Luis Torroella '55 Executed by Castro

News of the execution of Luis Torroella '55 by Fidel Castro reached the College two days after it occurred on October 31. We reprint here an editorial from The Washington Daily News of November 2, which fills in some of the background of this tragic event.

A FRIEND DIES

Yesterday we received the news that Fidel Castro had just killed a young friend of ours because he dreamed of freedom and believed his dreams.

When we first met Luis Torroella, he was in the Cuban underground, risking his life for Fidel against the corrupt Batista dictatorship.

Luis broke with the Castro provisional government when the communists got control of it.

He opposed it openly and frankly, like a good citizen, but when Castro abolished civil liberty, he went underground again to continue his fight for freedom.

He was arrested last June. In July, there was an attempt to assassinate Castro.

In August, Luis Torroella was accused of being a part of the plot, although he already had been jailed a month before the attempt occurred.

He had been kicked around from one Cuban jail to another, and yesterday they shot him.

The only reason for this execution that we can think of is that Castro's jails are becoming so full that old tenants must make way for the new.

Luis was a fine young man and came from a fine family; his ancestors fought for Cuba's freedom against the Spanish governors, just as he fought for it against Russia's satrapy.

Besides his bereaved parents (his Cuban father attended West Point), he leaves a wife and baby.

These bare details aren't very moving, when you read about them. You have read similar details over and over in our tragic era.

But when you personally have known a man of good heart and idealism, and have known his family, and know that he has been killed for his very virtues, it brings home to you something of the poignant pain suffered by all wives and children and mothers and fathers of brave young men, when they die generously.

It is a pain that has been the lot of thousands on thousands in our time, and the end is not yet.

Luis' crime was he loved liberty, and all of us who enjoy freedom can never repay and must never forget our debt to those who, like him, die for it.

To those who have a shred of trust left for Castro, we bespeak the memory of those, like Luis Torroella, whom he has betrayed and slain.