Foreign Relations: Good for a Million

The call came in late December from Attorney General Robert Kennedy to an old family friend in Boston. Said Bobby: "Castro wants an extra $2,900,000, and everybody wants to get the prisoners home to Miami by Christmas." Said the friend: "I'm all for that." Asked Kennedy: "Can you help out toward that $2,900,000?" Replied the friend: "I'll call you back in an hour." He was as good as his word: within an hour, Boston's Richard Cardinal Gushing had pledged to raise $1,000,000 to help achieve the release of the Bay of Pigs prisoners.

Only last week did Cardinal Gushing identify himself as the mysterious benefactor whom Bobby had called. He was doing so, he said, to stop "rumors crediting this gift as coming from sources with which I have no identification." Declared Gushing: "I alone am responsible for the collection of this extraordinary sum."

Person to Person. Bobby had good reason to think he could depend on Gushing. The cardinal has known Joseph P. Kennedy for 25 years; old Joe managed to say his first words after his paralytic stroke last winter when Gushing visited him in Palm Beach. Gushing baptized Caroline Kennedy, both of Teddy's children and one of Bobby's sons; he also delivered a memorably lengthy invocation at Kennedy's inauguration.

When the request from Bobby came, Gushing went to work. Already earmarked for Cuba was $200,000 raised by Gushing at the time of the tractors-for-prisoners proposal and set aside when that deal fell through. Moreover, in each of the past five years Gushing has raised at least $1,000,000 for the Society of St. James the Apostle, which sends missionaries to Latin America. It was from society benefactors that Gushing sought the money for the prisoner exchange. He "worked day and night, through person-to-person contacts." The largest single donation was only $1,000—but the money was obtained. "Like many others," Gushing explained simply, "I, too, wanted the prisoners home with their loved ones before Christ mas Day."

Covering the Loan. Castro's $2,900,000 demand (retired General Lucius Clay underwrote the rest) had been in addition to the $53 million he was getting in drugs, food and other goods in exchange for the prisoners. Last week the list of donors to that $53 million was being filled out; some companies had given or pledged more than they had been listed for in previous, partial lists (TIME, Jan. 11). Among them: American Cyanamid Corp., Pearl River, N.Y., $3,300,000 (instead of the previously reported $1,000,000); Richardson-Merrill, N.Y.C., $1,337,000 (instead of $155,000); Johnson & Johnson, New Brunswick, N.J., $1,011,000 (instead of $350,000); Abbott Laboratories, North Chicago, listed as contributing an undisclosed amount, gave about $1,000,000; and H. J. Heinz Co., Pittsburgh, which was omitted from previous lists, gave $1,000,000.