Brigade 2506 Guards Its Memory

--”Future generations must know what happened at the Bay of Pigs. They must know we fought and many died,” said Juan Perez Franco, leader of the volunteers who served in Brigade 2506. On Sunday, the 27th anniversary of the failed invasion of Cuba, a museum in the Little Havana section of Miami was dedicated to the memory of those 114 men who died in battle and the 1,189 held in Cuban prisons for 22 months. Old photographs and documents tell much of the story: the recruitment of Cuban exiles in Miami and New York City, the secret training bases in Guatemala and the day President John F. Kennedy withdrew U.S. backing for the CIA-sponsored mission, leaving the fighting men helpless on the beach of the Cuban bay. The Bay of Pigs Veterans Assn. started planning the museum two years ago to secure recognition for the men who took part in the April 17, 1961, invasion. “To this day, the U.S. government has not recognized the Bay of Pigs veterans as true American veterans,” said Eduardo Lambert, museum director.

--Twenty-five Navy wives gathered for dinner at the Portsmouth, R.I., home of Mary Perez. They weren’t necessarily expecting anything out of the ordinary, but that’s exactly what they got. The women are wives of the crew members of the U.S. warship Samuel B. Roberts, which last week was damaged after apparently hitting a mine in the Persian Gulf, injuring 10 sailors. The surprise was a phone call, which allowed the wives to speak to their spouses for the first time since the accident. Cmdr. Paul X. Rinn had earlier phoned his wife, Pamela, praising what he called a well-disciplined crew. “The crew did exactly what they were supposed to do,” Rinn said. “We put out the fires and stopped the flooding.” Pamela later traveled to the Perez home from South Carolina to join the wives’ gathering. Then, the crew’s call came. They told a number of heroic stories, especially mentioning Chief Petty Officers George Cowan and Robert Bent, whose acts of bravery saved the lives of three men.

--New York Mayor Edward I. Koch took a breather from the political infighting known as the Democratic presidential primary to offer details of his 1987 tax returns. In addition to paying $47,568 in city, state and federal taxes--from earnings of $144,620--the mayor gave $1,300 to the United Jewish Appeal. But that was a bit less than his biggest single contribution: $5,000 to New York University. Koch has appealed to the NYU journalism department to study a way to preserve a video archive of the mayor’s press conferences as well as other events in which he has a starring role.