Directorio Revolucionario Estudantil

Directorio Revolucionario Estudiantil (DRE), or Student Revolutionary Directorate, was a Cuban student group which in opposition to Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista from 1954 to 1957 played a role in the Cuban Revolution, before a 1960 re-founding saw it oppose Fidel Castro and move its base to the United States, where it soon developed links with the Central Intelligence Agency. In August 1962 it carried out an attack on a beachfront Havana hotel.[1] In 1963 it was the largest anti-Castro student group in Miami; it also had a chapter in New Orleans, where it had contact with Lee Harvey Oswald in mid-1963 and immediately after the 22 November 1963 assassination of John F. Kennedy launched a public campaign to assert that Lee Harvey Oswald had been acting on behalf of the Cuban government.[2] The group disbanded in December 1966.[3]

History

The DRE was founded in 1954 as a Catholic student group opposed to the Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista,[1] defining its principles as political liberty, economic independence, and social justice.[4] It made significant military contributions to what would become the Cuban Revolution, including a 1957 attack on Batista's Presidential Palace, organised by DRE leader José Antonio Echeverría (who died the same day in a related incident), and the opening of a second front in the Escambray Mountains, which was taken over by Che Guevara. The death of Echeverria and other leaders led to the virtual collapse of the group, and its remaining membership largely joined the Escambray front under the leadership of the 26th of July Movement.[4]

In February 1960 a group of DRE members at the University of Havana publicly opposed the visit of Anastas Mikoyan, leading to their expulsion from the university.[3] Later that year the group moved its headquarters to Miami.[1] Here the group developed connections with the Central Intelligence Agency; E. Howard Hunt and David Atlee Phillips both spoke highly of the group's leaders in their respective memoirs.[3] In August 1962 it carried out an attack on a hotel in Cuba, with two speedboats firing at a beachfront Havana hotel;[1] DRE members involved included Juan Manuel Salvat and José Basulto.[3] Although the US State Department maintained the attempt was independent, it had been planned by the Central Intelligence Agency's JM/WAVE station in Miami.[1]

In mid-1962 the DRE passed on early reports to its CIA connections of missiles being stationed in Cuba; when this was later confirmed by U-2 photographs, the Cuban missile crisis ensued. Afterwards, the DRE claimed some missiles had been hidden in caves, a claim the CIA discredited.[3]

In 1963 the group was financed by the CIA with $25,000 per month, under a CIA program named AMSPELL run by George Joannides, the chief of the psychological warfare branch in Miami's JM/WAVE station. The money went to Luis Fernandez Rocha, the DRE's leader in Miami, and supported the DRE's activities in a variety of cities, including New Orleans.[2] Joannides also provided non-financial support, including reviewing military plans and briefing them on how to handle the press.[2] Joannides worked with the group from December 1962 to April 1964; CIA monthly reports on the group from 1960 to 1966 have been declassified, except for this period.[2]

In August 1963 the DRE had several significant contacts with Lee Harvey Oswald. Oswald had approached a member, Carlos Bringuier,[5] and pretended to be sympathetic to the DRE's goals; when DRE members later saw him handing out pro-Castro leaflets, a public fight ensued. Later the same month, Oswald took part in a local radio debate with DRE members.[6]

The day after the assassination of John F. Kennedy the DRE, defying an instruction from Joannides to await instructions from Washington, D.C., launched a public campaign to assert that Lee Harvey Oswald had been acting on behalf of the Cuban government. Members called Paul Bethel and Clare Boothe Luce with these claims, and on 23 November published a 7-page brief on Oswald as well as a special edition of the DRE's monthly bulletin, a four-page broadsheet which ran the headline "The Presumed Assassins" above photographs of Oswald and Fidel Castro.[2] DRE members later said that the aim was to create public pressure for a US attack on Cuba.[2]

With declining membership and effectiveness, the DRE disbanded in December 1966.[3]

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 David Talbot (2008), Brothers: The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years, Simon and Schuster, p154
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 Jefferson Morley, "What Jane Roman Said", Marquette University
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 Jefferson Morley, Directorio Revolucionario Estudiantil (DRE) / Cuban Student Directorate
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Silvia Pedraza (2007), Political Disaffection in Cuba's Revolution and Exodus, Cambridge University Press, p52-4
  5. ↑ Warren Commission Hearings, vol. 10, pp. 34–37, Testimony of Carlos Bringuier.
  6. ↑ Scott Shane, New York Times, 16 October 2009, C.I.A. Is Still Cagey About Oswald Mystery

See also

External links