Miami Herald

August 6, 1987. p. 1b, 4b

 

WQBA Commentator Manuel Espinosa Dies

 

By Belinda Brockman

Herald Staff Writer

            Manuel Espinosa, a firebrand minister and self-proclaimed former Cuban intelligence agent who feverishly advocated the overthrow of Fidel Castro, died Wednesday of a heard attack. He was 48.

            Bombastic, controversial and charismatic, he called for the downfall of the Cuban government as he had once praised the Lord in his Hialeah Pentecostal congregation. Twice a day, six days a week since 1981, Mr. Espinosa had commented on issues in the Cuban-exile community over WQBA radio. A diatribe or gospel, depending upon the listener’s view, his commentaries never failed to elicit reaction.

            “Oh, the feedback we had,” said Tomas Regalado, news director of WQBA. “He was very flamboyant. Sometimes he used humor. Very anti-Castro language. Very militant.”

            Big, bearded and bespectacled, he had the appearance of the preacher that he was and the fervor of a street hustler.

            “The so-called leaders are the ones who doubt me, not the people,” he told The Miami News in 1982.

            “Not to compare myself, but they doubted the Apostle Paul and they doubted Christ and they doubted Reagan; why shouldn’t they doubt men, and unknown?”

            It was in 1980 that Mr. Espinosa stunned Little Havana with the announcement that he had been an agent of Castro. Since the early 1970s, the minister had been an outspoken proponent of dialogue between the Cuban exile community and the Castro government He was a member of the executive board of the Committee of 75, the group that directed the dialogue, and was singled out by Castro as a leader in the reunification of Cuban families.

            Then, like a bolt of lightning, in a series of highly publicized press conferences, Mr. Espinosa struck out at those he had once led. He denounced the dialogue as a vehicle of penetration by Cuban intelligence agents into South Florida. He named names. Many of his claims were never proven.

            He explained his former activities: “These were orders by Castro. I was told to penetrate the community, bribe politicians, publish little newspapers. I was fighting alone, accepting all the conditions.”

            After the denunciations, Mr. Espinosa gave up his church and became a security consultant and private investigator, as well as radio commentator.

            Mostly, he became a tracker of spies. For this, he became known in Little Havana as “The Hunter.” He claimed his charge was to “unmask the extensive penetration of intelligence agents that operates in this country.”

            All through the years, he was the target of violence. He had been beaten and threatened. In 1983, parts of a bomb were found under his car. When he became saddened or discouraged at the outrages, he claimed to read the Bible, Psalm 73.

            The flip-flop in political views was not new to the Havana-raised Mr. Espinosa. By 1956, he joined the revolution. He was named to the job of circulation inspector for the new government’s official newspaper, Revolucion, in 1959.

            Two years later, he had changed his mind and was imprisoned for 45 days in La Cabana prison. Upon Mr. Espinosa’s release, he sought political asylum at the Uruguayan embassy in Havana after hiding in the ambassador’s car, said his brother, George. He arrived in Miami in 1962.

            In the years to follow, Mr. Espinosa joined several anti-Castro organizations and worked in New Jersey, Virginia and Florida. With his mother’s death in 1972, he decided to join the Pentecostal religious community in Pittsburgh.

            In 1974, he was ordained at Miami’s Iglesia Evangelica Pentecostal, and a year later formed his own church.

            Mr. Espinosa’s son, Manuel Jr., said his father had recently returned to the pulpit, starting a new church. “He wanted to go back to that, being a preacher and doing what he really loved best,” Manuel Jr. said.

            In addition to his son and brother George, survivors include his wife, Haydee; two other brothers and one sister.

            Funeral services will be private, under the direction of the Rivero Hialeah Chapel.