Show 7 F al wa U S HEADLINE H ir v N IF U INC af OEO C j U 01 Bit business siness card by FLOYD GIBBONS I 1 TT T WAS just a business card a square of pasteboard with wih a t spanish sounding name printed on it but it gave nat schwartz some of the most terrible moments of his life nat lives in brooklyn N Y his business is flying and heres how he got hold of that card on the eighteenth of april 1935 nat flew to cuba on business three days later he flew back and landed his plane at miami fla the next day while he was going over his ship a man who was out at the field taking flying instruction came up to him and said 1 I hear you were over to havana with your plane did you yon have any trouble getting in or out of the country cuba was having a revolution it was a natural enough question for a revolution was going on in cuba at the time nat discussed the question with his questioner who said his name was delgado when the conversation was ended delgado gave nat his card nat stuck it in a pocket with his other papers and forgot about it but he was to remember it again not quite a month later on may 4 nat had to fly to cuba again he had to go in a hurry this time so he go through the formality of getting clearance papers 1 I thought that if I 1 got caught without them he says 1 I would probably have to pay with a small fine but little did I 1 know what lay ahead of me then nat landed at key west and refueled it was too late to get weather reports so he had to take a chance on the trip across his compass and charts showed that he was headed straight for havana but when he reached the cuban coast he found he had been blown forty odd miles off his course and he landed near a town called hershey he was running short of gas and thought hed better land as soon as he had a chance he saw a likely looking spot and set the plane down and then nat says the fun fan began his plane had no sooner hit the ground than it was surrounded by the cuban version of our state police nat says he never saw so many together in one place in his life it looked as if the whole cuban army had bad come out to meet him HE NEVER SAW SO MANY GUNS IN HIS LIFE either and most of them seemed to be pointed straight at the little pocket in the left side of his flying jacket thought it was Guiet Guetter terras ra plane it seemed as if they were making an awful fuss about one plane landing for lack of gas nat had halt half a notion to give her the gun and wa t A V I 1 A t the guns were pointed straight at ilis his pocket try to take off again but another look at those guns convinced him that hed be riddled before the plane could leave the ground he shut off hi his 3 motor and gave himself up the took nat to a nearby town and brought him before their commandants comm omm andante then nat began learning things it look so good for him A revolutionist by the name of dr antonio Guetter ras was located nearby at matanzas with a flock of his rebels and the federal forces were on the watch for him Guetter ras was supposed to have three hundred thousand dollars collected as ransom for a landowner and the federals suspected that he would try to get out of cubas cuba with the money they had a hunch hed try to sneak out on a plane and well here was a plane more than likely it had come to take away Guetter ras and to top it all nat had no papers to show what his business was in cuba it might take weeks for him to establish his identity and get him out of that scrape but still nat know the worst of it know that he might never get out of that scrape alive they found DelgadO Del gados 3 card the commandants Comm andante of the began going through papers and belongings and suddenly he came across that business card delgado had given him he turned on nat his face red with anger so he cried you are a rebel and you came to get Guetter ras says nat you could have blown me down with a feather duster I 1 know what he was talking about until a few minutes ago I 1 have known whether Guetter ras was a fan dancer or a sid side e dish on a spanish menu I 1 insisted I 1 was an american they believe me tor for I 1 am dark and look like a cuban besides that the com mandante landante man dante pointed out that so was Guetter ras an american he was born in philadelphia 1 I swore I 1 did not know him that I 1 did NOT come to get him in my plane but I 1 could have sworn until I 1 was blue in the face for all the good it did me I 1 was threat threatened end with the fifth degree told that I 1 would be put through the mill at the Ca bannas fortress it if I 1 did not talk and I 1 say a word for I 1 was not implicated and have known what to say even if id wanted to talk I 1 did find out though why the commandants comm andante became so excited at the sight of delgados Del gados card delgado was GUETTER RAS AGENT IN THE UNITED STATES ill looked very bad for nat they put nat in jail it looked mighty bad for him caught in cuba without clearance papers caught in a neighborhood where a plane was expected to land to smuggle out a rebel whose pockets were full of kidnap money found with the card of that same rebels agent on his person why the evidence was so dead against him that nat doubted if even the united states consul would intervene to save his life for three days nat lay in jail with his mind full of visions of the firing squad they were shooting plenty of people in cuba in those hectic days but on the third day lady luck came to the rescue on the third day Guetter ras was caught up with and lulled killed then the federals learned that he had a yacht waiting in the harbor to take him to the states that he planning to escape by plane at all no matter how bad the evidence against nat looked it just evidence at all they let nat go and he lost no time getting back to the united states again 1 I never wished Guetter ras any bad luck he says but on the other hand I 1 feel very sad about what happened to him if they caught and shot him I 1 be sitting here writing this yarn 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