The Toledo Times
August 13, 1959.
Morgan Visited
Dominican Republic In Undercover Role, Newspaper Says
By Associated Press
The newspaper Presna Libre yesterday in Havana hailed Maj. William Morgan of Toledo, as a hero who helped foil a plot against the regime of Fidel Castro.
The newspaper said Major Morgan, who served with Mr. Castro’s forces in the revolution, even visited the Dominican Republic and brought back a load of arms in his role as an undercover agent.
There was no official word on the whereabouts of Major Morgan or his role in the anti-government conspiracy the government said it uncovered over the weekend.
Presna Livre gave this account of Major Morgan’s role:
Major Morgan pretended to join a group of plotters, meeting with them repeatedly and even introducing other loyal Castro officers as supporters of the movement to overthrow the revolutionary government.
Major Morgan talked with anti-Castro agents in the Dominican Republic by secret radios. Then he “gave a new demonstration of his valor by actually visiting the Dominican Republic, declaring himself as a deserter and announcing he was prepared to take arms and volunteers back to fight the Castro regime.”
As the vessel in which Major Morgan was bringing more than a ton of arms to the conspirators approached Cuba, the American and his lieutenants forced the anti-Castro men to surrender, Presna Libre said.
At the same time, the newspaper went on, Elroy Gutierrez Menoyo, a Castro commander, and another pretended conspirator suddenly produced machineguns at a conference of plotters in a Havana residential area and arrested those present.
One of the plotters tried to kill Mr. Gutierrez Menoyo with a knife, but was shot and wounded by one of the commander’s followers, the newspaper said.
Prensa Libre gave no source of its information, which it said it published in an attempt to give the most detailed account possible without interfering with the government’s roundup of plotters.