Fiedler says he had no illusions about the effect the story would have on Miami’s Cuban community. “I expected it to be messy, really messy. And I wasn’t disappointed… I knew it would be divisive in the community.”

The idea that there could be some kind of a neutral reporter of events does not exist in the exile community. Even those in the community who might have thought that there was a problem with having a journalist take money from a US government agency, if the purpose was ultimately against Castro, then that was OK.

Fiedler says he knew the next morning that “whatever else I had intended to do that following day or a couple of days after, I knew was going to be totally overrun by the reaction to this story. Gnawing at me too, was that if you make the smallest error in a story like that, you’ve got to go back and lay yourself bare.” At the same time, Fiedler says he “never entertained the thought that I was going to back down or reverse course on this. I also didn’t go into this deliberately trying to make the fight bigger. I just thought this is a story we believe is valid.”

Protests . Carlos Alberto Montaner was a syndicated columnist based in Madrid; the Miami Herald ran his columns. He swiftly protested Corral’s article. On September 9, he issued a statement from Madrid that called the charges “unfair, ludicrous, offensive and false.” The columnist objected that “I don’t live in Miami, and I don’t work at the Miami Herald or El Nuevo Herald , nor am I subject to their regulations.” He explained that once a week he did a 20-minute commentary for Radio Martí which repeated material from his column; for that, he was paid an “official and obligatory ,” according to Broadcasting Board of Governors rules, $100. He added:

Contributing to breaking the boycott on information that exists in Cuba, far from being a conflict of interest, is the duty and responsibility of any Cuban journalist who truly loves liberty… More than a conflict of interest, it is a coincidence of interests. Radio-TV Martí wants Cubans to be freely informed. So do I. Where’s the problem? [1]

A vocal part of the Cuban-American community was outraged. Some 1,200 canceled their subscriptions to the Miami Herald, as well as El Nuevo Herald . As the extent of the anger became clear, Fiedler says he tried to “maintain consistency from that point on.”

Let’s make sure once we open this line, that we continue to follow it wherever it goes. That we listen to criticism and respond appropriately, and that we’re just going to take this where it goes and we’re going to try to be as sure-footed in doing that as we possibly can.

Within three days, the Miami Herald moved Corral and his family out of their house and into an apartment after he received threats. “The attacks on Oscar on Spanish-language radio as a result of this were becoming increasingly vicious,” recalls Fiedler. The incident caused tension and sparked heated arguments between Corral and his Cuban-born father. Fiedler recalls worrying “that the controversy doesn’t so envelop Oscar particularly, that either his ability to report the story, or his willingness to report the story, that the personal burden he would have to bear wouldn’t become too much for him.”

Poison . The controversy “poisoned the atmosphere between our newsroom and the El Nuevo Herald newsroom, I think, instantly,” remembers Fiedler. Rumors circulated that Fiedler had fired the journalists, even though he protested that Castelló had fired them. “I had nothing to do with their firing. I had nothing to do with the internal operations of the newsroom at El Nuevo Herald . But that didn’t go over,” he recalls.

Some—both in the Cuban community and at ENH—accused Corral of having leaked the story in advance to the Cuban government because a government-run news outlet, Mesa Redonda , on August 30 speculated that a story about US journalists taking government money might be coming soon. A quote from Castro about payments to a Miami-based journalist published in the July 23 issue of an Argentine newspaper reinforced the perception that Cuba got the story first. [2] Others said the Cuban government’s source was a left-wing Cuban émigré, Max Lesnik, who was director of Radio Miami and a blogger. They alleged Lesnik had steered Corral to pursue the story.

Corral dismisses as “the biggest smoke screen” the charge that he leaked the story to Cuba. “At that point, I had made so many records requests, and had talked to so many people on the periphery, that maybe it leaked… Was I in touch with the Cuban government? That’s ludicrous,” he protests. As for the notion that he had been manipulated by Lesnik, Corral says he had “talked to him maybe a couple of times in my entire career. He was not a friend.” At ENH, that was not believed. Says Castelló: “[Lesnik] is pro-Castro. And he is a very close friend or mentor of Oscar Corral.” [3]