“Cuban Catholic Church officials uncovered a hidden microphone in a room Pope John Paul II was scheduled to stay in during his trip to Cuba, and an enraged Vatican threatened to cancel the trip as a result.”
The Madrid newspaper El Pais, Jan. 11, 1998
Rodolfo “El Gordo” Ramirez and Arnoldo Gonzales, known as “El Chico,” were working steadfastly away in the damp old basement of the presidential palace. They hardly paused for a cigar or even a coffee. Listening, listening, listening! They had a big job.
Only the day before the pope was to arrive, Fidel had suddenly called the two experienced radio mechanics, both of them trained in the Soviet Union in the “good old days,” to his spacious palace office. They were amazed when “El Macho” ordered them to stand at attention, as though they were going off to battle. Then Fidel told them they were: They were going to find out what the 77-year-old “El Papa” was thinking while he was on this curious trip to Cuba.
“I want you to listen to every word spoken in that room–and to report personally to me,” Fidel instructed them, looking older and definitely grayer at 72, but still on his feet. “This is an affair of the highest level of state security.”
But now, as they sat in the old basement, all they could hear was a lot of static coming over the radio. Was the bug in the parish bedroom in the old section of Havana perhaps not working? (Fidel had assured the Vatican that the offensive bug had been there since the Batista dictatorship in the ’50s.
Then suddenly they heard a deep voice–the voice they had listened to on recordings so they would recognize it–and they knew it was the pope. El Papa! Then a few words came out: “Va a ser una revolucion.”
“Dios mio!” El Gordo proclaimed, “El Papa says there is going to be a revolution! Just what Fidel feared!”
Already he, only a simple radio mechanic yesterday, could see his reward, and not in heaven. He would receive the Order of El Macho for discovering this threat against Fidel. A small, proud smile played upon his lips.
“No, no, amigo,” El Chico was saying. “More is coming! El Papa is only saying that he is going to speak in the Plaza de la Revolucion . . .”
They went back to listening. After all, they had an important job.
For several hours, they heard nothing because the pope was out among the long-forgotten Cuban Catholics. Then, about 5 p.m., they heard water running. They looked at each other. “He is brushing his teeth,” El Gordo said. There was a rustling of papers. “He’s reading his notes,” El Chico said. What disappointment!
For several hours they heard nothing. They knew that El Papa was scheduled this evening to speak in the cathedral. Still, they went to the bathroom alternately, and they were forbidden even to call their wives, much less their mistresses. Then, at midnight, when they expected nothing more, several male voices came across quite clearly from the parish house.
One word kept coming up: “woman.” The two Cubans were now awake. If they could tell Fidel that the pope–the Roman Catholic representative of God on Earth–was talking about women, at midnight in Havana, they would surely have done their job. They listened, and it seemed they were finally on to something.
But that hope fell apart too. They heard clearly in the pope’s voice: “Woman is sacred in the person of the Blessed Mother of God. Let us pray to her.” Then they heard some muffled prayers, and beautiful chanting.
By the time the pope left Havana four days later, the whole world had declared the visit a huge success. The pontiff had spoken in the very Plaza de la Revolucion that had been Fidel’s private “sanctuary” for 40 years. He had traveled the island, despite his poor health, reaching the 5 million souls he had prayed to reach.
As for Fidel’s two “ears,” El Gordo and El Chico were in disgrace. Fidel had called them again to his office, this time to rage at them for their “failure.” It was they who had not heard what they had been sent to hear, they who had “failed the revolution.”
As they left for the countryside to cut cane for six months, El Gordo reflected upon his dreams of rewards and medals, now drowned in reality. He sighed deeply, then muttered, “Chico, I am wondering . . .” “Who was really bugging whom?”
