By enforcing President Kennedy’s new policy, the Justice Department and the Coast Guard were restraining a covert arm of the CIA from drawing the United States into a war with Cuba. Premier Fidel Castro responded with evident surprise by saying that Kennedy’s curtailment of the hit-and-run raids was “a step forward toward reduction of the dangers of crisis and war.”[19] However, as the Times reported on April 10, the Florida refugee groups subsidized by the CIA exploded with bitterness, charging the Kennedy administration with engaging in “coexistence” with
