De-Gen

Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy during a television interview on February 5, 1962 in Tokyo, Japan.

Kennedy’s day was documented widely, with the Associated Press joking that Kennedy seemed to be “campaigning for mayor of Tokyo.” As they described it, “The President’s energetic brother swept back and forth across the city with motorcycle escort for more than 12 hours..” It included a private meeting with Prime Minister Hayato Ikeda and a tour of Japan’s supreme court.

Attorney General Robert Kennedy talking to lawyer James Donovan, the chief negotiator he recruited to negotiate with Fidel Castro to free the Bay of Pigs prisoners in 1962.

After the Bay of Pigs fiasco, Castro initially offered President Kennedy a way to barter the release of the brigade: 500 Caterpillar tractors and spare parts as "indemnification" for the death and destruction caused by the invasion. To avoid direct negotiations, the President secretly established the Tractors for Freedom Committee, recruiting four American luminaries to lead it. But their negotiating strategy with Fidel failed, and the committee disbanded only six weeks after it was created.

Over the next year, Castro put the captured soldiers on trial, and announced that fines for their crimes amounted to $62 million — the price of their freedom. In June 1962, Attorney General Robert Kennedy secretly recruited Donovan to re-open talks with the Cuban leader. The code-name for Donovan's special rescue mission was Project Mercy. Castro commended Donovan on his attitude and approach, in contrast to the Tractors for Freedom Committee. "Things would have been very different then," Castro said, "if we would have been treated in another manner."

On November 20, however, Donovan informed the Attorney General that Castro was ready to make a deal. Castro's interest, and increased public pressure from the relatives of the prisoners, prompted Robert Kennedy to assign one of his top aides at the Justice Department, John Nolan, to assist Donovan in bringing the brigade members home by Christmas. Within only a few weeks, they finalized an arrangement with a number of major pharmaceutical companies, among them Pfizer and Ely Lilly, and food companies to contribute shiploads of supplies from their older inventories in return for tax breaks.

Substantive obstacles remained. Castro refused to accept additional medical supplies in lieu of the $2.9 million promised him for the earlier release of 60 prisoners who needed medical attention; he threatened to keep the leaders of the exile brigade in jail unless the money was delivered. Robert Kennedy raised the funds from private donors at the last minute to secure their freedom.