WE HAVE TIME LEFT TO RIGHT OUR WRONG TO PATRIOT

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000201790001-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 22, 2010
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: April 22, 1981
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/22 : CIA-RDP90-00552R000201790001-3
PROVO HERALD (UT)
22 April 1981
Herald in Washington
,in
ro rarr~vi ~
By LEE RODERICK
Herald Washington Correspondent
WASHINGTON -.Frank G. Em-
mick, the American businessman
turned- CIA spy who for 14 years,
was held" asr political prisoner in
Cuba until 1978 and whose story ap-
peared recently in this column is
dead.
Emmick, 66, had. survived being .
beaten unconscious and thrown into
the sea for dead by Fidel Castro's
goons. He had survived a bayoneting
by prison guards, who regularly
threatened him with death before a
firing squad. And he had survived a
severe heart condition in prison that
saw him taking up to 20
nitroglycerin tablets a day.
Frank Emmick survived, Cuba.
But he couldn't survive his own
government.
While a prisoner in Cuba, he had
sailed against the wind blowing out of
the Carter administration in favor.
of warmer relations with Castro`
His return home in January 1978.
widely healded elsewhere. was met
with icy silence by the administra-
tion, which had disowned him.
For the next three years. Emmick
petitioned his government in vain,
for redress of several legitimate
grievances. .
Living near the poverty line in
Toledo. Ohio with his wife Raphael.,
he sought special. compensation for
aservice-connected disability. first:
applied for 37 years ago from the
Veterans Administration. The VA
finally agreed to his claim last Oc-
tober and promised compensation.
But six months later, not a dime had
been sent.
Emmick, virtually penniless and
weighted down by stress. told me in'
March that. "'I'm broken hearted
but I'm not broken.. .but I don't know
how much longer I can go on this
way,.,
On April 4, Emmick and his wife
went dancing. Shortly after mid-
night. as they were walking off the
floor hand-in-hand, he clutched at
his chest and fell to the floor. He
It is too late for the Reagan ad-
ministration to help Frank Emmick.
But it is not too late for this ad-
ministration to redress past wrongs
and, -honor his heroic service to
America by granting to Emmick's
.widow what it legitimately. owes
him.:'
In doing so.. President Reagan
would be making a powerful state-
ment to friends of freedom
everywhere, that, from now on.
patriotism transcends politics in the
United States.
In a ceremony recently at the
State Department, awards for valor
were presented to foreign service
employees among the Americans
who had been held hostage in Iran.
Without denigrating their service. it
can be noted that their major'
.achievement was simply surviving
the 14-month ordeal.
Emmick on the other hand, truly
was the stuff of which heroes are
made. Late in 1960, on the eve of the
rupture in U.S'Cuba relations, the'
CIA station chief in Cuba. a man
narned Carlos Casaus, fled the
country.
Shortly thereafter. Casaus con-
tacted Emmick through an in.-
termediary and asked him to take
up the. CIA's work.. Emmick.
,motivated by patriotism- he never
was paid for his clandestine, ac-
,tivities -- agreed
During the next three years. until
his imprisonment in September of
1963, Emmick was of enormous help'
to the West.
He secreted out hundreds of docu-
ments to the CIA detailing sensitive
activities in Cuba. especially those
.involving the Soviet Union. assisted
intelligence agents visiting Cuba in
locating Cuban defense instal.
lations: and. in April 1962. provided
Washington an early warning of the
Soviet buildup that culminated that
fall in the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Thrown. into prison in September
1963 - his seafood .business had
been confiscated two years earlier
= Emmick refusedsto'divulge CIA
secrets or give any ;credence to the
',charge that he was head of the
agency in Cuba.-.His stubborn resistance continued for 14 years.
during which time` he smuggled`
numerous notes out of prison. giving
Washington valuable inside infor
mazion on Cuba.'
'In 1977, Emmick also sent two let-
ters to President Carter via western
diplomats, warning that he wouldn't
allow Carter to use him as a pawn in
the administration's attempts to
normaliz relations with Cuba. If the
United States recognized Castro.
Emmick wrote, he would consider
himself an American "dissident",
and refuse repatriation..
Since Emmick''s return in
January, 1978. every petition to
Washington has'met a brick wall.
The CIA disavows any connection
with him - despite strong evidence
to the contrary.
A cable from Pope Paul VI
welcoming him home to freedom
Emmick was a devout Catholic
was sent via the State Department,
which has- refused to furnish the
written text to Emmick , despite
repeated requests. A valuable
.heirloom ring which'Emmick smug-
gled out of prison, destined for his
son' in Ohio, was lost in the mail
,through the 'State Department's
carelessness.
The VA refused to av ?or his
triple-bypass open-heart surgery in
1978 which left him with $20.000 in
bills, and .has failed to this time to
pay the special compensation- it
,agreed to in October.
Emmick's widow, Raphael-- who
turns 63 in June, has been working
two jobs to make ends meet and pay
.the rent on their' modest Toledo
home.
Like her husband, Raphael Em-
mick is an optimist. She. still
believes there is. justice 'in
Washington. President Reagan now
has an opportunity however belated.
to prove she's right.
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/22 : CIA-RDP90-00552R000201790001-3