Keith Perron worked at Radio Havana from 1993 to 1996. Here are his recollections of working with Arnie. Fans of Arnie may not want to read this.
https://www.facebook.com/keith.perron/posts/pfbid02dMvjqhJZEP9mf4PHFPA7Te8FdVgcm2FddTLHdKSkfhWdKpGACpKXT9H4YyMJGfd9lYesterday afternoon I got word that Arnaldo Coro Antich or as he was better know Arnie Coro passed away at age 80.
I worked at Radio Havana Cuba from 1993 to 1996. The programs I presented were the 1 hour to Europe, 1 hour to Africa and 1 hour. I also had two weekend programs Jazz Plaza and Mailbag. I also did a special programs for the French and Spanish language sections respectively.
Hypocrisy is something I just can't stand. You see this often when someone does and then all the nice words come out of people mouths, but when they were alive they say the opposite.
What I'm about to write is no different what i have been saying about Coro when he was alive.
I met Coro in May of 1993 just after I started work at Radio Havana Cuba. Like many others at the time I had listened to him on and off with the two programs he did Dxers Unlimited and Breakthrough.
The first time I met him was two days after I arrived in Havana. I was sitting at my typewriter working on a script for a new series I was just starting. He came over we exchanged some pleasantries. Over the next 6 months we would always talk in the newsroom or hallway or studios when he was around. But, during the first few weeks a few of the staff in the English and Spanish sections, would come and say some odd things to me. I'll tell you about that later.
One Friday afternoon when he was in to record Dxers Unlimited as he was leaving he invited me to visit his home on Sunday. It was during this visit where what had been told to me started to piece together.
By European standards he and his then wife Olga lived in a modest home. But, by Cuban standards this was anything but modest. When I arrived he showed me is radio equipment we talked and then he showed me another room. When he opened the door the best way I could describe it. It was a room that looked like a bazaar for the black market. As we went into the room I started piecing together the odd things people had been saying to me.
Boxes that were donations to Radio Havana Cuba, which were made by an organisation called Pastors for Peace along with a couple of other aid organisation were all packed in this room. Things like paper supplies, computers, 10 Denon DN-86R professional tape recorders, 4 Studer A807 professional tape recorders, and a stack of SONY TCM 5000ev professional cassette recorders. This was equipment that had been donated to Radio Havana Cuba. but was no where to be seen in our building on Infanta Street.
Getting back to the odd things staff had been saying to me. Comments like "He is charming at first, he isn't exactly what he seems, I see you were being friendly with Coro. Is he asking for something?". All started to make sense.
At this point I just started keeping my distance. But, it was another two months when I discovered his true face and how much of a fraud he really was.
Roberto Garcia who was one of the younger producer/presenters we had all of a sudden didn't show up one day. That morning a dark shadow came over Radio Havana Cuba. Coro arrived said a quick hello and then went into the office of the Jorge Miyares head of the English section. Through the window Jorge who was a very happy guy. As Coro was talking to him, his face changed. After about 30 minutes or so Jorge and Coro came out of the office and Jorge called a meeting. He just turned away and walked back to his office and Coro did all the talking. Coro notified all of us in the newsroom that Roberto had just been fired for being a counter-revolutionary. Pam Chapman another presenter ask Coro in what way. Coro then went on at length for nearly an hour that Roberto had been seen talking to someone who had defected to Spain a month earlier. When pressed on how he knew this Coro said "I read his mail".
It was at this point all that I felt about Coro started to unravel and the truth about this scumbag started to appear. There were a list of people he had had fired and arrested, because of his paranoia. So many in fact if I was to write about them here. it would take a few hours.
Just some examples: He had the wife of a one of the Spanish presenters fired from her job as a teacher after he found out she had been asking for more money. A presenter in the Spanish service was fired after he told Coro to not talk about his family. He had one of the security ladies on the ground floor fired after she asked him for is ID to enter the building, she had only been 3 days on the job and didn't know who he was. one the weekends when we have a small crew on the weekend he would come in and go through the desks of certain people. And on and on and on.
All of these stories can be corroborated by everyone I worked with at the time.
Jorge Miyares (Head of English from 1991 to 1996. Later chief of Spanish at United Nations Radio)
Leslie Balog (aka Yolanda Fisher)
Isabel Garcia (announcer/producer and head of English from 1996 to 2009)
Ed Newman (aka Edward Hasse announcer/producer)
Luiz Albert Chirino (reporter English)
Anna Kovac (head of Creole service)
Marie Dominque (head of French service)
Someone who I was very close to at Radio Havana Cuba was the late Manolo de la Rosa. Spanish radio listeners in the 70s, 80s, 90s and early 2000s will definitely know him. In the 1980s he and his wife Elena worked at Radio Moscow Spanish for nearly 10 years. I was you can say a family member, because I was dating Manolo son.
So a couple of times a month i would go on his DX program in Spanish. One afternoon before recording Coro passed the studio and Manolo turned to the engineer Jose Costa and myself and just said "por eso huelo a mierda" or thats why I smell shit. Coro could empty a room at Radio Havana just as fast a putting on a Yoko Ono record.
Coro was crazy. Just some of the people said worked for the CIA. Jeff White the owner of WRMI, Glenn Hauser host of World of Radio, Jonathan Mark host of Media Network, Ian Mcfarland from Radio Canada International. These people and other he claimed were all paid by the CIA to make him look bad. Eventually he started to say I was also on the CIA payroll.
Arnie Coro was a horrible man. Yes, he was very charming. But, this facade was all it is. A facade to cheat, steal, lie and create rumours about others to get them fired and arrested. The guy was scumbag. When I read comments people have left on social media pages related to HF and Ham radio. it just wants to make me sick. Again these are people that only met him when his charm was turned on and didn't work with him. But, if they had worked with him. They would have the same view.
 this isn’t even half of the stuff that this guy was up to.  if you take a look at the programs that he did for example, DXer has unlimited.  not many people knew but every 6 to 8 months he would just recycle scripts.  and with his science and technology program  he would often plagiarize the works of other well-known Cuban science and technology experts.
Everything I have written here about Coro I've said publicly over the last 29 years.
Topic: Arnie Coro, Radio Havana, passes (Read 1198 times)
