Evening star., 1962-11-18
Continued From PAGE A

Continued From Page A
touch with the task force Of
agents. .... ....
The cache of explosives, gre
nades and detonatorS, the
agents were told, had been 10,
Gated and they were in a race
with time to seize the plotterS
before the Cubans could act.
The men, armed with theil
service revolvers, went down the
elevators into their radio
equipped cars and spread over
New York.
Some. of them took stations
along Riverside drive, where
apartments tower against the
Hudson River skyline. Other.
drove to the squalid tenement
areas of the lower West Sidt
where Spanish is a more com
mon language than English.
At more than Is places ir
the darkened city, the FB.
agents parked their cars anc
sat-waiting for the appear.
ance of men whose faces they
knew but whose intentions
were, for the moment, uncer.
tain.
The first action came al
$40 o'clock Friday night.
Eight agents were posted ir
front of a gray-stone, fading
apartment house known as the
Cromwell Annex, at 604 River
side drive. Some were in cars
Others hid in. areaways and
one FBI man was across the
street in a park more nor
imally frequented by boys and
girls.
At that moment, the double
doors of the apartment opened
and onto the sidewalk stepped
Roberto Santiesteban Casa.
nova, 81, a stocky Cuban newly
arrived at the United Nation.
as an attache on a plane bear.
ing Castro's puppet president
OSvaldo Dorticos.
ResistS Arrest
Roberto, as the FBI referred
to him, was the ringleader of
the plot in the estimation of
the agents.
He was not taken easily.
There he is shouted the
agent who knew Roberto best
from days Of surveillance. At
the signal, the others closed in.
One FB1 man grabbed Rob-
etto's arm. The Cuban reacted
by biting him on the hand.
Then he fought wildly as the
other FBI agents moved in 70
subdue him.
He yelled in Spanish and
English: "Diplomaticol Diplo-
tnatico!" ..
In his belt they found a
loaded .765 Mauser pistol. Rob-
erto's efforts to reach the pistol
and to swallow a piece of paper
were fruitless. In the scuffle, he
was bruised on his head.
Crowd Gathers
The piece of paper he tried
to swallow turned out to be a
formula for the manufacture OF
explosives.
The agents quickly hand
cuffed Roberte's hands behind
him and hustled him into a
car. Crowds were beginning to
gather. He was driven to head
quarters on the East Side and
word went out over the radio
that he had been arrested.
But there remained the ex-
plosives, and there were other
Cubans in the plot. At a dozen
locations over New York, the
FBI men increased their vigil
ance.
At 1:50 am, the second ar
rest took place at the usually
busy corner of Twenty fifth
street and Third avenue on the
East Side. There, the agents
had spotted a car belonging to
Marino Antonio Esteban Del
Carmen Suerio Y Cabrera, %,
and they had staked it out.
Second Arrest
Tony was an odd-job man,
very tall for a Cuban, and a
married man. When the FBI
agents leaped from their van
tage points, he offered no re-
sistance and he proved to be
unarmed.
Meanwhile, a whole task
force of agents was camped in
the block where Jose Garcia
Orellana, AZ, had a costume
jewelry business on the sixth
floor Of building at 242 West
Twenty-seventh street.
1t was here. the FBI believed,
that the cache Of grenades and
explosives was hidden. They
had a search warrant but
couldn't serve it all night be-
cause no one showed up.
The break came when a pair
of agents managed to convince
u. .Garcia's petite brunette wife
that she and their two daugh-
terS would be better off if he
were in custody.
She gave the agents the ad-
dress of a friend of her hus-
band and, at 8:15 o'clock this
morning, the agents went
there. They found Garcia
asleep in what is called a
loft" in New York, and ar
rested him in bed. He was not
armed and offered no re-
SiStance.
Then, with Garcia in their
custody, the FBI men moved in
on the suspected location of
the explosives.
They took Garcia'S brother