Alan Gross' last moments in Cuba

On 60 Minutes this week, Scott Pelley interviews Alan Gross, a former U.S. government subcontractor whom Cuba accused of spying and imprisoned for five years. Gross, who was setting up uncensored Internet connections in Cuba under a contract with USAID, never imagined the consequences of what he was doing could be so severe.

Gross' wife, Judy, held weekly rallies outside Cuba's unofficial embassy in Washington and protested at the White House to keep attention on his case. Finally, this past year, as part of the warming of diplomatic relations between the two countries, Gross was released on the same day as three Cuban prisoners being held in the U.S. for espionage.

In the unaired clip above, Gross describes the call he got from his lawyer, Scott Gilbert, when he was about to be freed. Gross also remembers some harrowing moments on the tarmac as he waited to be flown home on December 17, 2014.

The U.S. government sent a version of Air Force One to pick him up, Gross explains, and his wife, lawyer, and Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont, a longtime advocate, were among those who got off the plane to greet him. But as they were moving to leave, the Cubans stopped them. It turns out they were waiting for the simultaneous delivery of their prisoners from the United States.

As Gross recalls, Leahy wasn't having it and started walking toward the plane, telling the Cubans they'd have to get out of the way or shoot him. "Of course, the Cubans, at that point, said, 'OK, you're clear. You're clear. Go, go,'" Gross tells Pelley. "Leahy's a tough man. I'm glad he was on my side."

Pelley asks the senator if he was as bold as Gross describes. Leahy laughs. "Well, as you know, we Vermonters tend to be kind of independent," he says. "I may not put it exactly, well, yeah, I guess I probably did."

Alan Gross' departure from Cuba happened to fall on the first day of Hanukkah, and the Air Force crew transporting him provided a special in-flight meal: potato pancakes and a corned beef sandwich for a man who had lost more than 100 pounds in prison. But as he tackled the sandwich, Gross says, he was told he had a phone call -- from President Obama.

"I looked at the sandwich. And I looked at the flight attendant. 'Oh, OK,'" he recounts in the unaired clip above.

Gross remembers telling the president he was grateful. "I knew that the decision could only be made in the Oval Office," he says. "But I also knew that an incredible number of people made it possible for the president to make that historic decision and courageous decision."

The president invited Gross and his wife to sit in the First Lady's box at his State of the Union address. When they met with Obama afterwards, Gross recalls, Judy thanked the president for getting her husband out of Cuba. "He commented that he was sorry that it took so long," Gross tells Pelley. "And I said, 'Better late than never.'"