How the U.S. Government turned a fairy tale into a terror plot for thousands of Cuban children 

Operation Peter Pan was one of the most perverse, monstrous and inhuman actions of the psychological warfare against Cuba deployed by the CIA to smuggle out of the country, through lies and manipulation, more than 14,000 children between six and 12 years of age.

The children had been handed over by their parents to Catholic church groups to be taken to Miami and Spain, unaccompanied.

On December 26, 1960, Operation Peter Pan began with the departure from Havana of the first five children on Pan American World Airways Flight 422, which landed in Miami at 4:30 p.m. that day. There they were received by Monsignor Bryan O. Walsh, who was one of the main architects of the evil operation.

Today we find it incomprehensible, unbelievable that those parents would hand over their minor children to unknown persons to be taken to the United States, completely alone, in total helplessness, without even a basic command of the language of the place to which they were being sent. But, unfortunately, this is how it happened.

How was this possible?  Thanks to the disinformation actions carried out by the State Department, the CIA, the internal and external counterrevolution, as well as Catholic organizations, which circulated the hoax that the Revolutionary Government was going to take their children away from their parents, depriving them of their parental rights, among other lies.

In 1960, the situation in the country was characterized by a constant struggle against the bourgeoisie, the middle class and other sectors affected by the revolutionary laws, those who tried, through counterrevolutionary acts, sabotage and disinformation, to create an atmosphere of insecurity among the people that would cause, among other things, the loss of confidence in the Revolution and its leaders.

It is known that from December 26, 1960 to February 28, 1962, a total of 7,778 children had arrived in Florida clandestinely, alone.

Operation Peter Pan victimized the families it was supposed to favor. Parents who feared losing parental rights to their children in Cuba ended up actually losing them in the United States.

Many were never reunited. Others have yet to turn up.