Between 1960 to 1962, some 14,000 Cuban children were "spirited out of the country" by parents afraid the incoming Communist government of Fidel Castro was going to "take control of their children". Flights out of Cuba were organized by the Catholic Church and many of the children never saw their parents again. The children stayed in refugee camps-like Camp Matecumbe in south Miami-they foster homes or orphanages. "Cuban officials and some researchers have long maintained the effort was a CIA-backed plot to create a brain-drain form the island. The US government denies those accusations". The term "Petro Pan" is Spanish for "Peter Pan".
(Source: "'Petro Pan' children reunite 50 years later" by Laura Wides-Munoz of The AP. In The Virginian Pilot on 11/13/10).
Update: www.campeatecumbeveterans.com notes that this was the "largest exodus of children in the Western Hemisphere".
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