Legal aspects of the trial and exchange of the mercenaries captured in Playa Girón (Part IV and final).

«The conversations between Commander in Chief Fidel Castro and the American lawyer James Donovan, in charge of negotiating the payment of the 63 million pesos compensation imposed by the Revolutionary Tribunal to the invaders of Playa Girón, concluded on December 21st, in general, with a satisfactory agreement».

The Committee of Relatives of the mercenaries captured at Giron accepted the conditions demanded by the Cuban Government and on Saturday, April 14th 1962, in an act of good will by Cuba, the first 60 mercenaries who had been wounded in combat or were seriously ill were released.

On April 10th, 1962, the representatives of the Committee of Relatives held their first meeting with Fidel in Havana, in which agreements were reached regarding the payment of compensation. The first of these was to approve that the sums of money available at that time would be used to pay compensation to those wounded in the battles at Playa Giron and to the sick.

The new funds to be collected for compensation would be used, in the first place, for the prisoners considered by the revolutionary tribunal to have less social and political responsibility in the invasion and, therefore, sanctioned to pay the smallest amounts. Finally, they would be applied to prisoners who had to pay larger amounts.

In June 1962, on behalf of the Committee of Relatives, the office of U.S. attorney James B. Donovan was visited to request his mediation in negotiations with Cuba. Donovan to ask for his mediation in the negotiations with Cuba. Donovan accepted the proposal. It was later learned that John F. Kennedy and his brother Robert had asked Donovan to negotiate the release.

The lawyer, well known for his vast experience and capacity, had achieved great notoriety for his decisive management in the release of two U.S. spies, one of them the pilot of the U-2 plane shot down over Soviet territory in May 1960.

The incorporation of Donovan expedited the process for the payment of the compensation, although the negotiations were again interrupted as a consequence of the worsening of relations between the two countries in the second half of 1962, as a consequence of the so-called October Crisis.

The truth is that the CIA tried to use Donovan to give Fidel a diving suit impregnated with fungi and bacteria capable of killing him, according to official documents of the U.S. government itself.

Finally, in December 1962, the then newspaper Revolucion published the news: «The conversations between the Commander in Chief Fidel Castro and the American lawyer James Donovan, in charge of negotiating the payment of the 63 million pesos indemnity imposed by the Revolutionary Tribunal to the invaders of Playa Giron, concluded on December 21, in general, with a satisfactory agreement».

It was, without a doubt, the second victory of Playa Girón.

Written by Dc Osvaldo Manuel  Álvarez Torres.