Manuel Artime

Manuel Artime
Manuel Artime
	Caballero Rivero Woodlawn North Park Cemetery and Mausoleum, Miami
Military service
Allegiance	26th of July Movement; Republic of Cuba; United States of America
Branch/service	Revolutionary Armed Forces
Years of service	1953–1959 (26JM); 1959 (Cuba); 1959–1965 (USA)
Unit	Brigade 2506
Battles/wars	Cuban Revolution; Bay of Pigs Invasion;

Manuel Francisco Artime Buesa, M.D. (29 January 1932 – 18 November 1977) was a

Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba

in April 1961.

Biography

Manuel Artime was the nephew of popular Cuban poet José Ángel Bueza, and was raised as a devout Catholic by Jesuits. In 1957 he became a member of the Radical Liberation Party (PLR), a Christian democratic group. He graduated as a doctor and planned to become a psychiatrist.

In December 1958 he joined the rebel army of Fidel Castro and took part in offensives against the forces of the Batista regime at Guisa, Maffo and Palma Soriano.^[1]^[2] In January 1959, after the triumph of the

INRA (Instituto Nacional de Reforma Agraria). In that post, under Major Humberto Sorí Marin, Minister of Agriculture, and Rogelio Gonzalez Corzo (alias "Francisco Gutierrez"), Director of Agriculture, Artime promoted the work of the Comandos Rurales (Rural Commandos), a kind of Peace Corps composed of young people, most of whom belonged to the University Catholic Group (ACU) in Havana. Both Sorí Marin and Rogelio Gonzalez were captured on the eve of the Bay of Pigs Invasion and executed on 20 April 1961.^[3]^[4] Artime was also a professor at the Havana Military Academy. During 1959, Artime formed the Movimiento de Recuperación Revolucionaria (MRR) (in English - Movement to Recover the Revolution) that included Rogelio Gonzalez Corzo, Higinio "Nino" Diaz, Jorge Sotus, Sergio Sanjenis, Rafael Rivas Vazquez, Carlos Rodriguez Santana, some of whom were already exiled in Mexico.^[5]

In October 1959, after the arrest and trial of Commander

Tony Varona, José Miró Cardona, Rafael Quintero, Aureliano Arango. Infiltration into Cuba, arms drops, etc. were arranged by the CIA.^[1]^[6]

In May 1960 he was one of a group of ten former Cuban officers in Miami planning a campaign against the Cuban government. They were all graduates of Cuba's military academy, the Cadet School. On 2 June 1960, Artime and nine fellow 'recruits' were transported by CIA agents to

Orange Bowl in Miami, Florida, during the 'welcome back' ceremony for captured Brigade 2506 veterans.^[6]

At the initiative of

US Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, he became involved in the Cuban project AMWORLD, a White House-sponsored and CIA-organized counter-revolutionary unit with bases in Costa Rica and Nicaragua that staged commando raids on Cuban shore installations. However, in 1964 the Cuban Project was cancelled by US President Lyndon B. Johnson. Artime participated in a failed assassination attempt against Fidel Castro in 1965. In the 1970s Artime organized the Miami Watergate Defense Relief Fund, collecting $21,000 for the convicted Watergate burglars, a number of whom were American or Cuban veterans of the Bay of Pigs operation.^[9] Artime was very close to E. Howard Hunt

and was godfather to Hunt's youngest son David. Manuel Artime died of cancer on 18 November 1977.[10]^[11] The circumstances of his premature death are considered unusual on both sides of the Florida Straits, but such comments are commonly considered speculative (i.e. conspiracy theory).^[12]^[13]

He is buried at Woodlawn Park Cemetery and Mausoleum, now

Caballero Rivero Woodlawn North Park Cemetery and Mausoleum

, in Miami.

In the 2023 HBO Max miniseries White House Plumbers, as a friend of E. Howard Hunt, is portrayed by Steven Bauer.

Gallery

Manuel Artime Theater in the Little Havana Neighborhood during reconstruction of SW 1st Street
View west from SW 1st Street

Notes

^ ^a ^b Rodriguez (1999)
^ Hunt (1973), p. 47
^ Corzo (2003), p. 92
^ Ros (1994), pp. 181–85
^ Bay of Pigs, 40 Years After: Chronology. The National Security Archive. The George Washington University http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/bayofpigs/chron.html
^ ^a ^b ^c Johnson (1964)
^ Wyden (1979)
^ Kornbluh (1998)
^ Fernandez (2001)
^ CBS Obit http://tvnews.vanderbilt.edu/program.pl?ID=249519 Vanderbilt Television News Archive
^ Time Obit [1]
^ Martin 2002-05-07 http://afrocubaweb.com/news/bioterrorcuba.htm
^ Stride 1997-12-30 "Castro Said to be Using Cancer Instigating Weapons of Warfare". Archived from the original on 2006-09-18. Retrieved 2006-12-07.