Fidel: Hollywood's Favorite Tyrant by Humberto Fontova Read Free Book Online

away while another gallant Commie kicked the crippled freedom fighter from behind. Tony tumbled down the long row of steps and finally lay on the cobblestones at the bottom, writhing and grimacing. One of Tony’s bullet-riddled legs had been amputated at the hospital; the other was gangrened and covered in pus. The Castroite guards cackled as they moved in to gag Tony with their tape. Tony watched them approach while balling his good hand into a fist. Then as the first Red reached him—bash, a right across his eyes. The Castroite staggered back.
    The other Castroite rushed towards Tony. Tony got a good grip on his crutch and smashed it into the Red scumbag’s face. “ Cabrón! ”
    “I’ll never understand how Tony survived that beating,” says eyewitness Hiram Gonzalez, who watched from his window on death row. The crippled Tony was almost killed in the kicking, punching, gun-bashing melee, but finally his captors stood off, panting, and rubbing their scrapes and bruises. They’d managed to tape the battered boy’s mouth, but Tony pushed the guards away before they bound his hands. Their commander nodded, motioning for them to back off.
    Now Tony crawled towards the splintered and blood-spattered execution stake about fifty yards away. He pushed and dragged himself with his hands. His stump of a leg left a trail of blood on the grass. As he neared the stake, he stopped and started pounding himself in the chest. His executioners were perplexed. The crippled boy was trying to say something.
    Tony’s blazing eyes and grimace said enough. But no one could understand the boy’s mumblings. Tony shut his eyes tightly from the agony of the effort. His executioners shuffled nervously, raising and lowering their rifles. They looked toward their commander, who shrugged. Finally, Tony reached up to his face and ripped off the tape.
    The twenty-year-old freedom fighter’s voice boomed out. “Shoot me right here!” roared Tony at his gaping executioners. His voice thundered and his head bobbed with the effort. “Right in the chest!” Tony yelled. “Like a man!” Tony stopped and ripped open his shirt, pounding his chest and grimacing as his gallant executioners gaped and shuffled. “Right here!” he pounded.
    On his last day alive, Tony had received a letter from his mother. “My dear son,” she counseled. “How often I’d warned you not to get involved in these things. But I knew my pleas were vain. You always demanded your freedom, Tony, even as a little boy. So I knew you’d never stand for Communism. Well, Castro and Che finally caught you. Son, I love you with all my heart. My life is now shattered and will never be the same, but the only thing left now, Tony . . . is to die like a man.” 2
    “ Fuego! ” Castro’s lackey yelled the command and the bullets shattered Tony’s crippled body, just as he’d reached the stake, lifted himself, and stared resolutely at his murderers. The legless Tony presented an awkward target, so some of the volleys went wild and missed the youngster. Time for the coup de grace.
    Normally it’s one .45 slug that shatters the skull. Eyewitnesses say Tony required three. Seems the executioners’ hands were shaking pretty badly.
    Compare Tony’s death to the arch-swine, arch-weasel, and arch-coward Che Guevara’s. “Don’t shoot!” whimpered the arch-assassin to his captors. “I’m Che! I’m worth more to you alive than dead!”
    Then ask yourselves: Whose face belongs on T-shirts worn by youth who fancy themselves rebellious, freedom-loving, and brave? Then fume and gag at the malignant stupidity of popular culture in our demented age.
    Castro and Che were in their mid-thirties when they murdered Tony. Many (perhaps most) of those they had murdered were boys in their teens and early twenties. Carlos Machado and his twin brother, Ramón, were fifteen when they spat in the face of their Communist executioners. They died singing Cuba’s old national anthem, cursing Che