From the Archives: The spies next door
This week's From the Archives comes from a March 6, 2021, article in the Naples Daily News by Harriet Howard Heithaus.
The CIA became the tenants of a fish camp central building known as Cottage Manatee on the Gordon River where it proceeded to quietly supply the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba.
Urban legends abound about carloads of Cubans coming to the city to learn where they could join the ultimately failed attempt to wrest control from dictator Fidel Castro.
But the person who has the facts is Lila Zuck, Naples historian. Her book, 'Naples, A Second Paradise' (Collier County Historical Research Center, Inc.: 2013; 1,005 pages) describes the groups' front as the Keys Navigation and Research Company. It largely funneled arms, hidden under the house, to the Cuban exile troops via PT boat. (The book is available from the Naples Historical Society at napleshistoricalsociety.org.)
It was not hard for Naples to figure out what the true intent was, according to Zuck; one of the checks for its outboard motor repair was signed by the Central Intelligence Agency in Langley, Virginia.
Later, on Marco Island, the U.S. Air Force openly built missile tracking stations at Caxambas Point to watch the skies around Cuba. Russia, then the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, had begun installing nuclear missile sites in Cuba, a prime vantage point from which to intimidate the U.S.
The tensions built to an ultimatum Oct. 22, 1962, when President John F. Kennedy addressed the nation on television, announcing a naval blockade of Cuba and threatening military strikes to back it up.
The blockade was to forestall any additional nuclear missiles arriving from the USSR. But there were already missiles there. Southwest Floridians doubtlessly felt the tension of the moment much more than most Americans, who were, to say it mildly, clenched.
A week of diplomacy through the United Nations defused the situation: Russia would remove the missiles; we would not support another Bay of Pigs. Eventually both sites would become high-end homes and commercial developments where owners may be unaware that they're on historical ground.
From the Archives: 'The desperado of Chatham Bend'
From the Archives: The 'everyday' lives of Neapolitans from 1949-1981
Archives: The 'everyday' lives of Neapolitans from 1949-1981
This article originally appeared on Naples Daily News: From the Archives: The spies next door
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