The FBI Nails the Cuban Saboteurs
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New Jersey. This vast sprawling empire lies some ten miles from Bayonne down the western shore of the Arthur Kill, the body of water separating New Jersey and Staten Island . In from the sea each year come millions of barrels of crude oil from all over the world to feed the oil-hungry metropolitan area . Giant tankers and barges tie up in the Kill. Hoses swing out. The crude oil flows into the "cat plants" and is "cracked ." Out through a maze of color-coded pipes into acres of tanks flow, in turn, gasoline, heating oil, industrial fuel oil, alcohol, naphtha, jet fuel, kerosene, lighter fluid, anti-freeze-the host of products that heat, power and provide amenities for our way of life. The catalyst plants towering into the sky look like mountainous Christmas trees at night, ablaze with lights. Oil is an around-the-clock industry. If the plot hatched by the Cuban saboteurs were to come off as planned, they would have to get inside the plant . Could they? What protective and security measures did the company have in force to guard against the danger of sabotage? Fortunately, this was a time that Humble and a number of other refineries along the Jersey shore had just recently initiated a program of intensified security. What prompted it was the devastating saboteur strike at the refineries in Venezuela in October at the height of the Cuban crisis. It was strongly suspected-if not proven-that Cubans were responsible for the havoc wrought upon the Venezuelan plants, and the refineries in Jersey were quick to realize the potential danger to themselves . Their first step was to triple and quadruple the police forces which patrol the endless acres of refinery grounds . At Humble, the head of plant protection, stocky, broad shouldered John Hoff, fifty-five, wasted no time in beefing up his force . He ordered three radio cars and twenty pickup trucks on around-the-clock patrol from the instant the first explosion echoed up from the Venezuelan oilfields . Hoff also ordered every inch of the eight-foot, barbed-wire-topped cyclone fence surrounding the 1,600-acre plant and its maze of pipes and tanks checked for holes and breaks . "We're ready for anything," Hoff said confidently after issuing orders to one hundred and sixty key men on his force to maintain vigil .