On Feb. 16, 1988, without a visa, Bosch returned to Miami where he was arrested for parole violations and for entering the country illegally. This is where Reich's role in the Bosch affair ends. But it is the beginning of far more egregious behavior by the U.S. government, which clearly went soft on terrorism when it came to Bosch. Indeed, Reich's actions -- even were you to believe the worst -- are nothing compared to the shameless terrorist-coddling by much more powerful politicians in the Bosch case.

The U.S. government began by taking a strong stand against Bosch, one that reassuringly echoes the rhetoric of the current war on terrorism. He was imprisoned for three months for his parole violations, then detained even further because he was in the country illegally. After a few months of studying the matter, the Justice Department -- led by Acting Associate Attorney General Joe D. Whitley -- moved to deport Bosch during the first months of the administration of President George H.W. Bush in 1989. Reich might want to read Whitley's deportation order if he seriously questions Bosch's terrorist bona fides.

"Orlando Bosch has for more than 30 years been resolute and unwavering in his advocacy of terrorist violence," Whitley said. "Appeasement of those who would use force will only breed more terrorists. We must look on terrorism as a universal evil, even if it is directed toward those with whom we have no political empathy."

What mattered to Whitley was not the three acquittals Bosch had obtained during his jurisprudential decade in Venezuela; he cited an FBI report that asserted that Bosch "has repeatedly expressed and demonstrated a willingness to cause indiscriminate injury and death."

But hard-liners in the increasingly powerful Cuban-American community -- and Republicans pandering to them -- disagreed. Then-Sen. Connie Mack, R-Fla., called for Bosch's release. "I think Fidel Castro's agents are really responsible for loading up the Bosch file with information," charged then-state Sen. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the GOP candidate for a congressional seat in a special election who made Bosch's freedom one of her signature issues. Her campaign manager was a young real estate developer named Jeb Bush.

Protesters took the street. There was a general strike, marches and rallies. Taped messages of Bosch came from his prison cell. "I have directed and participated -- inside Cuba and out -- in numerous heroic actions against Castroism, in desperate efforts to contribute to the freedom of my country," Bosch said. "We Cubans have always denounced violence. But we have a right to belligerence. We knew we did not kill the beast, but neither did we let it sleep in peace."

Bosch's son William announced that he was going on a hunger strike until he obtained a meeting with Jeb Bush. The future Florida governor met with him; 20 other anti-Castro activists took his place in the hunger strike, this time until Bosch was freed.

"The Republican Party will not abandon Orlando Bosch," David Craig, vice chairman of the Dade Republican Party, told reporters in August 1989. "On the one hand, the United States government supported violence against Castro, things like the Bay of Pigs invasion. Now on the other hand, it says Bosch is a terrorist. It's not right."

U.S. Attorney General Dick Thornburgh disagreed, calling Bosch an "unreformed terrorist." But the politics that were gumming up the Justice Department moves were severely compounded by the international reality that there was nowhere to deport Bosch -- 31 countries told the U.S. that they didn't want him and would not admit him. The one exception was Cuba, which wanted to try Bosch for the 1976 plane explosion.

President George H.W. Bush came to Miami in August 1989 to campaign for Ros-Lehtinen, but he publicly avoided the topic of Bosch, who was facing a federal hearing on his deportation the following month. Still, encouraging signals were sent to the community. Ros-Lehtinen told reporters that Bush was "well abreast" of the topic.

"The president himself brought it up on Air Force One. He's going to be interested in seeing what the decision is going to be." But since the case at the time was before a judge, she said, "it's not really a presidential matter. If and when that time comes, certainly we're going to call on the president to try to help out."

After the judge ruled against Bosch, that call was made. Mack, Ros-Lehtinen and Jeb Bush, who was planning a 1994 run for governor, lobbied the president. And under great political pressure, on July 17, 1990, the Justice Department allowed Bosch to return to his Miami home under house arrest. The decision, a Justice Department spokesman said, was made for "humanitarian reasons."

Bosch agreed to have his whereabouts monitored and his phone tapped, as well as to other conditions placed on his release. He refused to keep a visitors log, which the government required him to do. He called his agreement with the Justice Department "a farce." Though the agreement stipulated that Bosch would refrain from associating with other anti-Castro militants, Bosch said that outside his home he would associate with whomever he desired.

"They purchased the chain but they don't have the monkey," Bosch gloated to reporters.

"Everybody is happy in this community about his release," Thomas Garcia Fuste, news director of the Spanish-language station La Cubanisima, told reporters.

Not everyone felt the same way, of course. "The release from jail of Orlando Bosch, convicted of terrorist violence and officially deemed a most undesirable alien, is a startling example of political justice," wrote the New York Times editorial page. "The Justice Department, under no legal compulsion but conspicuous political pressure, has let him out, winning cheers from local politicians - and squandering American credibility on issues of terrorism ... In the name of fighting terrorism, the United States sent the Air Force to bomb Libya and the Army to invade Panama. Yet now the Bush administration coddles one of the hemisphere's most notorious terrorists. And for what reason? The only one evident is currying favor in South Florida."

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