William Alexander Morgan

William Alexander Morgan (April 19, 1928 – March 11, 1961) was an American-born Cuban guerilla commander who fought in the Cuban Revolution, leading a band of rebels that drove the Cuban army from key positions in the central mountains as part of Second National Front of Escambray, thereby helping to pave the way for Fidel Castro's forces to secure victory. Morgan was one of about two dozen U.S. citizens to fight in the revolution and one of only three foreign nationals to hold the rank of comandante in the rebel forces. In the years after the revolution, Morgan became disenchanted with Castro's turn to communism and he became one of the leaders of the CIA-supplied Escambray rebellion. In 1961, he was arrested by the Cuban government and, after a military trial, executed by firing squad in the presence of Fidel and Raúl Castro. Life before Cuba Morgan was born in Cleveland, Ohio, to Alexander Morgan and German-American Loretta Morgan (née Ruderth). Raised in an affluent Toledo neighborhood, he left high school and was often in trouble with the law.<ref name=sallah>Micheal Sallah, "The Yankee Comandante," The Toledo Blade", March 3-4-5, 2002</ref> Morgan joined the United States Army after World War II and married Darlene Edgerton in 1946. The marriage was annulled after a year and a half. He was stationed with Company B, 35th Infantry Regiment, in Japan, where he fathered a son with a German-Japanese hostess named Setsuko Takeda. He went AWOL, was arrested, and escaped from custody by overpowering a guard. Recaptured, he was court-martialed in 1948, received a dishonorable discharge, and spent over two years in a federal prison. He is said to have been skilled with firearms and was rumored to have been a Central Intelligence Agency operative, though there are no public records or witness interviews to support the claim. After his discharge from the Army, Morgan apparently also worked for a local crime syndicate. On May 11, 1954, Morgan married Ellen Theresa May Bethel, a snake charmer, in Miami. They had two children, Anne Marie (1955) and William A. Morgan Jr. (1957).