Alan Gross Discusses Captivity On 60 Minutes

BALTIMORE (WJZ) -- The Maryland man who spent five years locked in a Cuban prison accused of spying is speaking about the experience in his first interview since being released. Alan Gross told 60 Minutes he thought he'd be rescued right away---but that didn't happen.

Mary Bubala has more.

"I said, `Where the hell are they? Where are they?'" Gross said. "I figured I didn't have any idea I'd be there for five years."

Gross---from Potomac, Maryland---is back with his family, freed from a Cuban prison five years after being accused of spying for the US government. He lost more than 100 pounds and faced intense interrogations.

"They threatened to hang me. They threatened to pull out my fingernails. They said I would never see the light of day," he said.

In his first interview, Gross described to Scott Pelley how he survived prison in Cuba under difficult conditions.

"I thought about my family that survived the Holocaust. I exercised religiously every day and I found something every day to laugh at," he said.

Gross had been sent to Cuba to help its small Jewish community connect to the internet. The Cuban government said he smuggled in restricted equipment and sentenced him to 15 years in prison. Negotiations between President Barack Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro brokered by the Pope led to Gross' breakthrough release---something his wife and fought long and hard for.

"I was afraid that the government had already forgotten his name," said his wife, Judy Gross.

But it didn't and almost a year ago, he was freed---with these last words to his captors:

"Hasta la vista, baby."

Gross says President Obama apologized to him that it took so long to free him.