The New York Times
July 3, 1958 - Page 4

U.S. Boatswain's Mate Talked Cuba Rebels Out of Holding Him

Special to The New York Times

GUANTANAMO, Cuba, July 2--An American released by the Cuban rebels last week after a brief period of capture attributed his freedom today to the gift of persuasion he learned in two and a half years of recruiting duty in Meriden, Conn.

Chief Boatswain's Mate Robert J. Sharrow, whose wife, Edna, is at 16 Cedar Hills Road, Meridan, said that Fidel Castro's insurgents had let him go after forty-five minutes of argument on a road last Saturday night.

At the same time the rebels abducted Airman T. R. Mossness of Ames, Iowa, who had been seized while driving to Guantanamo city with his wife, Mrs. Mossness was not held.

The names of Airman Mossness and Boatswain's Mate Second Class B. R. Fox of Bloomingfield, N.J., were officially added here today to the list of kidnapped sailors and marines, making the total twenty-nine.  Mr. Fox had been riding with other abducted servicemen in a liberty bus Friday night.

Meanwhile Rear Admiral R. B. Ellis, commander of the United Sates Naval Base at Guantanamo, said he believed that Consul Park Wollam and Vice Consul Robert Wicha from Santiago de Cuba were still negotiating with the rebels.

Admiral Ellis said he had made arrangements to bring to the base 113 families of servicemen now living outside it, including 205 dependents, but he doubted that this would be necessary.  Such families had been lodged on the base for three weeks during the threatened all-out civil war last April.

Chief Sharrow, a veteran of twenty-two years in the Navy, has been here since Jan. 15 and is on shore patrol duty in Guantanamo, thirty miles from the base.

He said he had driven his panel truck from the base at 7 P.M. Saturday and had been gone only ten minutes when he saw a light flashing on what turned out to be guns.

Twelve rebels, including a captain and a lieutenant, stopped him.  They wore green fatigue uniforms with the insignia of Senor Castro's movement.

The rebels told Chief Sharrow that he had run through one roadblock 100 yards earlier and "almost got myself shot."  They pointed a .30-caliber machine gun and forced him to back up to a gully where they were holding Airman Mossness and his wife.  Fifteen minutes later a Cuban civilian employee of the base, traveling in a sedan, was halted.

Chief Sharrow said the rebels wanted to hold him for three days to go to the hills to bring back films and pictures of bombs, guns and spare military equipment parts that they charged the base--falsely, according to Admiral Ellis--with arming and fueling Cuban combat planes.

"I told them I was more beneficial to my command and to them at Guantanamo City, being neutral, than being in the hills and carrying propaganda to the base," Chief Sharrow said.  "I explained that I was a go-between in Guantanamo City between the Cubans and the American population.  The lieutenant could speak very good English."

Eventually the rebels took away Airman Mossness and his jeep, leaving the others to go free.