Night Jump – Cuba

First published in 1965, NIGHT JUMP - CUBA was a Cold War espionage thriller by Army Special Forces Captain Carroll "Poke" Runyon. Drawing on his personal knowledge of Special Operations, a visit to Cuba before Castro, scuba diving in the Bahamas, friendships with NASA and Los Alamos scientists, and information from his uncle, Colonel Ford E. Pratt, a Pentagon officer who managed logistics for the 2506 Brigade in the ill-fated 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion, Runyon created a story of high-stakes Cold War intrigue. The story postulated Communist agents redirecting the test flight of a top-secret American atomic rocket engine, the "Sherwood Drive," from Cape Canaveral so that it would crash in Cuba. The loss of the "Sherwood Drive" activates a Special Forces team working for the C.I.A. and based in the Bahamas, led by Green Beret living legend Ed "Tiger" Malone. Their mission: to reach the downed rocket before the Soviets can recover it. Captain Runyon had visited Los Alamos and collected literature on the declassified "Sherwood Drive." But after the book was published, the C.I.A. interrogated him while he was stationed in Panama and told him that the project had been reclassified. According to Runyon's commanding officer at Fort Bragg, the C.I.A. had been suppressing the sale of NIGHT JUMP - CUBA. In this new edition, the author reveals hitherto undisclosed facts surrounding the Bay of Pigs invasion, as revealed by Colonel Ford E. Pratt ( 1911-1999).