Imagine if you will, it's summertime, 1960 on a hot Havana night. You and two fellow CIA technical operations officers, stripped to your shorts, are sweating inside the apartment of an eighteen-story building. Your mission is to plant eavesdropping equipment on communist adversaries housed in the apartment below. Plaster dust falls as you drill into the wall to install an electronic device. Just then, with your tools still in hand, Cuban authorities barge in and the nightmare begins. You're held at gunpoint, arrested, interrogated, imprisoned.
No, this isn't fiction. It was a real-life CIA operation.
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Enemy at Our Shore
During the 1950s, Fidel Castro led the Cuban Revolution and seized power at the end of the decade. Cuba soon aligned with the Eastern Bloc, and Castro's regime began killing and imprisoning counterrevolutionaries. The United States watched in horror as our Cold War enemies drifted just off our shore. Bilateral tension and uncertainty ensued.
The Malecon, a seafront esplanade in Havana, Cuba, circa 1959. [Getty Images]
Spy Operation Gone Awry
On the evening of September 14, 1960, CIA technical operations officers David "Dave" Christ, Thornton "Andy" Anderson, and Walter "Wally" Szuminski toiled away on a secret operation in Havana to install listening devices against our now-nearby adversaries.
Left to Right: Thornton Anderson, David Christ, Walter Szuminski
With senior officer, Dave, in the lead, the three-man team was midway through the task when there was banging at the door. At least one of the men had been under surveillance, and Cuban authorities now had all three lined up against the wall at gunpoint. Fate was on their side—they were not shot on the spot. Wally even managed to decommission the confiscated audio equipment while the Cubans were investigating.
Hoping to ensnare more American suspects, the Cubans hid out in the building overnight; armed guards kept Dave, Andy, and Wally in a bedroom where they quietly concocted a story on why they were in the country, bugging an apartment. The next day, they were separated and jammed into jail cells with Cuban prisoners. This was just the start of a nearly three-year ordeal.
Crime & Punishment
Each man clung to the same tourist cover through repeated interrogations: We were on vacation when someone happened to reach out to ask if we could do some electrical work for the U.S. Embassy; given our know-how, we agreed to help.
It sounded absurd, but it worked. Had the Cubans figured out they were CIA, they were dead men.
Andy, a former U.S. Marine, was convinced the Cubans were going to kill him if he did not tell them what they wanted to know. All he could think about were his two sons. Drawing on iron willpower, he made up his mind that he wasn't going to do anything to disgrace his country because he could not bear any stigma passed on to them. He would have to outlast the enemy to see his boys again.
After several months, the Americans were convicted of "activities against the security of the Cuban state" and ordered to serve 10 years in prison. It was a small victory that they were not handed 30 years, which was what the prosecution had sought. However, diplomatic relations were cut off shortly thereafter, and the men would not have contact with U.S. consular officials for more than two years.
In early 1961, the trio were transferred to the Isle of Pines, Castro's most dreaded prison. It housed 6,000 in a facility designed for 4,500. For months on end, they felt no sunlight—only the dank filthiness of their cells. Breakfast consisted of half milk, half coffee and a piece of bread; lunch was rice and beans; supper only a dish of beans. As the months wore on, food became worse. Disease was rampant. Worst of all, the sound of gun shots pierced the night. No one was safe from the threat of summary execution.
Overhead image of Isle of Pines prison compound. [Getty Images]
Considering the dehumanizing conditions that fueled prison riots, emotional breakdowns, and depression, it is remarkable the CIA officers' morale remained intact. Their new mission was helping others. One day, Dave, Andy, and Wally physically stopped a Cuban journalist from jumping to his death over a fifth-floor railing. The men also stepped in to care for an American mercenary who had gone mad and was being taunted by Cuban prisoners. They cleaned him up and got medication to quell his anxiety.
The days dragged on, and the men longed for their loved ones. To pass the time, they created a Monopoly board game from memory and engineered a radio out of smuggled components. It could pick up broadcasts from Miami and New Orleans. Once in a while, they would receive pre-screened mail or a Red Cross package that only they knew was from friends and colleagues at CIA.
A Jailhouse View of the Bay of Pigs
Cuban troops using Soviet-made anti-artillery during the Bay of Pigs operation. [Getty Images]
One morning in April 1961, the Isle was jolted awake by machine guns firing at a B-26 flying overhead. Guards panicked. Shouts echoed on walls. The inmates were asking the Americans what they thought was going on. Dave knew. He had been briefed the year before on CIA's plans to invade the island, but to protect Andy and Wally during interrogations, he chose not to burden them with the knowledge.
Wally looked out a tiny window and, in the distance, saw the last sweep of a B-26 as it sunk a patrol boat. But that was pretty much the beginning and end of the Bay of Pigs operation.
To deter any future threat, Castro ordered the prisons to be lined with explosives. Should there be an insurrection or another U.S. effort to oust him, the bothersome prisoners would simply be blown away.
CIA Officers to the Rescue
The Cuban army installed several tons of TNT in each facility that November. To prevent tragedy, the CIA technicians orchestrated a secret operation with a few trusted Cuba cellmates. They would disarm the explosives by cutting a gap in the detonation cord without leaving telltale evidence that anyone had tampered with it.
Mission success made them jailhouse heroes; for the prisoners, TNT rigged to blow up under their feet was more frightful than the failed invasion or the Cuban missile crisis that would follow.
Freedom Comes Calling
A visitor came to see the American captives in March of 1963. It was James B. Donovan, the New York lawyer who had recently arranged the exchange of U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers for a Soviet spy and bartered the release of the Cuban exiles captured during the Bay of Pigs operation. Donovan told Dave, Andy, and Wally that they would be coming out in another prisoner exchange. It was true.
One of five sheets of a calendar that Andy created during his captivity. On it, he recorded significant events (in his own code) and kept it hidden during prison contraband searches. He brought the calendar out with him when he was released.
A month later, on April 21, 1963, Dave, Andy, and Wally were released along with 18 other American prisoners, to include the troubled American they had taken under their wing. Their hell had extended for 949 days. Sadly, on their flight back home, Wally was told that his mother had died while he was in captivity. The men, who should have been overjoyed for their freedom, instead sat and wept together.
Return to Duty
After reuniting with their families, they returned to work at CIA within the newly-established Directorate of Science & Technology. Despite their fortitude, the men received little fanfare because, during the intervening years, the Agency determined the Havana operation had been mismanaged; for instance, planners failed to post a lookout while the clandestine operation was underway, and the officers did not receive the usual pre-travel contingency training in the event that things went sideways.
Their exceptional conduct while in enemy hands finally came to the attention of then Director of Central Intelligence Stansfield Turner. In April 1979, Turner recognized each officer "for a voluntary act or acts of exceptional heroism involving the acceptance of existing dangers with conspicuous fortitude and exemplary courage." With that, Dave, Andy, and Wally each received the Distinguished Intelligence Cross—the Agency's highest honor for valor—but not before they had experienced more operational adventures and successes at CIA.