Cuba's unofficial "First Lady" was instrumental in the 1960s Operation Pedro Pan
MIAMI - Operation Pedro Pan, conducted between 1960 and 1962, was the largest recorded emigration of unaccompanied minors in the Western Hemisphere.
More than 14,000 Cuban children were spirited out of the island nation to escape the Castro Revolution.
It was conceived, with the help of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Miami, to fulfill the wishes of Cuban parents who wanted to save their children from living under Fidel Castro's new Communist dictatorship.
The boys and girls were welcomed to Miami by the Catholic Church in the person of Monsignor Bryan O. Walsh.
While we know a lot about their arrival, we know little about how they got out of Cuba. Who provided the paperwork? Who purchased the airline tickets?
Carlos Eire, a professor at Yale University and an author, is a Pedro Pan kid who knows the island side of the story.
"Without her, the airlift would not have taken place," he said.
The 'her' is Polita Grau, the niece of Ramon Grau San Martin, who was Cuba's president in 1933 and again from 1944 to 1948. Grau was not married so Polita Grau served as the unofficial "First Lady" of Cuba.
"Without this woman, there would have been no children's exodus," said Eire.
Early on, many in Cuba's middle and upper classes supported the Castro Revolution, hoping to rid the island of what they perceived as corruption in the Batista Regime. Polita Grau was one of them. But when it became evident that Castro was a Communist many, including Grau and her bother, became committed opponents.
While Msgr. Walsh secured the Washington go-ahead to evacuate the youngsters on the ground in Cuba, Polita Grua, operating out of a home located next to Castro's Security Headquarters, was coordinating the exodus and producing exit documents for the kids.
"I think they did it on a mimeograph machine," said Eire.
Polita and her brother had established a network of followers across the island and their purpose was to overthrow the Castro regime. There was even a plot to poison the flamboyant Cuban dictator.
According to Eire, a former high-ranking regime official told him that Castro knew about Operation Pedro Pan and Polita Grau's involvement. According to him, the regime let it run because "it tore apart the families of the Castro opposition" and "these kids were not going to be good soldiers, good communists, so good riddance."
Polita Grau and her brother were arrested in 1965 and charged with espionage, and being CIA agents. She served 14 years in prison and was then exiled to Miami for the rest of her life where she was an advocate for the release of Cuba's political prisoners.
Many of those Pedro Pan kids sent into exile prospered in South Florida, became community leaders in South Florida's social, economic, and political life, and continue to do so to this day.