Many inaccuracies in this thread. In November 1984, Paul hired me away from the FCC to be his deputy in his effort to get RM up and running, so I'll bet the house on my version. He lasted exactly 100 days at Marti, a figure he later quoted regularly, starting in October 1984, and resigning in January 1985. Paul's decision to leave followed his realization that RM was a political and social snakepit created primarily as a "thank you" to Florida's Cuban-American community for its efforts in electing Paula Hawkins, a Republican, to the U-S Senate in 1980, and that the USIA and the NSC wanted to delay the startup of RM as long as possible, not to mention that VOA regarded Marti as an unwanted bastard stepchild. Paul was also well-aware that Jorge Mas Canosa, Executive Director of the Cuban American National Foundation was RM's true "godfather and power-broker." Realizing he could not meet the goal sought by Senator Hawkins and the Cuban-American community to launch RM by Jose Marti's birthday (January 28), Paul tendered his resignation to USIA Director Charles Z. Wick on a Monday, and returned to California the following Friday. After Paul's departure, Mas Canosa got tired of the Federal foot-dragging, and took his concerns directly to the White House. That led to the expedited and concerted efforts to get RM on the air. Paul has been gone from Marti longer than he had worked there when RM began broadcasting on May 20, 1985, the anniversary of Cuba's independence from the U.S. The "finished product" bore none of Paul's "radio DNA." In the subsequent years, there was hardly a conversation between us when he wouldn't revisit his disappointment with the RM experience. In my mind as well as that of most others, that setback did nothing to diminish Paul's brilliant career.
