Helen Aguirre Ferré: From Anastasio Somoza to Donald Trump
She had to be from Miami, and a Hispanic.
I’m just reading the news that Helen Aguirre Ferré was named head of Hispanic media relations for the Republican National Committee. Her job is to assure that Donald Trump – the man who has referred to undocumented immigrants from Mexico as criminals and rapists, and spares no words when attacking prominent Hispanics – is elected president in November.
I’d also like to remind Mrs. Aguirre Ferre that she just accepted a position to represent not only an anti-Latino candidate, but also an unrepentant misogynist, and an ignorant brute and bully who feels entitled to say and do as he pleases because he was born wealthy.
Donald Trump is a dangerous man. And Mrs. Aguirre Ferré just signed up to help him achieve the most powerful, political job on earth.
As a Latina and a woman, all I can say to Mrs. Aguirre Ferré is shame on you!
She was described by The Washington Post as a “GOP operative and former Spanish-language conservative radio talk show host with deep roots in the Miami area. (Her father-in-law is Maurice Ferré, the first Hispanic mayor of Miami.)” All true, but they left out the best.
The fact is that the RNC may have hit on the perfect Hispanic to lead the media charge for Donald Trump. Normally I would refuse to blame her for her family’s sins, but… this situation reminds me of a favorite saying of my father’s: ‘Lo que se hereda no se hurta.’ Literally translated to ‘What is inherited is not stolen.’ In other words, it seems to run in the family.
Helen Aguirre Ferré is the daughter of Nicaraguan born Horacio Aguirre Baca, who went on to found Diario Las Americas, the oldest Spanish newspaper in Miami. It was founded on July 4, 1953 – a Yankee Doodle newspaper. Almost exactly one year later, in June 1954, a covert operation carried out by the CIA deposed the democratically elected Guatemalan President Jacobo Árbenz and ended the Guatemalan Revolution. Code-named Operation PBSUCCESS, it installed the military dictatorship of Carlos Castillo Armas, the first in a series of U.S.-backed dictators who ruled Guatemala.
Aguirre Baca had ties to important names involved in the Guatemalan coup. They included John Foster Dulles, who had been named Secretary of State under Dwight D. Eisenhower, Allen Dulles, his brother who headed the CIA, and Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza García.
A person I trust, who is no longer with us, once assured me that the money used to create Diário Las Américas came straight from Washington, D.C. The newspaper receiving its marching orders from the CIA. I believe the Diário is no longer in Aguirre family hands, and it plays a minor role in the politics of Miami and Latin America these days, but during its heyday, they had their hands full of places like Nicaragua, Guatemala, Cuba, and Miami – which in the 60s became the largest ever CIA field operation, with thousands of people on its payroll.
And I would never think of accusing a person like Mrs. Aguirre Ferré, who I have never met, of having ties that date back to her father. Those days are long gone. But based on her actions and words as a member of the Miami media, and now her acceptance of a post whose last director, Ruth Guerra, quit because of Donald Trump, I suspect that not so deep in Helen Aguirre Ferré’s mind, she’s the type of person who might admire an Anastasio Somoza. And who knows? She may see some of his qualities in Donald Trump.
