Editing 78-07-B6 (section)

=== Transcript ===
While American businessmen continue to visit Cuba dreaming of
trade deals to come, one has recently returned from a 14 year Cuban
visit. His dream was a nightmare, as he described it to a group of
reporters.

Franc Emmick had a successful business in pre-Castro Cuba. Then,
when the United States severed relations with the new government, he
closed down his operation. Five militiamen seized him, beat him and
threw him in the ocean for dead. He was alive, however, and made his
way to the Swiss Embassy. A Swiss official took him to the airport,
but he was refused permission to leave Cuba.

He was subsequently charged with being a C.I.A. agent. (This
allegation, incidentally, has never been substantiated by any evidence.)
Nevertheless, he was thrown into a dark, refrigerated room where,
stripped to his underwear, he stayed for five months, sleeping on the
bare floor.

Removed from there, he was told his sentence was death and transferred 
to a dungeon where he spent 9 months during which time 159 of
his fellow inmates were executed. Then he was given a full-dress trial
with Geneva observers and western correspondents present. Still
charged with being a U.S. agent, he was sentenced to 30 years in prison.

For six years he was in Las Cabannas fortress where approximately
5,000 men were crammed into a building built for 500. There were no
sanitary facilities and little medical attention. In 1970 he was
assigned to another prison where conditions were better, but in spite
of a known history of heart trouble he was required to climb 40 stairs
three times a day. And, as could be expected he had a heart attack
that almost caused his death. Two years later he was back in Las
Cabannas where conditions had not improved. It was here that he had
his second heart attack. He waited a week for hospitalization.

In December of 1977 he was transferred to a new prison which
looked modern and beautiful on the outside but on the inside was a
boiler in summer and a freezer in winter. The sewage from the fourth
floor leaked through to the first floor. By now, however, treatment
was better because the Cubans thought they could make a deal with the
new administration in Washington.

This last January a visiting Congressman interviewed him and
obtained his release. He had spent 14 years and three months in
Castro's Gulag. He says there are four American businessmen still
there.

The morning after his lunch with the reporters one of the
Congressmen who had arranged his release phoned him and tore him apart
for talking about his experiences. They he asked, "Are you going to
keep your mouth shut?" Emmick quietly answered, "No. I no longer will
be intimidated. I am now free and in America." God bless America. 

This is Ronald Reagan.

Thanks for listening.
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