It was consented, his wife Vicky knew of his discontent with the regime and (at least per his memoir book) consented to his defection. It was a PR nightmare for the Castro regime, more so than the Mariel boatlift imo. They weren't going to assassinate the children as a result. They would have killed him on the spot however, and oreste knew that.
As previously stated, the gamble worked for them, they now have lived decades of a very comfortable upper class lifestyle in the US. His two sons (my contemporaries) are married and live very typical Americans upper middle class lifestyles. Couldn't pick them for political refugees if you tried. Which was the point of emigrating to the US in the first place. Though i don't know the family personally, we have mutual acquaintances from the diaspora, to include fellow USAF pilots in that mix, one of whom who was my student two years ago.
Caribbean geopolitics is a topic I'm well read on a personal level for the obvious reasons. I have professional peers and personal acquaintances who are direct political refugees of the Castro regime exodus. Their stories can fill multi volume books. It's a fascinating conglomeration of stories of perseverance in the face of authoritarianism, which most US denizens are simply too fat and complacent to ever internalize. From marielitos, to high members of the communist regime, to everybody in between, such as the aforementioned major. The stories can be found in all socioeconomic stratas of former cuban society.
This forum is not attention span compatible enough to provide the expanded conversation of the Cuban diaspora. It does however lend itself to unnuanced flippant smears that fill the "TL;Dr" character limit of the chucklehead blindly bloviating on a topic he/she has no sincere understanding of in the first place. Not sure it rises to the level of trolling, but it's certainly not a well researched position.
In fairness to POA, sh"tposting is not limited to this message board. All's fair on the internetz. That's the opportunity cost of interacting online, no crying in baseball type of thing. I do recommend his memoirs if anybody is interested in the upbringing and context of what leads a Soviet trained white collar field grade officer to take such a pivot.
In a way, we share a lot in common with these adversary pilots, which I've always found fascinating and strangely brotherhood-inducing. Humanity can be paradoxical that way. Cheers.
and he packed and departed via the next flight for America. Their very nice house became the local commie headquarters and their 300SL mercedes Che's car. 
