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Criticism from Congress. With that a large part of hell broke loose on Capitol Hill. Virginia's Democratic Senator Harry Flood Byrd let it be known that the Internal Revenue Service would answer to the Senate if it allowed the tax exemptions for contributions toward Castro tractors, and Byrd is the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, which has a lot to say about such things. By the dozens, Senators and Representatives arose to denounce the bargain. Among the most effective speeches was one by Connecticut's Democratic Senator Thomas Dodd. Said he: "Our national concern for the plight of the Cubans . . . should have been evidenced by effective help on the beachhead to enable their just revolution to succeed. By paying Castro's price for a thousand good men, we give him the means to strengthen his enslavement of 6,000,000 others. The American people will, for the first time to my knowledge, be making use of ransom and tribute as an instrument of policy. If we start to pay tribute now for 1,000 of the one billion Communist hostages, where will it stop?"
Where it might stop, nobody knew. There was surely a possibility that Castro's piratical demand might blow up in his face in terms of adverse world opinion. But until that happens, Fidel Castro might just as well enjoy himself while guffawing through his beard.