Operation Pedro Pan: A Historical Overview

Lilian Caballero

Dr. Lindsey Maxwell

AMH 2020

12/01/2017

Pedro Pan Oral History

Oral history is an imperative custodian of historical events and practices that shape people’s views and opinions about their past. Much of the historical information is stored in tape or video recordings. Operation Pedro Pan was an initiative that was undertaken in the early 1960s to help Cuban families remove their children from Cuba following the rise of communist regimen. This operation took place just few months before the Cuban communist regime spearheaded by Fidel Castro had complete control of the country. Over fourteen thousand unaccompanied children from Cuba fled to the United States during the Operation Pedro Pan, upon they arrival

For instance, Yvonne M. Conde in addition to the interviews conduction with the Pedro Pan children, offered freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to the United States department, service naturalization, immigration besides the CIA to enable retrieval of the operation Pedro pan’s governing documents. However, the Conde’s request to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was denied through the way of ambiguity. Conde stated that “not denying nor confirming” the existence of any related documents, I was denied access based on the national security, my appeal was denied and was advised that the legal action is the available course (1999, Pp. xiii-xiv). In conducting a research on Conde’s book “The Lost Apple: Operation Pedro Pan, Cuban children in the U.S, and the promise of a better future”, Maria de Los Angeles Torres, a Pedro Pan child was exclusively involved in a lawsuit against the Central Intelligence Agency to access her transport files to the U.S. Nevertheless, Torres was not successful in obtaining the information through her lawsuit. But, her experience illustrates the cold war research continued problem and its government secrecy