[This piece extends CovertAction Magazine focus on revealing CIA background.-Editors]

The agency Brief History of Radio Swan document once marked SECRET EYES ONLY opens with these lines:

On 17 March 1960 President Eisenhower authorized a secret operation aimed at removing the Castro government. As part of the information campaign tied to that effort a key goal involved establishing and using a powerful medium and short wave radio transmitter. The agency was directed to set up such a facility beyond United States borders and make it functional inside sixty days.

Philatelic records show the agency had foreseen the presidential go-ahead and started work on that element of the plan ahead of formal approval. With considerable attention the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey vessel Explorer arrived at Swan Island on March 19.

Explorer began its trip on February 2 from the West Coast performing depth measurements gathering rock specimens recording underwater details and collecting additional scientific information with little notice. Attention grew sharply once the ship passed through the Panama Canal.

Ahead of its last survey task at Swan Island Captain Edmund L. Jones was installed as an assistant postmaster. The February 25 Postal Bulletin noted the Explorer post office as a temporary extension of Washington D.C. Collectors could send envelopes for postmarking at Swan Island and five thousand items of collector mail received cancellation there including the cover shown in Figure 1.

The Swan Island survey stood apart from routine work. A count showed twenty eight residents including nineteen from the Cayman Islands three from Honduras and six United States citizens linked to the Weather Bureau or the Federal Aviation Administration station. Public reports highlighted mapping dredging core sampling diving work and wildlife collection.

No reference appeared to the hidden task of delivering staff and gear to construct and run a fifty kilowatt clear channel radio facility on Great Swan which began transmissions on May 17. Broadcasts in English and Spanish featured anti Cuban messaging popular tunes and faith based segments recorded in New York City and delivered to Swan Island by chartered Coastal Air Inc. planes from Miami through Cozumel Mexico.

Coastal Air had earlier completed a flight crewed by Cuban exiles to scatter propaganda leaflets over Caracas after Venezuela leftist leader Romulo Betancourt became the first foreign head of state to receive Fidel Castro following the Cuban Revolution.

Radio Swan personnel included fifteen engineers and technicians hired from Philco Corp. on six month rotations on the island. The outlet was described as belonging to a New York entity the Gibraltar Steamship Co. which ran no vessels.

Thomas Dudley Cabot former head of United Fruit Company and one time director of the State Department Office of Security Affairs served as president of Gibraltar Steamship Co. Sumner Smith acted as vice president. Station manager Horton Heath who forwarded the Figure 2 letter informed journalists that Radio Swan operated commercially and rented the property from Smith.

1961: Radio Swan Transmissions During the Bay of Pigs Cuba Invasion

Radio Swan launched the agency scheme to remove Castro that ended with the April 1961 landing at the Bay of Pigs. Agency strategists had counted on Castro being eliminated before the attack but criminal figures assigned to carry it out failed.

On March 10 agency Director Allen Dulles delivered a classified briefing to the CIA Subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee where he highlighted Radio Swan results: We installed the radio gear on Swan Island which has received much notice. It has operated for roughly six months and we consider it highly useful. It covers nearly all of Cuba. We coordinate closely with Cubans and employ top Cuban refugees on the broadcasts.

Internally the agency held more cautious views. Per the once secret eyes only agency assessment: Near the close of 1960 Radio Swan impact started to fade. While many Cubans continued tuning in its trust and standing declined due to messages advancing the narrow goals of Cuban factions creating the shows. The show creators began overstating events to add drama. They issued claims listeners could easily disprove such as one announcer claiming three thousand Russians gathered in a Santiago de Cuba park when locals could simply visit and see otherwise.

To address the issue the agency sought to guide broadcast content. As the critical moment neared planners created a test of Radio Swan reach.

As late as March 1961 a check assessed listening range. A low cost ballpoint pen was offered to listeners who wrote the station. Response came quickly with nearly three thousand letters from twenty six nations. This flood of mail included many from across Cuba.

Again a collector promotion boosted Radio Swan profile. Special labels on decorated covers received non postal March 16 Radio Swan markings flown to Miami on a Coastal Air charter flight postmarked there on March 17 and forwarded to the Interpex Stamp Show in New York City as shown on the Figure 3 cover.

One month later Cuban forces repelled the agency landing team. During and after the landing Radio Swan served as a tool for psychological operations led by David Atlee Phillips who had overseen secret agency transmissions during the 1954 Guatemala action. Some of the fake coded signals resembled scenes from spy spoofs such as Look well at the rainbow. The fish will rise very soon and Attention Stanislaus the moon is red April 19. Others encouraged the landing force to continue after defeat.

In the wake of failure agency Director Allen Dulles and the main planner of the setback Deputy Director Richard Bissell resigned at President John F. Kennedy request. Phillips involvement did not slow his rise he later led the Western Hemisphere section of the agency. Radio Swan kept airing messaging.

Three covers in Figure 4 illustrate how Gibraltar Steamship Co. mail came from New York City in January 1961 from Swan Island through Tampa in February and after the effort ended from Miami in August.

Headquarters moved officially to Miami in September 1961. The station name became Radio Americas in October 1962. The parent firm name shifted first to Vanguard Service Corp. and later to Radio Americas Inc. of Coral Gables each a agency linked entity or supplier. For the remainder of its run Radio Americas aired Radio Cuba Libre messaging news and entertainment segments produced in Miami.

Neither Radio Swan nor Radio Americas held Federal Communications Commission approval which claimed no awareness of them. Yet agency staff on the island maintained an amateur radio club station for personal use under call letters KS4CC.

Agency flights departed Miami for Swan Island twice weekly on routes that included stops in the Florida Keys and on Caribbean islands whose governments allowed stations airing the Radio Cuba Libre segments. Those other sites and call signs were removed from the released agency report though accounts have identified the Bahamas and the Dominican Republic. In later statements Phillips noted the segments reached about forty stations in five nations around the Caribbean.

Under the revised setup airmail moved to and from Swan Island on the agency flights. Visits by Hamilton Brothers vessels happened every two months so surface mail traveled slower than before 1960. The Figure 5 1964 cover traveled by air from Swan Island manager Smith to caretaker Donald E. Glidden through a Miami post office box. The Figure 6 1964 surface letter went from Swan Island to California forwarded with postage due paid by the recipient.

Radio Americas competed with Radio Havana Cuba for listeners across Latin America. Writers received bright QSL cards and pennants shown in Figure 7.

Yet checks repeatedly found the Cuban station more favored across the region. Radio Americas ended broadcasts on May 15 1968. A heavily edited later agency review from 1991 stated Radio Americas may have produced a harmful result though aligned with United States policy. It may have increased unrest on the island and thus aided the departure of some individuals who could have aided in removing Castro. If so it also added to the expensive migration issues that have affected Miami and other cities.

Besides sending taped Radio Cuba Libre messaging programs to Swan Island and other Caribbean points the air service added a courier link among them in 1964 that sped letters for an added fee of two dollars fifty cents beyond postage with dollars spelled Dollors on its express labels.

The Figure 8 cover entered the mail and received cancellation July 12 1965 at St. Thomas Virgin Islands. It likely started at Swan Island because the United States eight cent stamp covered the domestic airmail rate. If started at a United States post office no express move would have been required a foreign start would have needed more postage.

The boxed marking states POSTAGE PAID in accordance with Sec. 20 U.S. Code. The actual source is not the code but a Post Office Department guide titled Restrictions on Transportation of Letters The Private Express Statutes and Interpretations. Section 20 notes Letters may be carried by an individual express company or any other person outside the mails to any point within or without the United States provided appropriate postage is paid.

The envelope lists no recipient name only the address Suite 515 Fifth Floor 180 North Wabash Avenue Chicago Illinois 60615 U.S.A. That was the location of De Laurence which sold volumes and items potions incense amulets and jewelry tied to occultism mysticism spiritualism and magic. Figure 9 shows the front of a matching De Laurence catalog among the materials forwarded.

De Laurence customers included followers of African and Afro Caribbean beliefs and faiths such as obeah voodoo and Santeria. This helps clarify why an agency backed carrier would assist the company.

Psychological operations frequently used occult ideas and customs superstition and dread of curses and dark magic. One example was a 1962 plan called Operation Mongoose that suggested firing star shells from a submarine to light Havana after dark on All Souls Day November 2 to heighten effect from Cuban beliefs while spreading tales about signs foretelling the regime end.

Most Cuba Libre Courier Service express covers seen started in Jamaica where all publications of De Laurence Scott and Company of Chicago in the United States of America relating to divination magic cultism or supernatural arts were banned by law. That explains why the firm name stayed off the envelopes. The most recent use recorded is October 7 1967 though the service likely ran until mid 1968.