Editor’s note: The following is Part One of a two-part series.
Fidel Castro and his troops descended in a whirlwind of flames.
The troops were living in the Sierra Maestra mountains, right on the edge of the Freyre plantation. Castro’s words of propaganda were as good as gold in the eyes of his desperate army, and with promises of luxury and equality, they didn’t dare question his intentions.
When he ordered the plantation to be set ablaze, the troops replied complacently.
“We owned 187,000 acres of sugar cane, cattle and rice,” Fabio Freyre Jr. said. “It was a business that had been in the family for generations. For two or three years before the Cuban Revolution, they would just set our sugar cane fields on fire. We were nothing but a target near Castro’s camp. My father and his workers would go out and have shootouts with Fidel in the fields. They tried killing each other several times.”
Until Castro took over in January of 1959.
Overthrowing the corrupt Fulgencio Batista, Castro promised the Cuban people peace, prosperity and good health.
He nationalized everything.
He froze all bank accounts.
Then he deported his threats.
“He made a list of people, and we were on that list,” Freyre said. “We had 48 hours to leave the country. Everyone got one suitcase. My six sisters and one brother, they all came out with just one. My mom sewed up her jewelry in the linings of the clothes so Castro’s troops wouldn’t find it. That’s how we initially got money when we arrived in Florida.”
When the Freyres were deported, Castro seized their assets. He turned their plantation into a school for military cadets. He divided their Havana home into 10 identical apartments.
“One day I asked my mom what she missed the most,” Freyre said. “She said, ‘Of all the things, I miss the pictures. You don’t know what your grandfathers look like.’”
With nothing to stand on but some pawned jewelry money, the Freyre family marched on.  
“The Cuban community is very close,” Freyre said. “Everyone helps each other. We had an uncle in Venezuela who had a sugar business in San Felipe. He paid rent in a home at first until my dad got a job.”
Dreaming of a college education for his children, Fabio O. Scott Freyre worked his way up in the Wall Street sugar commodities market. He achieved his dream, with his children attending prestigious universities like Georgetown and Wellesley.
But his own people were starving in Cuba.
“When you look at modern photos of Cuba, it is like time stopped in the 1950s,” Freyre said. “There has been no progress. They are bankrupt. Yes, there is socialized medicine, but there is nothing to give anyone. There are no human rights whatsoever. That is why you see people risking their lives trying to cross the 90 miles between Havana and Florida. They get into a raft in shark-infested waters to try to get to the United States. Things have to be pretty bad for you to try to do that. And Miami is full of people that have done that.”
With his eight kids and wife alone in Florida, Fabio Freyre Sr. enlisted as a leader of the battalion of Cubans trained by the CIA to invade the Bay of Pigs. Their objective was to overthrow the Cuban government, and they were to land on the beach and be backed by air support from the U.S. government. U.S. planes were then supposed to drop ammunition and medical supplies in to the troops.
“After the brigade had already landed, Kennedy pulled the plug on that mission,” Freyre said. “Everyone in the brigade was either killed or put in prison. My dad was put in a Cuban prison for a year and a half. Not a big fan of JFK.”
Freyre Sr. was taken into a prison at the hands of Castro and the communist establishment. With the threat of death waiting around every corner, he was condemned for treason and put on a show trial in a Havana stadium.
Broadcasting live on Cuban national radio, Fidel Castro demanded that Freyre denounce both the invasion and the United States of America itself.
Asking why he had taken part in the Bay of Pigs landing, Freyre replied, “Because I want, in my country, the establishment of the 1940 Constitution, a democratic government with free press and elections so the people can choose their own government.”
Fabio’s bold honesty landed him in solitary confinement — where he would eat nothing but raw spaghetti for the next 15 months.
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