Cuban Power, also known as El Poder Cubano or United Cuban Power was an anti-Castro terrorist group that conducted bombings against Cuban targets and states and entities they felt to be sympathetic to the Castro regime through early and mid-1968.
Arrests and prosecution.
Police made their first arrest in connection with Cuban Power when they arrested Ricardo Morales Navarrette on February 14. Navarette was a veteran of the Bay of Pigs Invasion, and allegedly worked with the CIA to aid the anti-communist underground in Cuba and had even been sent to the Congo to help anti-communist forces in 1964.
On August 13, police raided a Johnsonburg, New Jersey farm, seizing a half ton of dynamite, automatic weapons and ammunition, as well as a uniform of one of the guerrilla groups involved in the Bay of Pigs Invasion. Michael A. DeCarolis, 32, was arrested.
A federal grand jury handed down an indictment for nine Cuban exiles on October 10 in Miami. They were arrested and charged the next day. The testimony of Navarette was reportedly key to breaking the case. Three of the exiles, Orlando Bosch, Jose Diaz Morejon and Barbaro Balan Garcia were charged with the September 16 shooting of the "Polanika". Bosch was also charged with making terroristic threats in a June 6 cable sent to Prime Minister Harold Wilson, Francisco Franco and President Gustavo Díaz Ordaz of Mexico, threatening to blow up their countries' ships if they continued to trade with Cuba. The six others were indicted for conspiracy to violate the neutrality acts of the US. J. Edgar Hoover announced this was the group connected with the bombings, but none were charged with crimes relating to the bombings. The other six were Aimee Miranda Cruz, Andres Jorge Gonzalez Gonzalez, Marco Rodríguez Ramos, Paulino Mariono Gutierrez Vidal, Jorge Luis Gutierrez Ulla and Jesus Dominguez Benitez.
A second arrest of nine other exiles took place in New York on October 23. The nine arrested in New York were indicted for arson, reckless endangerment, criminal mischief and Illegal possession of weapons and explosives. According to the indictment, the bombings were only the first phase of their plot. They planned to seize arms from the 16th Infantry armory in Brooklyn and use them for an assassination and bombing campaign that would have included the assassination of Ambassador Ricardo Alarcón. Those arrested included Oscar Avecedo, Gabriel Abay (both veterans of the Bay of Pigs), Guillermo Miguel, Arturo Rodríguez Vives, Jose Rodone, Ivan Acosta, Ramiro Cortés, Edgar Rives and Carlos Fernández.
Two final members of the group were arrested in Miami October 28 and charged with carrying out the group's bombings in California: Juan Garcia Cardenas and Hector Cornillot.
References.
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