Aggregated by AuxBeacon News Staff

Civil Air Patrol’s Tony Pineda is the son of Dr. Antonio Pineda who was an attorney in Cuba when Castro took over. The elder Tony Pineda fled Cuba with fellow countrymen who shared his desire to be trained to return and fight against Fidel Castro. In the United States, the senior Pineda learned about Guerrilla Warfare and returned to Cuba for the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion where he was captured and imprisoned.

Eventually, through a Bank in Canada, the United States paid a ransom of $62 million, all but $9 million of which was paid in drugs and other supplies.

The senior Antonio Pineda was freed and came to Houston to be reunited with his wife. In 1965 he joined the faculty of Lamar State College in Beaumont, Texas. By 1969 he was assistant professor of modern languages at Lamar and working on a book about the Bay of Pigs Invasion.

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The Redbird (Beaumont, Tex.), Vol. 19, No. 26, Ed. 1 Friday, April 25, 1969