NF: That leads me to the next question, the very next question. Could you describe what it was like, what it felt like, the psychological preparation you had to go through to blend in to be a gusano?
(René gives a fleeting chuckle)
RG: I always say that the worst part was here in Cuba. Because it’s not that hard to fool some people. You know usually when somebody is full of hatred, all you have to do is tell him what he wants to listen to. So it’s not that complicated to fool, as you say, the gusano. Because all they want to do is hear bad things about Cuba. So if you say the Cubans are dying on the street because they can’t eat, that police kill them on every corner, that’s it. They’re going to applaud you, and that’s it. They don’t need any corroboration. It wasn’t that hard to fool them. But for me the worst part was to fool my comrades here. To become somebody I wasn’t – in front of my family, my friends, my co-workers, that was really hard. I tell you that. So I believe that going through that process helped me when I arrived in Miami and then I had to join those people. Basically I’m not talking about everybody there. There are a lot of Cubans there (Miami) who don’t have any animosity against Cuba. They just live there. But most of those groups, especially the ones who lead those groups, they are filled with hatred, with resentment. They feel entitled to all Cuba like they owned it before the revolution. And it’s easy to fool them. You just tell them what they want to hear and then they’ll receive you with open arms. So it wasn’t that hard.
NF: I haven’t yet finished Kimber’s book, but there were some things about you and your wife Olga and your letters. So how did it feel being able to finally let your wife know the truth about your mission? And it would be great to hear her feelings and how it felt to find out you didn’t betray.
RG: This is a complicated assignment. Usually they have rules that everybody had to follow, and one of them of course is not to tell anybody about what you’re doing. And it’s hard as I told you – it’s hard to become somebody else in front of your mother, your father, your wife. I always had trust in my wife. Since the beginning of the assignment I told the guys who put me through this. I told them “You know, you can trust her, I won’t tell her but I know her, you can trust her.” But rules are rules and then I left and she still didn’t know. But I believe she went beyond what I expected and she tried to find out for herself. It was kind of a funny story because she started to tie ends, loose ends here and there and in the end she went to somebody and she demanded, “Tell me the truth because I know my husband is not a traitor.” So it was a funny story. But of course I feel glad that they were able to trust her and she learned, of course. And in the same line one of the things about having been arrested is that I also felt relief that I could be myself again. It’s incredible but once I was arrested, I would say that was one of the compensations. That at that moment, I knew that everyone I knew in Cuba would know who I really was. So it was a little bit of comfort in the middle of the whole thing.