Former Cuban President Fidel Castro directed a cocaine operation inside the United States and killed the general who helped aid its operation so he could cover his own fingerprints, says Castro's former bodyguard.
The New York Post printed an excerpt Sunday from the book "The Double Life of Fidel Castro" in which Juan Reinaldo Sanchez describes the day in 1988 when he realized his hero was not everything he thought.
Sanchez, who often recorded meetings with Castro from a nearby office, was told not to do so on a day when the president met with Interior Minister Gen. José Abrantes. Bored after watching the lengthy meeting on a video screen, Sanchez turned on the sound and heard the two discussing a Cuban who was inside the United States running a boat smuggling operation.
Sanchez, a true believer in the revolution, was disillusioned.
The drug-running was part of a program to make money once aid from the Soviet Union stopped flowing in 1986. The United States became suspicious of the program, so Castro feigned surprise and put Abrantes and Gen. Arnaldo Ochoa, a respected revolutionary leader, on trial.
Castro watched the proceedings via closed-circuit television and directed everything that happened, Sanchez writes. In the end, Abrantes received a 20-year sentence and died suspiciously in prison. Ochoa was sentenced to the firing squad.
Castro's aides were forced to watch video of the execution, and his brother, current President Raul Castro, began drinking heavily, the author claims.
Eventually, Fidel Castro told his brother he had no such fate to fear – unless he continued with his heavy drinking.
Sanchez attempted to retire in 1994, but Castro put him in prison. After 10 escape attempts, Sanchez was able to get to Mexico by boat and eventually cross the border in Texas in 2008.
