William Alexander Morgan - Post-revolution and Death

Post-revolution and Death

Morgan married a Cuban, Olga María Rodríguez Farinas, who was also a revolutionary and together they had two daughters.

Throughout the struggle against Batista, Morgan was vocal about Castro's anti-communist beliefs. When asked during interviews about Castro's political beliefs and where the new Cuban government was leaning, he remained firm in his belief that Castro was not a communist and that Cuba would become capitalist parliamentary democracy.

As Castro began to reveal his socialist leanings, Morgan became distressed, as did other members of the SFNE, who believed in a democratic Cuba.

Morgan was arrested in October 1960 and charged with plotting to join and lead the counter-revolutionaries who were active in the Escambray Mountains.

Morgan was shot to death by a firing squad on March 11, 1961. He was 32 years old. Two months later, on 1 May 1961, Castro declared Cuba a socialist nation.

His wife was tried with him in absentia. She was found guilty of co-conspiracy and sentenced to 30 years in prison. She was released after 12 years. She left for the United States during the Mariel boatlift. In a series of interviews with the Toledo Blade in 2002, she admitted that she and her husband had begun running guns to anti-Castro guerrillas because he was disenchanted by Castro's pro-Soviet leanings. She also said she wanted Morgan's U.S. citizenship restored and his remains returned to the United States for reburial. The newspaper stories prompted two Democratic members of the United States House of Representatives, Charlie Rangel and Marcy Kaptur, to travel to Cuba in April 2002 to meet Fidel Castro and ask him to return Morgan's body and Castro agreed.

In April 2007, the US State Department declared that Morgan's US citizenship was effectively restored, nearly 50 years after the government stripped him of his rights in 1959 for serving in a foreign country's military.