had to do with that action. >> hi, how are you? i look forward to reading your book. i have two questions. the first question is how did you deal with problematic sources, someone like arturo cobow, former bay of pigs veteran, but he's been to court for drug trafficking charges himself. they said that he was the guy who started mariel and then he said he wasn't the guy who started mariel and then he said he was. theses sources are difficult and i'm interested to see how you address these issues. and then my second question is i think the underlying theme of your book is that it was chaos in your experience and the carter administration didn't respond well to this threat. did you find any evidence that

reagan's administration then was any better dealing with the spies or this infiltration? >> let me first address arturo cobow. arturo cobow was a double agent and is still an agent. arturo works with the c.i.a. and the f.b.i. and he is -- many of these people are managed by someone. sergio pen onwho at that time was with the elight intelligence group, the miami police intelligence group managed cobow. when he was arrested for the drug charges, if you follow that story, i think there were like 9,000 kilos of something, he was there. but they knew how much more there were because he knew. so and he has done a great deal

for our country. the second question was -- >> how did the reagan administration obviously respond to this threat? i think traditionally it's been thought of that carter was weak and that castro took advantage of his weakness, but then subsequently what was done to track down these spies or did you find any -- >> i can tell you something very interesting about jimmy carter. jimmy carter is a very, very christian man. he's a very good man. but he reached the end of the line about the middle of september when he -- he was a very good friend of castro. one of the things he did, he was very careful with what he was doing because he was trying to get castro to negotiate with the

iatola comain 90 to release the prisoners. this whole thing happened at a bad time for carter. but he does announce in the middle of september, that also castro stops the boatlift that ronald reagan will be president and castro stopped the boatlift on september 27th. castro was afraid of reagan. i don't go that far. my book is about 20 days, but they do interface. but that was -- it would appear to have impressed castro that on september 27th, he stopped it. >> i think it varies remarking that the drug question to cuba is significant in a sense that we have not been able to get documents declassified with relationship to various actions taken by the u.s. government that seem to have a cuban link

to make a long story short put together some of the stuff that is lying around here. it's very clear, a lot of people remember 1989, united states and panama and to take head of state noring a tkpwa out and subject to trial for drug trafficking. he had been on the c.i a. payroll since 1956. he was a major ally. george bush first was responsible for the action and from the perspective of many cubans on the island, the reason it happened was that the book argues and somewhat documents through some of the agents, it was an effort on the part of the united states to set a precedent to allow the united states to take out somebody in charge there of similar offenses.

now, whether or not it's accurate as a hypothesis and i published that as a hypothesis in the cuban government there was a man who was very clean general and wonderful reputation in cuba and sudden will he out of nowhere he was subjected to trial for drug offenses for carrying out major trafficking. and it was a great shock to the cuban people. and there was the fall of the berlin wall and the execution. the trial with raul castro as the judge is a great, great hero of cuba and then his ultimate execution by firing squad. the theory in cuba on the island was that this happened because because ka was trafficking drugs and they needed to use him as a scapegoat to void any possible

repercussions. you get rid of this program. they had been subsidizing by participating in trafficking. it's horrible. so i think the book contributes to that debate at the very least until we can get greater amounts of information. >> another element with ochoa was he was the fall guy by the united states. >> for drug trafficking. >> for drug trafficking. and in the book sergio pen

onexplains trafficking. >> for drug he and arturo cobow were very involved in the operation. >> the head of cuba's navy was also. >> carlos santa maria. they were all involved. but it was the state department didn't want to believe anything. and the f.b.i., what we found in the testimony in the book, it it describes the fact that the fbi brings sergio pen oninto court and says, how can you talk about this? did you talk about this to the f.b.i. and he said yes, i did and the f. pwplt i.director said no you didn't. he said i did. he said which f.b.i. and he said the f.b.i. in miami. he said, okay, you better check and see if you did. when he went back to the office he found out, yes in fact that they had the information.

but what it was -- what miami's f.b.i. didn't trust washington's f.b.i. because of the infiltration. >> i think we have time for one more question. go ahead. >> there are theories about the mariel is that it happened because of the influx of visitors that were at that time starting to go back to cuba with clothing and everything. >> and attitudes and knowledge -- >> it was an opening that a lot of people that a lot of hadn't seen. my analogy is to the present.

we have -- in the cuban situation every 10 or 15 years there has been an exodus of some sort. we had the last one in '94. so we're due. >> you're right. we have more coming this year in unprecedented degree. >> 56,000. >> exactly. being the fact that the same system has been from since 1959 and the same depression more or less, but my question would be, do you think that if there is an opening now more people going and more money coming in but no change in the system, would that make the pressure cooker, as we call it, to explode? >> i'll say something to that

having been someone who travelled and lived in cuba many, many times since 1996. one of the good aspects and there are many of the change and attitudes and relations is simply that there's a change and that that -- the results of that change are somewhat unpredictable. but on the island i think a lot of people believe that the cuban government, whether it wants to admit it or not will have to be more accountable precisely because you'll have more people than we've had since the clinton years going there who are not cuban exiles or the children who are actually u.s., real americans. the real americans are. and the kind of information and knowledge and attitudes they are stunning and surprising.

the moment i know any american who is arriving cuba, they are having a deep, political experience conversation in ways they never expected. i think that's wonderful. it is probably very, very scary, even when they don't wanted to admit it. because person to person democracy takes place in this conversation. so i applaud all that might result and i don't know if we'll have a classollapse or change in terms of what people demand from the cuban government and what they'll have to do in response. i hope that it is the latter. >> so far there's still, for example, the women there's still

sometimes beating them. there's still political -- people being put in -- >> we saw that very recently with the artist calling for an oepl microphone and anyone who wants to gets to go say something and she was listed under house arrest and disappeared for several days and she's still under arrest. a lot of people predict that. i think it's very significant. public protest is not allowed unless it's mediated by the state and authorized by the state and it would not be a protest. so that's a reelal reality. demonstrations are one means of

changes and there are a lot of other means of change that i hope we get to encounter. i think we'll call it a night and buy the book. thank you so much for coming. thank you to our authors. [applause] >> former nation of islam minister malcolm x. was assassinated a few years ago

february 21st 1965. he said down for an interview in 1963 at the university of california vertically. -- berkeley. it will show that at 7:00. next section one of the 14th amendment is known for granting citizenship to former slaves. another clause and that amendment attempted to bar from public office anyone who'd aided the republic confederate cause. what level of participation by former confederates would cause section 3 to apply. this talk is one hour 10