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How the Clintons Fooled America with Elian Gonzalez
Townhall.com ^ | August 29, 2016 | Humberto Fontova

Posted on 08/29/2016 10:40:29 AM PDT by Kaslin

''I believe personally that this little boy (Elian Gonzalez) should be with his father…but I also believe that this is not a decision that politicians should be making. I wish everybody would take a deep breath, and a step back, and let's try to get this child into a safe, permanent, loving, unexploited home and family as soon as possible.''  (Hillary Clinton April 4, 2000.)

Let the record show that most Americans approved of the Clinton-Castro shanghaiing of Elian Gonzalez.  A 60 Minutes “interview” of Elian’s father Juan Miguel by Dan Rather played a key role in this expert snookering of America. To wit:    

On the April 6th 2000 edition of 60 Minutes, America saw a bewildered and heartsick father pleading to be allowed to have his motherless son accompany him back to Cuba, his cherished homeland. Dan Rather (who hailed Fidel Castro as “Cuba’s Elvis!”) was interviewing Elian’s “bereaved” father. How could anyone possibly oppose his heartfelt plea? How could simple decency and common sense possibly allow for anything else?

"Did you cry?" the pained and frowning Dan Rather asked the "bereaved" father during the 60 Minutes drama."A father never runs out of tears," Juan (actually, as we’ll see, the voice of Juan's drama school-trained translator) sniffled back to Dan. And the 60 Minutes prime-time audience could hardly contain their own sniffles.

Here's what America didn't see: "Juan Miguel Gonzalez was surrounded by Castro security agents the entire time he was in the studio with Rather." This is an eye-witness account from Pedro Porro, who served as Dan Rather's translator during the famous 60 Minutes interview. Dan Rather would ask the question in English into Porro's earpiece whereupon Porro would translate it into Spanish for Elian's heavily-guarded father.

"Juan Miguel was never completely alone," says Pedro Porro. "He never smiled. His eyes kept shifting back and forth. It was obvious to me that he was under heavy coercion. He was always surrounded by security agents from the Cuba Interest Section (i.e. Cuban embassy) in Washington D.C. When these agents left him alone for a few seconds, attorney Gregory Craig would hover over Juan Miguel.

"The questions Dan Rather was asking Elian's father during that 60 Minutes interview were being handed to him by attorney Gregory Craig," continues Pedro Porro. "It was obvious that Craig and Rather where on very friendly terms. They were joshing and bantering back and forth, as Juan Miguel sat there petrified. Craig was stage managing the whole thing - almost like a movie director. The taping would stop and he'd walk over to Dan, hand him a little slip of paper, say something into his ear. Then Rather would read the next question into my earpiece straight from the paper."

A reminder: officially (Bill Clinton and Dan Rather crony) Gregory Craig then served as attorney for Elian's father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, who worked as a hotel doorman in a nation where the average monthly salary is $16. The high-rolling Gregory Craig worked for Washington D.C.'s elite firm, Williams & Connolly, one of America's highest-priced law firms.

Upon accepting the case at the Clinton administrations’ behest, Gregory Craig had flown to Cuba for a meeting with Fidel Castro. Craig's remuneration, we learned shortly after his return, came from a "voluntary fund" set up by the United Methodist Board of Church and Society and "administered" by the National Council of Churches. The same reporters and pundits, who routinely erupted with snide snorts midway through any statement by a Republican press secretary, reported this item with a straight face.

Gregory Craig had led the Juan Miguel/Cuban-Security entourage into the studio, then presided over the interview as a movie director. "At one point Craig stopped the taping almost like a movie director yelling, 'Cut!' I was confused for a moment, says Porro, "until Greg Craig complained that Juan Miguel's answers were not coming across from his translator with "sufficient emotion." "So Dan Rather shut everything down for a while and some of the crew drove to a drama school in New York. They hired a dramatic actor to act as a translator, and brought him back!"

Okay roll 'em!

"I probably should have walked out," says Porro. "But I'd been hired by CBS in good faith and I didn't know exactly how the interview would be edited -- how it would come across on the screen. I mighta known, but you never know these things play out until you actually see it."

"Midway through watching that 60 minutes broadcast, I felt like throwing up," said Porro. "My stomach was in a knot." His worst fears were confirmed.

Lara Logan and her 60 minutes crew got snookered by a defense-contractor con-man. They were negligent and admit it. Dan Rather and crew volunteered to help a Stalinist con-man (Fidel Castro) stage a massive farce--a veritable show-trial complete with bogus confessions and coerced testimony. They knowingly snookered the American public.

Worse, as mentioned, most Americans fell for the farce. In their innocence (of Communist tactics) most Americans saw the Elian tragedy as a simple custody dispute, as happen hourly in places like Omaha, Atlanta and Peoria. That’s exactly what Clinton, Castro and Rather wanted, expected and got.


TOPICS: Cuba; Culture/Society; Editorial
KEYWORDS: billclinton; clinton; clintonadmin; cuba; eliangonzalez; hillaryrottenclinton
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1 posted on 08/29/2016 10:40:29 AM PDT by Kaslin
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To: Kaslin

Let the record show that most Americans approved of the Clinton-Castro shanghaiing of Elian Gonzalez.


I vehemently opposed it at the time. ‘Course, I was three years into being without television when it happened and a member here for almost three years, so I may not fit the U.S. profile.

I saw it as something the old Soviet Union would do.

Interesting, I find myself saying that about a LOT of stuff our country has been doing for a while.


2 posted on 08/29/2016 10:44:21 AM PDT by Mr. Douglas (Today is your life. What are you going to do with it?)
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To: Kaslin
''I believe personally that this little boy (Elian Gonzalez) should be with his father…but I also believe that this is not a decision that politicians should be making. I wish everybody would take a deep breath, and a step back, and let's try to get this child into a safe, permanent, loving, unexploited home and family as soon as possible.'' (Hillary Clinton April 4, 2000.)

She is truly satanic.

3 posted on 08/29/2016 10:44:28 AM PDT by Talisker (One who commands, must obey.)
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To: Kaslin

Fake, but accurate


4 posted on 08/29/2016 10:50:18 AM PDT by Mr. K (Trump will win NY state - choke on that HilLIARy)
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To: Talisker

I spoke with a Cuban physician in Haiti who claimed to have treated Elian in Cuba following his return for 2 broken legs caused by extreme punishment.


5 posted on 08/29/2016 10:50:37 AM PDT by Louis Foxwell (Stop the Left and save the world.)
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To: Talisker

Clinton wanted Elian to go back to Cuba because Cubans are more likely to vote Republican..the last thing the Clintons wanted was this kid to grow up and vote Republican..now if he had come from Mexico she would have demanded that he stay here


6 posted on 08/29/2016 10:51:36 AM PDT by Sarah Barracuda
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To: Kaslin

7 posted on 08/29/2016 10:53:17 AM PDT by ETL (God PLEASE help America...Never Hillary!)
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To: Mr. Douglas

Ditto that.


8 posted on 08/29/2016 10:58:12 AM PDT by day10 (You'll get nothing and like it!)
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To: Kaslin

While the father was in the US, his parents were “vacationing” in a secure compound.


9 posted on 08/29/2016 11:00:00 AM PDT by joshua c (Cut the cord! Don't pay for the rope they hang you with.)
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To: ETL

It was this event that turned me from a lurker into a freeper. The freepers were never fooled by this evil story!


10 posted on 08/29/2016 11:05:24 AM PDT by miss marmelstein (Richard the Third: With my own people alone I should like to drive away the Muslims)
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To: Kaslin

HOW IS Elian DOING NOW? WHERE IS HE?

TRAUMATIZED IN HIS YOUTH ... THEN ??? BRAIN WASHED?


11 posted on 08/29/2016 11:17:29 AM PDT by midlander
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To: Mr. Douglas
I vehemently opposed it at the time.

So did I. I was so angry about it. That poor little boy's mother died trying to bring him here. He had relatives here who wanted him. And the government abducted him by force. It was outrageous.

12 posted on 08/29/2016 11:18:49 AM PDT by proud American in Canada (God bless the United States of America)
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To: Kaslin

The obvious solution would have been to allow Elian’s father to come live in the US, but that was never even proposed. The father was always under close surveillance by Castro’s goons while in the US. The only reason the issue of making Elian go back to Cuba even came up was that Fidel ordered it and the Clintons were willing to obey.


13 posted on 08/29/2016 11:19:51 AM PDT by Verginius Rufus
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To: joshua c

The Clintons have already gotten away with enough criminal activity to fill a federal prison twice over. More than 3 decades of lawlessness if you go back to their Arkansas days, with the MSM and Democratic Party covering for them every step of the way. America is one step away from being Zimbabwe.


14 posted on 08/29/2016 11:20:20 AM PDT by littleharbour
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To: ETL

Government-inflicted traumatization. Despicable.


15 posted on 08/29/2016 11:22:04 AM PDT by proud American in Canada (God bless the United States of America)
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To: proud American in Canada

Yep. It truly is outrageous. It is one of many little factoids I’ve stored away that alter my perception of “who” and “what” the U.S. really is in its current incarnation.


16 posted on 08/29/2016 11:28:22 AM PDT by Mr. Douglas (Today is your life. What are you going to do with it?)
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To: proud American in Canada

"The armed seizure of six-year-old Elián González and his return to his father, who eventually took him home to Cuba; Elián's mother and stepfather had died in a dangerous trip by sea, and though his U.S. relatives had lost custody to his father in court, local officials did not enforce the ruling.

[Janet] Reno made the decision to remove Elián González from the house of a relative and instructed law enforcement officials to determine the best time to obtain the boy."--wikipedia

17 posted on 08/29/2016 11:30:14 AM PDT by ETL (God PLEASE help America...Never Hillary!)
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To: ETL

I carry a smaller copy of that pic in my wallet.


18 posted on 08/29/2016 11:37:18 AM PDT by FroggyTheGremlim (Make America Great Again!)
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To: Kaslin

Cost Al Gore the 2000 presidency


19 posted on 08/29/2016 11:52:16 AM PDT by uncbob
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To: eCSMaster
I carry a smaller copy of that pic in my wallet.

Whew! I thought at first you meant that photo of Janet Reno!

:)

20 posted on 08/29/2016 11:55:18 AM PDT by ETL (God PLEASE help America...Never Hillary!)
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