK eventually managed to cut a deal with Castro. 17:00.000 --> 17:05.000 The release of the men in exchange for $53 million worth of food and medicine. 17:05.000 --> 17:11.000 And at Christmastime 1962, they arrived on American shores again. 17:11.000 --> 17:16.000 We didn't even get even a list of jobs for us to look for. 17:16.000 --> 17:20.000 We were not given any help, a doctor's visit to help our health. 17:20.000 --> 17:22.000 They gave you a $100 bill, remember? 17:22.000 --> 17:24.000 I didn't get the $100 bill. 17:24.000 --> 17:28.000 Somebody took mine because I didn't get the $100 bill. 17:28.000 --> 17:31.000 I've heard that many times, I didn't get it. 17:33.000 --> 17:37.000 Given everything, you might expect a lot of resentment towards the US. 17:37.000 --> 17:39.000 Except that's not what happened. 17:39.000 --> 17:42.000 This is not bitterness that you're seeing. 17:42.000 --> 17:45.000 We are all tremendously fortunate. 17:45.000 --> 17:51.000 Our generation of having been able to come back here and grow a family here and raise a family here. 17:51.000 --> 17:53.000 In the United States, yes, yes. 17:53.000 --> 17:54.000 United States. 17:54.000 --> 17:55.000 Yes. 17:55.000 --> 18:01.000 So we are very fortunate and we will never lose that gratitude or that happiness for being here. 18:01.000 --> 18:04.000 But our parents' life was destroyed. 18:04.000 --> 18:07.000 Our grandparents' life was destroyed. 18:07.000 --> 18:10.000 All our countrymen's life was destroyed. 18:10.000 --> 18:17.000 And that is a cost we carry inside that we will never leave behind. 18:17.000 --> 18:23.000 These men went back to their studies, got regular jobs and settled down in Miami. 18:23.000 --> 18:27.000 But the Cuban exiles didn't forget their dream of overthrowing Castro. 18:27.000 --> 18:33.000 And over the next 60 years, their generation would experience a remarkable rise to power in the US. 18:33.000 --> 18:38.000 The kind of power that would eventually allow them to take hold of the issue of Havana Syndrome. 18:38.000 --> 18:43.000 Today, far from being a source of shame for the US government, 18:43.000 --> 18:49.000 the Bay of Pigs veterans share the stage with presidents as an enduring symbol of US-Cuba policy. 18:49.000 --> 18:59.000 I'm delighted to welcome you to the White House as we honour the Cuban-American veterans of the Bay of Pigs invasion. 18:59.000 --> 19:01.000 Brave people, great people. 19:01.000 --> 19:04.000 But the shift to politics didn't happen straight away. 19:04.000 --> 19:07.000 It began in the winter, after the exiles arrived back in America. 19:07.000 --> 19:12.000 Not as students this time, but as battle-hardened militants. 19:12.000 --> 19:17.000 Sometimes they worked alongside the CIA, who continued to cook up wild plots against Castro. 19:17.000 --> 19:24.000 There's a documentary about all the plans conceived by the CIA in Cuba, called 638 Ways to Kill Castro. 19:24.000 --> 19:29.000 You may have heard about the exploding cigar, but you may not know that they tried to poison his wetsuit, 19:29.000 --> 19:36.000 lace his handkerchief with deadly bacteria, or pipe LSD into the studio where he made his radio broadcasts. 19:36.000 --> 19:41.000 Or that they even planned to carry out terror attacks in American cities and pin them on Cuba. 19:41.000 --> 19:45.000 When US attention turned elsewhere, the Cuban militants continued to work alone. 19:45.000 --> 19:51.000 They bombed Cuban shopping centres, government buildings, and even a commercial airliner. 19:51.000 --> 19:57.000 Another time, a cabin cruiser captained by Cuban exiles was picked up by coastguards near Puerto Rico. 19:57.000 --> 20:01.000 The men were on their way to try to assassinate Castro in Venezuela. 20:01.000 --> 20:07.000 A .50 caliber Barrett assault rifle found in the hold was registered to one Francisco Hernandez. 20:07.000 --> 20:16.000 My name is Francisco Jose Hernandez. Most people call me or know me by Pepe. 20:16.000 --> 20:20.000 Pepe wasn't aboard the cabin cruiser, and he was never indicted over the weapons find. 20:20.000 --> 20:22.000 He'd fought at the Bay of Pigs. 20:22.000 --> 20:28.000 But by the 1980s, he was leading the shift of focus away from armed conflict and towards Washington. 20:28.000 --> 20:33.000 I'm not saying that everything else didn't disappear. 20:33.000 --> 20:38.000 Yeah, there were still some small groups that continued to do these things. 20:38.000 --> 20:50.000 But the main of the community started thinking that we had to try to work within the United States for different purposes. 20:50.000 --> 20:57.000 Pepe and his fellow Cuban Americans did not want the US coming to accept a Castro-led Cuba as a fact of life. 20:57.000 --> 21:07.000 What we wanted is precisely that the United States policy toward Cuba was for regime change inside the island. 21:07.000 --> 21:12.000 There's got to be a democratic reform in Cuba. 21:12.000 --> 21:22.000 As long as that doesn't happen, US policy is going to be diplomatic economic confrontation with the Cuban government. 21:22.000 --> 21:27.000 They became aware of another group that had long held powerful sway over politicians. 21:27.000 --> 21:31.000 That group was AIPAC, the powerful pro-Israel lobby. 21:31.000 --> 21:34.000 And in AIPAC, the Cubans found a willing tutor. 21:34.000 --> 21:44.000 And they took us to see all the senators in Washington and they introduced them and giving us tips and things. 21:44.000 --> 21:49.000 They learned about raising money and the fundamentals of effective Washington lobbying. 21:49.000 --> 21:52.000 There are two things that you cannot do with a politician. 21:52.000 --> 22:01.000 You cannot make them realize that regardless of how bad they are, you are going to vote for them. 22:01.000 --> 22:07.000 Or no matter how good they are to you, you are not going to vote for them. 22:07.000 --> 22:10.000 You have to work with both parties. 22:10.000 --> 22:14.000 Pepe's organization had particular advantages. 22:14.000 --> 22:22.000 Firstly, they were united, agreed to their terms and they could deliver an entire community all willing to cast their votes on a single issue. 22:22.000 --> 22:27.000 The special appeal of this bloc came down to an accident of geography. 22:27.000 --> 22:33.000 They were overwhelmingly located in Miami-Dade County in the crucial swing state of Florida. 22:33.000 --> 22:38.000 It was the early 80s. Ronald Reagan was running for president and he liked the pitch. 22:38.000 --> 22:41.000 Ronald Reagan and the Republican Party. 22:41.000 --> 22:48.000 He said, you are very active, we are going to help you and you are going to be our friends. 22:48.000 --> 22:51.000 And you are going to vote Republican. 22:51.000 --> 22:54.000 And it actually worked. 22:54.000 --> 23:02.000 Fast forward a couple of decades to November 22nd, 2000, and the site of a violent protest outside a Miami courthouse. 23:02.000 --> 23:10.000 The entire US presidential election had come down to a vote in Florida that was so close they'd ordered a recount by hand. 23:10.000 --> 23:12.000 Now things had turned ugly. 23:12.000 --> 23:15.000 People were trampling on each other to get to the door. 23:15.000 --> 23:19.000 A Democratic aide claimed he was beaten up outside his boss's office. 23:19.000 --> 23:28.000 The protesters were demanding the recount be stopped because their candidate, George W. Bush, had as far as they were concerned, already won fair and square. 23:28.000 --> 23:29.000 It worked. 23:29.000 --> 23:37.000 The count was stopped and Dubia became the 43rd president of the United States. 23:37.000 --> 23:41.000 What many people don't know is that crowd was largely made up of Cuban Americans. 23:41.000 --> 23:49.000 But actually it was the Cubans who really stopped the counting here in the county. It was very good. 23:49.000 --> 24:00.000 And the courthouse protest was the cherry on top of a campaign Pepe's lobby waged against the Democrats, who under Bill Clinton had recently begun to move towards better relations with Cuba. 24:00.000 --> 24:10.000 There always seems to be something, you know, the Cuban American community can latch onto to shut it down. 24:10.000 --> 24:14.000 Vicki Huddleston was the U.S. Chief of Mission to Cuba under Clinton and based in Havana. 24:14.000 --> 24:24.000 The way she tells it, the path to that fight outside the courthouse began on Thanksgiving weekend 1999 with a phone call from the Cuban Foreign Ministry. 24:24.000 --> 24:42.000 I got the call. They say, well, we have an issue. There's a child who's been picked up by the Coast Guard. He's in Miami. Do you know anything about this? No, I don't know anything about this. Never heard anything about this. Well, would you check on this for us? 24:42.000 --> 24:56.000 The boy was five-year-old Elian Gonzalez. He'd been found floating on the inner tube of a tire in the Florida Straits, the only survivor of a group of Cubans, including his mother, who had tried to make it to the U.S. on a raft. 24:56.000 --> 25:04.000 Huddleston learned the boy was now staying with relatives in Miami, and she began to apply for a visa for his father to come and bring him back to Cuba. 25:04.000 --> 25:09.000 That day, all parties were working to resolve the issue quickly and quietly. 25:09.000 --> 25:25.000 But by the next day, the Cuban American National Foundation has gone to the relatives and said, don't send that kid back and we'll help you keep him here. And then the next thing you know, it's a big deal. 25:25.000 --> 25:32.000 Instead, with the help of the Cuban American lobby, those relatives in Miami applied for asylum for Elian in the U.S. 25:32.000 --> 25:42.000 And from here, the saga of this castaway boy came to symbolize the entire toxic relationship between the exiles, the American government and the Castro regime. 25:42.000 --> 25:51.000 When U.S. judges said the boy should go back to Cuba with his father, a Republican Florida senator called for a change in the law to allow him to stay. 25:51.000 --> 26:01.000 It is hard for me to believe that a court in the United States, the freest country in the world, would make a decision saying that they think it's in the best interest of the little boy to go back to Cuba, 26:01.000 --> 26:10.000 a totalitarian country where he will be told by the state what he will learn, what he can speak, what he can believe and what he'll become. 26:10.000 --> 26:14.000 The road by the front yard of Elian's Miami relatives became a gathering point. 26:14.000 --> 26:21.000 When a psychologist announced that the child's situation was a form of psychological abuse, the media went to gin up the crowd. 26:21.000 --> 26:27.000 No, it's not true. That's what they say. Because this is a combination with Castro. That's it. 26:27.000 --> 26:35.000 Can you tell the doctor that the only thing this family has done is give him love and food and take care of him? 26:35.000 --> 26:42.000 It dragged on through the spring as Miami relatives appealed and defied orders to return the boy to his father. 26:42.000 --> 26:47.000 And protesters told reporters they would prevent the authorities from coming to take Elian away by force. 26:47.000 --> 26:56.000 One CBS reporter pulled the last 60 years together, making it not just about the boy, but about those teenagers abandoned on the beach in 1961. 26:56.000 --> 27:04.000 This day is the 39th anniversary of the Bay of Pigs invasion. Many out here say they felt betrayed by our government back then. 27:04.000 --> 27:08.000 And many here tonight say they felt that same feeling once again. 27:08.000 --> 27:12.000 We're live in Little Havana, Stacey Santos, CBS 4 News tonight. 27:12.000 --> 27:16.000 In the end, the authorities did come and take Elian away by force. 27:16.000 --> 27:21.000 A SWAT team broke down the door, bundled Elian into a blanket and drove him away. 27:21.000 --> 27:26.000 The Cuban Americans let an AP photographer in through the window as the raid was happening. 27:26.000 --> 27:37.000 There's a famous photograph of a Department of Justice SWAT team member with his goggles, his helmet, his long rifle pointed downward, 27:37.000 --> 27:44.000 confronting little Elian Gonzalez in the arms of a Cuban American who picked him up. 27:44.000 --> 27:48.000 It seemed like an incredibly heavy-handed way of… 27:48.000 --> 27:53.000 It's so hard because, you know, you had all these Cuban Americans out in front of the house, 27:53.000 --> 28:00.000 and the Cuban Americans are talking about going in and grabbing him and taking him off to someplace else. 28:00.000 --> 28:03.000 It was a very difficult situation. 28:03.000 --> 28:11.000 Elian's cousin in Miami held up the photograph at a press conference and pointed at Elian's terrified expression. 28:11.000 --> 28:23.000 That right there ain't a smile. That right there ain't a criminal. We are not criminals. My family aren't criminals. 28:23.000 --> 28:28.000 President Clinton tried to explain he'd had no choice but to follow due process. 28:28.000 --> 28:32.000 Did you give the go-ahead for the operation? 28:32.000 --> 28:43.000 Well, I talked to the Attorney General extensively, especially in the last several days, and I supported the decisions that were made. 28:43.000 --> 28:48.000 But it didn't fly. The Cuban exiles felt betrayed again by the U.S. government. 28:48.000 --> 28:52.000 Only this time, they could make someone pay. 28:52.000 --> 28:56.000 Which brings us back to that fight outside the Miami courthouse. 28:56.000 --> 29:04.000 The Cuban Americans decided to punish the Democratic Party for sending little Elian back to Cuba. 29:04.000 --> 29:10.000 And so they organized what they called El Voto Castigo, the punishment vote. 29:10.000 --> 29:13.000 A toss-up election that hinged on the swing state of Florida. 29:13.000 --> 29:20.000 By now, there were more than two million Cuban Americans, almost all of them living and voting in the sunshine state. 29:20.000 --> 29:25.000 The lobby mobilized for Bush, putting Elian's story at the center of that campaign. 29:25.000 --> 29:32.000 And the punishment vote, in fact, lost Al Gore the election. The rest is history. 29:32.000 --> 29:42.000 So that told every presidential candidate to come just how important the Cuban American community was. 29:42.000 --> 29:49.000 It was quite an incredible moment in history where history could have been different in a massive way, right? 29:49.000 --> 29:58.000 Yeah, and that's not the only time, although I think that's the most impressive, but Havana Syndrome, just like little Elian. 29:58.000 --> 30:10.000 They wanted an issue that could propel Trump into closing down our diplomatic relations with Cuba, which has always been a goal of the hardliners. 30:10.000 --> 30:20.000 They'll use anything, you know, other U.S. interests are secondary or less than secondary to their interest in Cuba. 30:20.000 --> 30:27.000 In January 2018, Cuban American Republican Senator Marco Rubio convened a Senate hearing. 30:27.000 --> 30:30.000 The topic, Havana Syndrome. 30:30.000 --> 30:36.000 Its full title, Attacks on U.S. Diplomats in Cuba, Response and Oversight. 30:36.000 --> 30:43.000 In late 2016, staff at the United States Embassy in Havana began complaining of strange noises. 30:43.000 --> 30:51.000 And among the descriptions that they complained of, high-pitched beam of sound, incapacitating sound, baffling sensation, 30:51.000 --> 30:57.000 akin to driving with windows partially open in a car, or just intense pressure in one ear. 30:57.000 --> 31:02.000 With him on the panel was another Cuban American senator, Democrat Bob Menendez. 31:02.000 --> 31:05.000 Together, they were sticking it to Cuba. 31:05.000 --> 31:11.000 It's unfortunate that since the news of these bizarre and vicious attacks broke late last summer, 31:11.000 --> 31:19.000 we have not seen more public outcry against the Cuban government for whatever scope of ownership it has over these attacks. 31:19.000 --> 31:26.000 Even with Trump's rollback of Obama's thought and the shuttering of the American embassy in Havana, it was still not enough. 31:26.000 --> 31:36.000 Expelling a handful of diplomats to achieve parity with the number of diplomats who had to be removed from Havana for safety is hardly a bold diplomatic move. 31:36.000 --> 31:40.000 It's grandstanding. It's performance. It's theatre. 31:40.000 --> 31:44.000 This is Dr Charles Rosenfarb, head of the medical team at the State Department. 31:44.000 --> 31:48.000 He says he was left shaken by his appearance in front of Rubio's committee. 31:48.000 --> 31:51.000 He hadn't imagined they were going to bring this all down on him. 31:51.000 --> 31:54.000 The stories we heard are shocking. 31:54.000 --> 31:57.000 The failure of leadership at the department and at post. 31:57.000 --> 32:01.000 The sluggish reaction to the initial reports of afflicted personnel. 32:01.000 --> 32:05.000 The aloof response of the medical team at the State Department. 32:05.000 --> 32:09.000 Silence from diplomatic security to the rest of the department is simply staggering. 32:09.000 --> 32:14.000 But to say it was an aloof response, I mean, personally that felt, that was like an attack. 32:14.000 --> 32:20.000 I mean, as someone who spent 20 years working in the medical office, you know, the medical people, that's all we care about. 32:20.000 --> 32:25.000 I mean, we go to incredible lengths to get people the care they need. 32:25.000 --> 32:30.000 And our effort was not bureaucratic. Our effort was trying to get them to care. 32:30.000 --> 32:32.000 Back then we had so little information. 32:32.000 --> 32:36.000 So we did the best, and it sounds trite, but we did the best we could with the information we had. 32:36.000 --> 32:38.000 We had no idea what was going on. 32:38.000 --> 32:43.000 No one did. But Rubio was using this hearing to think out loud. 32:43.000 --> 32:48.000 There were flaws with the theory that Cuba was single-handedly responsible for these attacks. 32:48.000 --> 32:52.000 For a start, this kind of technology would be state of the art. 32:52.000 --> 32:56.000 At the Senate hearing, Rubio himself admitted as much. 32:56.000 --> 33:02.000 Dr. Rosenfarb, have you ever seen cases of this outside of an actual blow to the head or something similar? 33:02.000 --> 33:03.000 I have not. 33:03.000 --> 33:05.000 Okay, and that's consistent with everything we've been told. 33:05.000 --> 33:10.000 And the reason why I raise that is because, obviously, this is a pretty sophisticated thing. 33:10.000 --> 33:14.000 Okay, this was not something conducted by, you know, a fly-by-night operation. 33:14.000 --> 33:22.000 Whatever happened to these people happened as a result of some sophisticated technology that, quite frankly, is so sophisticated we don't understand it. 33:22.000 --> 33:28.000 He was playing armchair detective who might have been motivated to carry out attacks like this. 33:28.000 --> 33:33.000 Whoever did this did this because they wanted there to be friction between the United States and the Cuban government. 33:33.000 --> 33:35.000 That would be the motivation behind this. 33:35.000 --> 33:40.000 He began weighing up potential suspects, beginning with the Cuban exiles. 33:40.000 --> 33:52.000 I don't think any credible person on the planet believes that some group of anti-Castro Cubans conducted these attacks in an elaborate scheme to somehow disrupt the Obama opening. 33:52.000 --> 33:54.000 So I don't even want to spend any time on that. 33:54.000 --> 34:02.000 He wondered about the possibility of a rogue element in Cuba who'd somehow come into possession of this weapon and gone behind Raul Castro's back. 34:02.000 --> 34:05.000 He asked the panel, was there any evidence of that? 34:05.000 --> 34:06.000 I do not believe so. 34:08.000 --> 34:09.000 Okay. 34:13.000 --> 34:22.000 And then the last one, and this was the question that was, then you say, well, if it wasn't a rogue element within the Castro government, maybe it was a third country. 34:22.000 --> 34:25.000 Which third country would want to disrupt the U.S. presence there? 34:26.000 --> 34:29.000 And the logical conclusion is Russia and Vladimir Putin. 34:30.000 --> 34:33.000 People have been throwing the R word around ever since Havana syndrome emerged. 34:33.000 --> 34:36.000 Cuba's been Russia's friend in the West for decades. 34:36.000 --> 34:41.000 America only ever really cared about Cuba to the extent that they could be convinced of those ties. 34:42.000 --> 34:46.000 So for Rubio, bringing Russia into the equation solved a lot of problems. 34:47.000 --> 34:50.000 For starters, they would have the money to develop something so technically advanced. 34:51.000 --> 34:53.000 But that didn't mean that Cuba was off the hook. 34:54.000 --> 34:58.000 Rubio says that nothing happens on the island without Cuban intelligence knowing about it. 34:58.000 --> 35:06.000 Cuba, by all accounts, is by far the most heavily monitored and surveilled country in the Western Hemisphere. 35:07.000 --> 35:09.000 Does anyone disagree with that assessment? 35:10.000 --> 35:11.000 It is a police state. 35:12.000 --> 35:16.000 In Rubio's way of thinking, Russia and Cuba are of course in cahoots. 35:16.000 --> 35:22.000 The idea that somehow someone could conduct an attack so sophisticated that we don't even know what it is, 35:23.000 --> 35:36.000 without the Cuban government at least knowing about it, to one U.S. government employee, not to mention 24 over a 12-month period, is outside the realm of reasonable, it's ridiculous. 35:37.000 --> 35:40.000 Actually, we spoke to someone who said that's not quite true. 35:41.000 --> 35:46.000 Yeah, I would be very surprised if they were able to surveil effectively everyone all the time. 35:47.000 --> 35:48.000 It didn't feel like that. 35:49.000 --> 35:54.000 This is Jeremy Lang, a British diplomat posted to the British Embassy in Havana shortly after the health incidents. 35:55.000 --> 36:00.000 We were curious to speak to someone who sat outside the toxic relationship between Cuba and the U.S. 36:00.000 --> 36:05.000 It's not a North Korea, the Caribbean, and I don't think it's got the resources to be anyway. 36:06.000 --> 36:09.000 You know, it's a country that is really struggling in terms of its economy. 36:10.000 --> 36:15.000 You can argue the toss as to how much the embargo impacts that, but the fact is that the Cuban economy is really struggling. 36:16.000 --> 36:18.000 Lang himself struggled to adapt to life in Cuba. 36:19.000 --> 36:24.000 He says the internet was so slow, it would take him half the day to load the homepage of a U.K. news site. 36:25.000 --> 36:28.000 And he heard of people queuing for 12 hours to buy things like house paint. 36:28.000 --> 36:30.000 That's just the reality of life in Cuba. 36:31.000 --> 36:36.000 It's a harsh place to live, you know, and it's very difficult to get hold of basic goods in Cuba. 36:37.000 --> 36:50.000 So, you know, your average Cuban functionary would be probably more concerned about those sorts of things than, you know, being ideologically wedded to the Cuban way. 36:50.000 --> 36:56.000 It's a bit like, sort of, um, Austin Powers, you know, sort of no one thinks about the evil henchmen. 36:57.000 --> 37:02.000 You know, sort of like, you know, just to get through the day, they probably had to queue up to go and get their chicken. 37:03.000 --> 37:12.000 Lang's point is, his experience didn't square with the idea that it would have been impossible for anyone to carry out attacks on American diplomats, because everyone was under surveillance all the time. 37:12.000 --> 37:18.000 I just don't think they had the resources to do that. And I didn't feel like I was being trailed. So go figure. 37:19.000 --> 37:22.000 Yeah. Yeah, if they're not doing it to the Brits, they probably won't be doing it to the Russians. 37:23.000 --> 37:24.000 Were there Russians around? 37:24.000 --> 37:33.000 Yeah, I mean, you saw them around. I mean, I would see them with their families at the beach. Yeah, very much whiter than everyone else. Not that I was particularly brown, but anyway. 37:34.000 --> 37:39.000 Lang's talking about Russian officials posted to Havana. He says that, unlike other expats, they kept to themselves. 37:40.000 --> 37:52.000 There were quite a lot of them, but they wouldn't mix much with, sort of, if you like, the Western cohort. You know, they're pretty, um, they're pretty monosyllabic. They don't really engage in much conversation. 37:52.000 --> 38:02.000 Russia's presence in Cuba was once tied to the Cold War. But even after the Berlin Wall fell, and Russia pulled financial support of Cuba, they kept a foothold there. 38:03.000 --> 38:09.000 The way Lang described it, it was as if there was something proprietorial about the Russians' solemn presence in Havana. 38:10.000 --> 38:16.000 It's got a large embassy. It's this sort of brutalist sword struck into the ground of Cuban soil. 38:17.000 --> 38:21.000 It's almost a statement in terms of the architecture. 38:21.000 --> 38:23.000 What's the statement that that building's making? 38:24.000 --> 38:32.000 It's a statement that, you know, this is what's then Soviet and the Russian government firmly embedded in Cuba, I think. That's the statement. 38:32.000 --> 38:47.000 What sounded like Marco Rubio merely raising the spectre of Russia in order to get an implausible idea over the line, now, in light of speaking to Jeremy Lang, maybe didn't seem entirely far-fetched. 38:47.000 --> 38:54.000 Adam, patient zero of Havana syndrome, has never been able to tell us much about what he was in Cuba to do. 38:55.000 --> 38:58.000 We know that he was there to gather intelligence, but not a whole lot more beyond that. 38:58.000 --> 39:06.000 But we do know that at one point, he went to photograph a military parade to scope out what kind of weapons they had. 39:07.000 --> 39:13.000 He also did tell us that early on in his time there, he observed Russian warships entering the harbour in Havana. 39:13.000 --> 39:17.000 Now, that might have been a show of strength, Russia flexing its muscles. 39:18.000 --> 39:20.000 It happened while we were covering this story. 39:21.000 --> 39:30.000 Around the time President Biden signed a deal to supply Ukraine with arms, four Russian ships crossed the Atlantic and docked in Havana, where they sat for several days. 39:30.000 --> 39:42.000 Back at those Senate hearings, Bob Menendez quizzed the representatives from the State Department about an agreement that Cuba had signed with Russia, right as they were opening their arms to America. 39:43.000 --> 39:54.000 In December of 2016, around the same time these attacks first started, the Cuban and Russian government signed a new defence cooperation agreement, including cooperation on a series of new technologies. 39:54.000 --> 39:59.000 The big question, was the Havana syndrome weapon one of those new technologies? 40:00.000 --> 40:05.000 Has the State Department raised attacks against US personnel in Cuba with the Russian government, for example? 40:08.000 --> 40:14.000 Sir, I think I would, that's a very good question. I think it would be better to address that issue in a classified setting. 40:15.000 --> 40:20.000 The Russian government has repeatedly denied any involvement in Havana syndrome. 40:20.000 --> 40:25.000 But that day, Menendez and Rubio were publicly raising a delicate question. 40:26.000 --> 40:30.000 The America-Cuba relationship was bitter and hostile, but ultimately a sideshow. 40:31.000 --> 40:37.000 And US outrage over health incidents just the latest row and a never-ending spat with a poor Caribbean island nation. 40:38.000 --> 40:42.000 But if Russia was part of the equation, well, that was a whole different ball of wax. 40:42.000 --> 40:53.000 Well, as it would turn out just weeks earlier, something with all the hallmarks of Adam's experience in Havana happened to another CIA agent in Moscow. 40:54.000 --> 41:02.000 So in December 2017, I was the deputy operations chief for the CIA's Europe and Eurasia Mission Center, which is the equivalent of a one-star general in the military. 41:03.000 --> 41:05.000 That's next time on Havana Helmet Club. 41:06.000 --> 41:09.000 The vertigo was the most disorienting. I'd never had that before. I mean, the room was spinning. 41:10.000 --> 41:11.000 There's Russian connections everywhere. 41:12.000 --> 41:16.000 What has been happening can trace its history literally back almost 60 years. 41:16.000 --> 41:23.000 I honestly didn't expect to live this long. You know, I'm sort of surrounded now by a platoon of doctors. 41:24.000 --> 41:26.000 I mean, these people were marked. It's not accidental. 41:29.000 --> 41:32.000 From BBC Radio 4, this is Havana Helmet Club. 41:32.000 --> 41:37.000 Listen to the latest episodes first on BBC Sounds. 41:38.000 --> 41:47.000 If you want to be notified when the latest episode drops, make sure you're subscribed to Havana Helmet Club on BBC Sounds and have push notifications turned on. 41:47.000 --> 41:54.000 Havana Helmet Club is written and presented by Sam Bungie and Jennifer Ford and edited by Guy Crossman. 41:55.000 --> 41:58.000 Our story editor is Mike Olive and our producer is Larry Ryan. 41:59.000 --> 42:01.000 Original music by Tom Pintons. 42:02.000 --> 42:03.000 Sound design by Meryn Royards. 42:04.000 --> 42:07.000 Additional sound design and mix by Peregrine Andrews. 42:08.000 --> 42:10.000 Commissioning editor for the BBC is Dylan Haskins. 42:11.000 --> 42:14.000 Assistant commissioners are Sarah Green and Natasha Johansson. 42:14.000 --> 42:19.000 Havana Helmet Club is a Yarn production for BBC Radio 4 and BBC Sounds.