In 2005 and 2006 I conduced a series of interviews about the “alzados” who rose to the Escambray Mountains in central Cuba in the early 1960’s to fight against Fidel Castro. The documentary I was independently producing was supposed to detail the events that led to the Batista coup, the fight to remove Batista and the battle to overthrow Castro by his former supporters.

My production suffered a death by a thousand cuts, culminating in a total hard drive crash. While my editorial content was solid, the quality of some of the shooting and the sound was not. And for various reasons I was not able to get all the interviews I thought I needed.

Shortly before the crash, I had exported the timeline I was building. I wanted to show that timeline to certain people go get their input about accuracy.

These two videos do not represent even a rough cut. There are several interviews and a lot of Escambray video that I shot in Cuba which are not in this timeline. I also have a lot of newsreel footage which is not in this timeline. Moreover, I was able find hundreds of Escambray-related documents at the National Archives in College Park, MD.

I made many requests for an interview with a Cuban government official. On four occasions, I went in person to the Cuban Consulate in New York City to request an interview. I never received a reply.

I am posting the timeline because I am frequently asked about the unfinished project. I also believe that viewers can learn about Cuban history in these two hours.

In the future I will post the raw interviews.

All comments and opinions are welcome if they are based on facts. Radical and extremist comments based on lies and fiction will not be approved. Don’t waste your time.

Here are the people interviewed in the order in which they first speak.

Part ONE

Huber Matos, 0:07
Frank Argote-Freyre, 1:17
Jaime Suchlicki, 2:01
Orlando Bosch, 9:50
Agapito Rivera, 14:53
Angel Alfonso Aleman, 15:17
Rigoberto Acosta, 15:51
Idalberto Sanchez, 16:03
Norberto Fuentes, 19:59
Ruben Gonzalo, 22:51
Enrique Encinosa, 24:36

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