Symbols, as Joseph Connor’s calm voice and exhausted eyes know, are important in opening understanding and mobilizing our fellow human beings. The story of his father, Frank, which is also his, ended in 1975 as part of a horrifying and symbolic scene: the blowing up of Fraunces Tavern, a cradle of freedom, where George Washington gathered a group of his officers, days after the last of the British troops left American soil, to thank them for their service and bid them an emotional farewell before returning home.

The terrorist William “Guillermo” Morales, of the Marxist Puerto Rican Armed Forces of National Liberation (FALN), consciously chose that place in New York as a target. Almost 50 years after that explosion, Joe is still fighting for the U.S. Congress to pass a law which is named after his father.

Morales, although prosecuted in the United States and sentenced in 1979 to 89 years in prison in New York and 10 years in federal prison, managed to flee to Mexico. There he was convicted of murdering a Mexican police officer. Mexico rebuffed U.S. President Ronald Reagan’s requests for extradition of Morales while he was serving out his sentence in a Mexican prison. Later, Mexican authorities allowed Morales to flee to Cuba in 1983, where he was given political asylum.

Havana was taking care of, more or less, a son (the FALN) that it had fathered with the assistance of its mission to the United Nations, through Julián Torres Rizo, an officer of the General Directorate of Intelligence. Several FALN militants, who sought to establish a Cuban-style regime in an independent Puerto Rico, had received Castroist instruction and advice. Oscar López Rivera, one of its leaders, sentenced to 55 years in prison in the U.S. for violent acts, possession of explosives, and conspiracy to commit attacks, was the center of a media campaign promoted by outlets such as Prensa Latina for decades for his release.

Today, following President Barack Obama’s commutation of his sentence, López Rivera attends events in Havana as a guest of honor.

The FALN, with a long criminal history, was part of the international network of proxies with which Castro intended to carry out the world Revolution. And in the middle of that hurricane, Joseph Connor’s father, Frank Connor, and three other people died at Fraunces Tavern.

Here is my interview with Joseph.

You were nine years old when your father was murdered. How did your mother and family deliver that horrible fact to you?

Coworkers came from his job and just told us. Awful. Can’t put it in a few words. My brother was 11, I was nine years old. That night my dad was going to celebrate my and my brother’s birthday. We both were born in January. We were not a family that could afford to have two birthdays.

We had wrestling practice that afternoon after school, but our mother kept us home when she heard he was in the bombing.

When he told us that our father had been killed by a bomb, I started hitting a family friend who had come to the house. At that moment I knew I had to remember him, because he wouldn’t be with me anymore.

The terrorists had no right to kill him for some abstract ideal. They were looking to target corporate executives. My father worked hard to get his job at Morgan Bank. He started from the bottom, with a job he got after finishing high school. He was surrounded by guys who graduated from Harvard [and] Yale, but he had worked hard to get his position there.

Fathers are key figures for a kid. In what ways did the absence of your father impact your life and your mother’s life?

My father was an only child. His mother was born in Ireland and his father in Great Britain. When he died, he was only 33 years old. My father was my hero. We played sports, my father and I against my mother and my brother, who was older.

I thought my father was invincible. He was my hero, my teammate. But finding out that he had died was devastating. My mother kept the family together.

Fortunately, my brother and I became very involved in the world of wrestling. That made us channel the energy and frustrations we felt, and gave us a lot of discipline. We never forgot my dad, but we pushed ahead as a family. We focused on doing everything the best way, we went to university, we got a job, we started a family. The memory of our father was a great motivating force in my brother’s and my life.

Sometimes I wish I could just talk to him. Even now, I already have children. My mother was married five years later to a good man who treated us with great affection.

When did you decide to actively raise your voice for justice in your father’s case?

During college in the 1980s and then, upon working at Morgan Bank, where he worked. I’ve been active since early 1990 when I started to write letters to politicians.

Have you met other sons of terrorism victims? What is their approach politically?

I’m a 9/11 family member also and have been involved with Tuesday’s Children group, and with family members of terrorism victims at Guantanamo. Also, I have gotten to know FALN attack survivors.

My cousin, dad’s godson, Steve Schlag was murdered on 9/11. I have gotten to know his kids, who moved west shortly after Steve’s murder. They have handled his very public death by pursuing skiing and many of the things that he loved in life. God bless them. It’s not easy.

The administration of Barack Obama approached the Cuban regime in 2014 without a request for extradition for the terrorist William “Guillermo” Morales. How do you think the dictatorship in Havana read that?

[The] world viewed it as weakness. I am sure Havana too.

In May 2024, the Biden-Harris administration removed Cuba from the list of countries that are not fully cooperating with the United States’ anti-terrorist efforts. The State Department argues that the circumstances for that certification changed between 2022 and 2023. How did you feel about that?

Betrayed. And it is not the first time.

In 1999, the Clinton administration granted clemency to imprisoned members of the FALN. Clemency is one of the president’s unlimited powers. The terrorists did not ask for it, but President Clinton believed it would give him some political gain.

By doing so, they violated the Victims’ Rights and Restitution Act. They should notify the victims before taking action.

Eric Holder was the architect of that clemency. In 2008 he agreed to be the future attorney general of the United States starting in 2009 with the Obama administration, a position that had to be ratified by the Senate. I testified at Eric Holder’s 2009 Senate Judiciary Committee AG hearing, and wrote a piece for The Washington Post about him helping terrorists.

Later, when Obama removed Cuba from the List of Countries Sponsoring Terrorism, it was not a negotiation with Havana, it was a capitulation to Havana. If you want to remove Cuba from the list of terrorist sponsors, the terrorists who are sponsored have to leave Cuba.

It was an affront to our family and the memory of my father.

When Obama went to Cuba in 2016, I was on the island too, at the Guantánamo Base. He was there because terrorists had murdered a family member in the 9/11 attack. It was disheartening for me.

What is the Trooper Werner Foerster and Frank Connor Justice Act? What has been its fate inside the Congress?

The Act stipulates certain steps that Congress must take, such as certifying annually that the terrorists are still in Cuba. And it also expresses that they must have the terrorists back before Cuba is removed from the List of Sponsors of Terrorism.

It is a bill to call for the immediate extradition or return to the United States of convicted felon Joanne Chesimard, William “Guillermo” Morales, and all other fugitives who are receiving safe haven in Cuba to escape prosecution or confinement for criminal offenses committed in the United States.

Now it has to be reintroduced by Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) now that Bob Menendez is gone.

In 2017, Donald Trump considered the return of terrorists to the U.S. an important issue for diplomatic dialogue. Cuban Chancellor, Bruno Rodriguez Parrilla, defended the asylum of “civil rights fighters from the U.S.” Almost 50 years since your father’s assassination, do you feel hope?

I have hope that we are closer on Morales than ever before.

I know there is a documentary about your father’s case coming out.

The movie is called “Shattered Lives,” and it is based on the book (with the same name) that I wrote some years ago. We are hoping it will be soon in a streaming platform. At the same time, we will do some premieres in cities like New York, Phoenix, etc.

I am hoping interviews like yours and the movie will force his return.