William Alexander Morgan

William Alexander Morgan (April 19, 1928 – March 11, 1961) was an American-born Cuban guerrilla commander and revolutionary who fought in the Cuban Revolution, leading a band of rebels that drove the Cuban army from key positions in the central mountains as part of Second National Front of Escambray, thereby helping to pave the way for Fidel Castro's forces to secure victory. Morgan was one of about two dozen U.S. citizens to fight in the revolution and one of only three foreign nationals to hold the rank of comandante in the rebel forces. In the years after the revolution, Morgan became disenchanted with Castro's turn to communism and he became one of the leaders of the CIA-supplied Escambray rebellion. In 1961, he was arrested by the Cuban government and, after a military trial, executed by firing squad in the presence of Fidel and Raúl Castro.

Life before Cuba Morgan was born in Cleveland, Ohio, to Alexander Morgan and German-American Loretta Morgan (née Ruderth). Morgan joined the United States Army after World War II and married Darlene Edgerton in 1946. The marriage was annulled after a year and a half. He was stationed with Company B, 35th Infantry Regiment, in Japan, where he fathered a son with a German-Japanese hostess named Setsuko Takeda. He went AWOL, was arrested, and escaped from custody by overpowering a guard. Recaptured, he was court-martialed in 1948, received a dishonorable discharge, and spent over two years in a federal prison.

In January 1959, he told a reporter that "all I'm interested in is settling down to a nice peaceful existence" but worried how U.S. authorities would respond to his military activities in Cuba. In March 1959, officials of the U.S. embassy in Havana warned Americans that participation in foreign military service could jeopardize their citizenship.

In September 1959, the U.S. State Department revoked his citizenship, a move that was prompted by members of Congress who had supported Trujillo. Morgan promised to contest the action.

Post-revolution activities William Morgan and Olga María Rodríguez Fariñas in the mountains of Cuba. Morgan married a Cuban, Olga María Rodríguez Fariñas, also a revolutionary, and they had two daughters. On September 24, 1959, Morgan renounced his U.S. citizenship publicly on a Havana radio station. An American named Jack Lee Evans, who was in Cuba at the time of the explosion with Morgan, left for Miami a few days after the incident. While in Miami, he gave an interview with the Miami Herald suggesting that Morgan had been involved with the sabotaging of the ship, which Morgan adamantly denied. A memorial for the explosion was held a few days later. Morgan was pictured arm-in-arm walking through the streets of Havana during this memorial with prominent Cuban leaders including Castro and Che. On March 11, 1961, shortly after a military trial at La Cabaña fortress, Morgan, then 32 years old, was shot by firing squad with Fidel and Raúl Castro in attendance.

In popular culture Morgan's life remained largely out of the American eye until the 21st century when articles, documentaries, and films brought him to attention in the United States. In 2012, George Clooney planned to buy the rights and direct a film based on David Grann's 2012 New Yorker article on Morgan. Pulitzer prize-winning reporters Michael Sallah and Mitch Weiss authored the book "The Yankee Comandante: The Untold Story of Courage, Passion and One American's Fight to Liberate Cuba." Morgan was featured in 2015 on the PBS documentary series American Experience with the episode titled American Comandante.

In April 2020, Adam Driver was reported to star in a film adaptation of the New Yorker article, written and directed by Jeff Nichols, with shooting anticipated to begin in 2021.

American country-rock band Lucero detail Morgan's story on "Back in Ohio," a track off their 2021 album When You Found Me.

Morgan appears as a card in the board game Cuba Libre, part of a series of wargames simulating historic insurgency and counterinsurgency conflicts.