252. Editorial Note
On July 24, 1961, an Eastern Air Lines plane, en route from Miami to Tampa, Florida, with 33 passengers aboard, was hijacked at gunpoint by one of the passengers, who forced the pilot to fly to Havana. The Cuban Government released 32 of the planeʼs passengers and its 5 crew members on July 25, and they were flown to Miami on a scheduled Pan American Airways flight. The only passenger detained in Cuba was the man who had seized the plane, identified by the FBI as Cuban-born Wilfredo Roman Oquendo. On July 26 Castro offered to return the hijacked plane if the United States would promise to return Cuban planes similarly seized and flown to the United States. Secretary of State Rusk rejected Castroʼs offer on July 27, with the observation that claims relating to seized planes were matters for the courts to decide.
An attempted hijacking on August 3 was foiled when FBI and border patrol officals captured the would-be hijacker, ex-convict Leon Bearden, on the ground at El Paso, Texas, before he could force the pilot to fly a Continental Airlines 707 jet to Havana. On August 9, however, a Pan American Airways flight, en route from Mexico City to Guatemala, was seized by a gunman later identified as Albert Charles Cadon, a Frenchman, and forced to fly to Havana. The plane and passengers, except for Cadon, were returned to the United States the same day.
On August 15 the Eastern Airlines jet that had been seized was released in Havana in return for the release of a Cuban gunboat that had [Page 635] been seized on July 29 by its 3 crewmen, who asked for and received asylum at Key West, Florida. The details of all of these developments were chronicled in The New York Times, July 25-August 16, 1961.