Castro Cuba Quotes

We have the lowest student-teacher ratio and spend five times as much on schools than war - the opposite of what the United States does. [explaining why Cuba has the highest literacy in the world]

I have met only a very few people - and most of these were not Americans - who had any real desire to be free. Freedom is hard to bear. It can be objected that I am speaking of political freedom in spiritual terms, but the political institutions of any nation are always menaced and are ultimately controlled by the spiritual state of that nation. We are controlled here by our confusion, far more than we know, and the American dream has therefore become something much more closely resembling a nightmare, on the private, domestic, and international levels. Privately, we cannot stand our lives and dare not examine them; domestically, we take no responsibility for (and no pride in) what goes on in our country; and, internationally, for many millions of people, we are an unmitigated disaster. Whoever doubts this last statement has only to open his ears, his heart, his mind, to the testimony of - for example - any Cuban peasant or any Spanish poet, and ask himself what he would feel about us if he were the victim of our performance in pre-Castro Cuba or in Spain. We defend our curious role in Spain by referring to the Russian menace and the necessity of protecting the free world. It has not occurred to us that we have simply been mesmerized by Russia, and that the only real advantage Russia has in what we think of as a struggle between the East and the West is the moral history of the Western world. Russia's secret weapon is the bewilderment and despair and hunger of millions of people of whose existence we are scarecely aware. The Russian Communists are not in the least concerned about these people. But our ignorance and indecision have had the effect, if not of delivering them into Russian hands, of plunging them very deeply in the Russian shadow, for which effect - and it is hard to blame them - the most articulate among them, and the most oppressed as well, distrust us all the more... We are capable of bearing a great burden, once we discover that the burden is reality and arrive where reality is. Anyway, the point here is that we are living in an age of revolution, whether we will or no, and that America is the only Western nation with both the power, and, as I hope to suggest, the experience that may help to make these revolutions real and minimize the human damage.

To the accusation that Cuba wants to export its revolution, we reply: Revolutions are not exported, they are made by the people.

Today you cannot talk about a United Nations system;… what actually exists is a domination system over nearly all countries in the world by a small group of powers under the aegis of the United States, determining all issues.

Históricamente, Cuba había escapado siempre de la realidad gracias a la sátira y a la burla. Sin embargo, con Fidel Castro, el sentido del humor fue desapareciendo hasta quedar prohibido; con eso el pueblo cubano perdió una de sus pocas posibilidades de supervivencia; al quitarle la risa le quitaron al pueblo el más profundo sentido de las cosas.

While guidebooks might tell you that time collapsed here, another theory says that in Latin America, all of history coexists at once.

So if the ending of apartheid is now universally agreed to be a good thing, and Cuba played such a central role, how is it still possible to have such differing views of Castro and Mandela and of Cuba and South Africa? The short answer is that the mainstream media has been so successful in distorting basic historical facts that many are so blinded by Cold War hangovers that they are entirely incapable of critical thought, but the other answer is rather more Machiavellian. The reality is that apartheid did not die, and thus the reason so many white conservatives now love Mandela is essentially that he let their cronies "get away with it". The hypocritical worship of black freedom fighters once they are no longer seen to pose a danger or are safely dead - Martin Luther King might be the best example of this - is one of the key ways of maintaining a liberal veneer over what in reality is brutal intent.

I view Che, furthermore, as a moral giant who grows day by day, whose image, whose strength, whose influence has multiplied throughout the world. How could he fit below a tombstone? How could he fit in this plaza? How could he fit solely in our beloved but small island? Only the world he dreamed of, which he lived and fought for, is big enough for him.

We are controlled here by our confusion, far more than we know, and the American dream has therefore become something much more closely resembling a nightmare, on the private, domestic, and international levels. Privately, we cannot stand our lives and dare not examine them; domestically, we take no responsibility for (and no pride in) what goes on in our country; and, internationally, for many millions of people, we are an unmitigated disaster. Whoever doubts this last statement has only to open his ears, his heart, his mind, to the testimony of—for example—any Cuban peasant or any Spanish poet, and ask himself what he would feel about us if he were the victim of our performance in pre-Castro Cuba or in Spain.

Naturally Teseo had a joke about all the government promises to increase housing construction: “If there were no future tense in Spanish, Castro would be speechless.

Cuban eyes often look close to tears. Tears never seem far away because both their pain and their joy are always so close to the surface.

Teófilo Stevenson

Russell had taken me with him to Cuba just when Castro was starting to kick everybody out and confiscate their casinos and racetracks and houses and bank accounts and everything else they owned in Cuba. I never saw Russell madder than on that trip to Cuba, and I wasn’t even on the last trip he made where he was even madder because his friend Santo Trafficante from Florida had been arrested by the Communists and was being held in jail. I heard a rumor that Sam Giancana had to send Jack Ruby to Cuba to spread some money around to get Santo out. Around

Through Jimi Hendrix's music you can almost see the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy and of Martin Luther King Junior, the beginnings of the Berlin Wall, Yuri Gagarin in space, Fidel Castro and Cuba, the debut of Spiderman, Martin Luther King Junior’s ‘I Have a Dream’ speech, Ford Mustang cars, anti-Vietnam protests, Mary Quant designing the mini-skirt, Indira Gandhi becoming the Prime Minister of India, four black students sitting down at a whites-only lunch counter in Greensboro North Carolina, President Johnson pushing the Civil Rights Act, flower children growing their hair long and practicing free love, USA-funded IRA blowing up innocent civilians on the streets and in the pubs of Great Britain, Napalm bombs being dropped on the lush and carpeted fields of Vietnam, a youth-driven cultural revolution in Swinging London, police using tear gas and billy-clubs to break up protests in Chicago, Mods and Rockers battling on Brighton Beach, Native Americans given the right to vote in their own country, the United Kingdom abolishing the death penalty, and the charismatic Argentinean Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara. It’s all in Jimi’s absurd and delirious guitar riffs.

No fim da entrevista, quando o líder cubano [Fidel Castro] já havia discorrido sobre tema variados, a repórter Lucia Newman quis saber a opinião sobre os cubanos presos em Miami 'acusados de fazer espionagem para o seu governo'. Ele começou dizendo que achava 'assombroso' que os Estados Unidos, 'o país que mais espiona no mundo', acusassem de espionagem justamente a Cuba, 'o país mais espionado do mundo'.

pesar del incesante hostigamiento exterior, este pequeño país, apegado a su soberanía, ha obtenido resultados muy notables en materia de desarrollo humano: abolición del racismo, emancipación de la mujer, erradicación del analfabetismo, reducción drástica de la mortalidad infantil,15 elevación del nivel cultural general… En cuestiones de educación, de salud, de investigación médica y de deporte, Cuba ha alcanzado niveles que muchos países desarrollados envidiarían.16

In consequence, the National General Assembly of the People of Cuba proclaims before America: the right of peasants to land; the right of the worker to the fruit of his labor; the right of children to receive education; the right of the sick to receive medical and hospital care; the right of the young to work; the right of students to receive free instruction, practical and scientific; the right of Negroes and Indians to 'a full measure of human dignity'; the right of woman to civil, social and political equality; the right of the aged to secure old age; the right of intellectuals, artists and scientists to fight through their work for a better world; the right of States to nationalize imperialist monopolies as a means of recovering national wealth and resources; the right of countries to engage freely in trade with all other countries of the world; the right of nations to full sovereignty; the right of people to convert their fortresses into schools and to arm their workers, peasants, students, intellectuals, Negroes, Indians, women, the young, the old, all the oppressed and exploited; that they may better defend, with their own hands, their rights and their future.

Unbelievably, while many non-governmental organizations like Amnesty International and America’s Watch have denounced the human rights situation in Cuba, there has been a continuing love affair on the part of the media and many intellectuals with Fidel Castro.

I believe that there is no country in the world, including the African regions, including any and all the countries under colonial domination, where economic colonization, humiliation, and exploitation were worse than in Cuba, in part owing to my country’s policies during the Batista regime,” Kennedy told French journalist Jean Daniel. “I believe that we created, built, and manufactured the Castro movement out of whole cloth and without realizing it. I believe that the accumulation of these mistakes has jeopardized all of Latin America.

Giancana said he was going to fix the election in Illinois so Kennedy would win that state. Jimmy couldn’t believe his ears. Jimmy tried to talk him out of it. Jimmy told him nobody could control Bobby because he was mental. Jimmy said people went to the old man during the McClellan Committee hearings and he couldn’t do anything about either one of his millionaire kids. Giancana told Jimmy that Kennedy was going to help them get Castro out of Cuba so they could get their casinos back. Jimmy said that they were crazy to trust those Kennedy boys

Why did they believe that by killing him he would cease to exist as a combatant? Today he is not in La Higuera. Instead, he is everywhere; he is to be found wherever there is a just cause to defend. Those with a stake in eliminating him and making him disappear were incapable of understanding that he had already left an indelible mark on history; that his shin­ing, prophetic vision would become a symbol for all the poor of this world, in their millions. Young people, children, the elderly, men and women who knew him, honest persons throughout the world, regardless of their social origin, admire him. Che is waging and winning more battles than ever.

In every society are men of base instincts. The sadists, brutes, conveyors of all the ancestral atavisms go about in the guise of human beings, but they are monsters, only more or less restrained by discipline and social habit. If they are offered a drink from a river of blood, they will not be satisfied until they drink the river dry.

Fidel Castro had control of Cuba. Eisenhower had already put the economic embargo in place by that point. The Bay of Pigs had been a disaster. Being a Cuban-American was complicated. And instead of trying to make my way in the world as a Cuban woman, I simply forsook where I came from. In some ways, this helped me release any remaining ties connecting me to my father.

He heard ideas the mention of which — the thought of which — was prohibited in the society he represented. He often brought the newspaper Granma with him. It was the official organ of the Communist Party of Cuba. And he would ask us to give him our reaction to things it printed. We would show him the doctrinaire objectives of the newspaper and the fact that the news was not really informative.

Around that time, there was tremendous optimism about the possibility of the fall of the regime. Only a few weeks before, the United States had broken off relations with Cuba, and President Eisenhower had stated that “the Communist penetration into Cuba is real, and it constitutes a grave threat to the Western world.” At that time many Cubans believed that a Marxist regime would not be tolerated in the Americas;

The Central Intelligence Agency, America’s best-known spy shop. In that fearful post-Joe McCarthy era, when assassinated JFK had publicly loved James Bond and secretly been entangled in covert intrigues like assassination plots against Cuba’s Fidel Castro outsourced to the Mafia by our spies, the CIA was a myth-shrouded invisible army. In those pre-Internet days before electronic books, Web sites with varied credibility, and search

Many intellectuals in the Western world defended the half-century (1959–2008) dictatorship of Fidel Castro of Cuba by noting, for example, under Castro’s rule the literacy rate in Cuba rose to a hundred percent. However, Cubans were not allowed to read anything forbidden by the communist regime. In the view of Castro’s defenders, it is better to be unfree and literate than to be free and illiterate. The Torah’s view, however, would seem to be the opposite; it is better to be free and illiterate, just as it is better to eat a poor man’s food and be free than to eat a rich man’s food as a slave. Furthermore, the very concept of freedom carries with it the possibility of improvement of one’s circumstances. The illiterate are free to learn to read; the poor are free to work, retain the fruits of their labors, and improve their lot in life—perhaps even become wealthy, as so many have in the freedom of the Western, Bible-based world.

Exactly the same thing happened with the International Red Cross. Talking to it about violations of human rights in Cuba was like talking to a post; it refused to listen. Cuban political prisoners simply did not exist. Why get upset about them, then? Years later, the Red Cross came to believe what it had been told. The United Nations as a whole and its individual nations know about the horrors of the Cuban jails, but they don’t dare condemn Cuba in their annual assemblies.

One crisis, in Cuba, mounted quickly after Fidel Castro staged a successful revolution against a corrupt pro-American dictatorship and triumphantly took power in January 1959. Castro at first seemed heroic to many Americans. When he came to the United States in April, he was warmly received and spent three hours talking with Vice-President Nixon. But relations soon cooled. Castro executed opponents and confiscated foreign investments, including $1 billion held by Americans.

Then Fidel Castro intervened, calling the situation a “great propaganda victory for Cuba.” It made headlines. Furious, Bobby cabled Castro, threatening to withdraw from the tournament unless the premier promised to stop using him as a political ploy. Bobby continued: I WOULD ONLY BE ABLE TO TAKE PART IN THE TOURNAMENT IN THE EVENT THAT YOU IMMEDIATELY SENT ME A TELEGRAM DECLARING THAT NEITHER YOU, NOR YOUR GOVERNMENT WILL ATTEMPT TO MAKE POLITICAL CAPITAL OUT OF MY PARTICIPATION IN THE TOURNEY, AND THAT IN THE FUTURE NO POLITICAL COMMENTARIES ON THIS SCORE WILL BE MADE. BOBBY FISCHER Castro cabled back, denying making the statement and questioning Bobby’s courage: OUR LAND NEEDS NO SUCH “PROPAGANDA VICTORIES.” IT IS YOUR PERSONAL AFFAIR WHETHER YOU WILL TAKE PART IN THE TOURNAMENT OR NOT. HENCE YOUR WORDS ARE UNJUST. IF YOU ARE FRIGHTENED AND REPENT YOUR PREVIOUS DECISION, THEN IT WOULD BE BETTER TO FIND ANOTHER EXCUSE OR TO HAVE THE COURAGE TO REMAIN HONEST. FIDEL CASTRO

What else has changes since 1984? Oil's running our, I say Earth's population is eight billion, mass extinction of flora and fauna are commonplace, climate change is foreclosing the Holocene Era. Aparteid's dead, as are the Castros in Cuba as is privacy. The USSR went bankrupt; the Eastern bloc collapsed; Germany reunified; the EU has gone federal; China's a powerhouse- though their air is industrial effluence in a gaseous state - and North Korea is still a gulag run by a coiffed cannibal. p 500

I had witnessed this phenomenon in Cuba in the 1950s, when the idle rich were cruelly indifferent to poverty, and it had not surprised me when Fidel Castro had been able to organize his revolution. I had ample reason to despise that same Castro of recent years, for on major matters he had lied to me, encouraging me to make a fool of myself in my reports from Cuba, but I had to admit his drawing power and feared that much of Latin America, always hungry for a savior, would imitate Cuba—even Mexico.

when Yushchenko arrived in Washington, he was greeted with the pomp and circumstance reserved for popular kings or democratic pin-ups, such as Lech Walesa, Nelson Mandela, or Pope John Paul II—he was invited to address a joint meeting of Congress, where he spoke boldly about helping Bush and the United States promote democracy and freedom in neighboring Belarus and Castro's Cuba. “Yushchenko! Yushchenko!” members of Congress roared, ten times rising to their feet in rapturous applause for this newly elected symbol of democracy on the rise in eastern Europe. Yushchenko

6) The National General Assembly of the people of Cuba - confident that it is expressing the general opinion of the peoples of Latin America - affirms that democracy is not compatible with financial oligarchy; with discrimination against the Negro; with disturbances by the Ku Klux Klan; nor with the persecution that drove scientists like Oppenheimer from their posts, deprived the world for years of the marvelous voice of Paul Robeson, held prisoner in his own country, and sent the Rosenbergs to their death against the protests of a shocked world including the appeals of many governments and of Pope Pius XII.

And then Obama said what he believed: that people should be equal under the law; that citizens should be free to criticize their government and protest peacefully; that voters should have the freedom to choose their government in open elections. “I believe those human rights are universal,” Obama said. “I believe they are the rights of the American people, the Cuban people, and people around the world.” The Americans in the audience applauded. Raúl Castro sat in his seat with a thin smile. We were pushing, I knew, too far, too fast. But we were saying what we believed, and sometimes that is all that you can do.

JFK asked his brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy, to break up organized crime. Nobody high-up in government has tangled the Mafia. J. E. Hoover, the hired hands of FBI and CIA, ran the assassination teams. They have been used since World War II. JFK was attempting to end the oil-tax depletion rip-offs, to get tax money from oil companies. JFK instituted the nuclear test ban treaty, often called “the kiss of death,” to oppose the Pentagon. JFK called off the Invasion of Cuba. He allowed Castro to live, antagonized narcotics and gambling, oil and sugar interests, formerly in Cuba. JFK asked his brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy, to break up the CIA, the “hidden government behind my back.” Allen Dulles was fired. Dulles, the attorney for international multinationals, was angry. JFK planned to withdraw troops from Vietnam after the 1964 elections. Nov. 24, 1963, two days after JFK’s burial, the Pentagon escalated the Vietnam war … with no known provocations, after JFK was gone. There was no chance Kennedy could survive antagonizing the CIA, oil companies, Pentagon, organized crime. He was not their man. The assassination of JFK employed people from the Texas-Southwest. It was not a Southern plot. Upstarts could not have controlled the northern CIA, FBI, Kennedy family connections. This was a more detailed, sophisticated conspiracy that was to set the pattern for future murders to take place. The murder was funded by Permindex, with headquarters in Montreal and Switzerland. Their stated purpose was to encourage trade between nations in the Western world. Their actual purpose was fourfold: 1) To fund and direct assassinations of European, Mid-East and world leaders considered threats to the western world, and to Petroleum Interests of their backers. 2) Provide couriers, agents for transporting and depositing funds through Swiss Banks for Vegas, Miami and the international gambling syndicate. 3) Coordinate the espionage activities of White Russian Solidarists and Division V of the FBI, headed by William Sullivan. 4) Build, acquire and operate hotels and gambling casinos. See: Nomenclature of an Assassination Cabal, by William Torbitt.

They contend, in their frenzy, that Cuba exports revolutions. There is room for the idea in their commercial, sleepless and pawnbroker minds, that revolutions can be bought or sold, rented, loaned, exported or imported as one more commodity. Ignorant of the objective laws which rule the development of human society, they believe that their monopolist, capitalist and semi-feudal regimes are eternal. Educated in their own reactionary ideology - a mixture of superstition, ignorance, subjectivism, pragmatism and other aberrations of the mind - they hold an image of the world and of the march of history which accords with their exploiting class interests. They presume that revolutions are born or die in the brains of individuals or by virtue of divine laws, and that the gods are on their side.

By October of 1958, most roads leading to the Oriente Province had become impassable. Bridges were cut and dropped by the rebels, making travel to the eastern part of Cuba extremely difficult. The elections in November were seen as an obvious sham and everyone knew that the only way to survive was to keep quiet and wait for changes to take place. Most of Batista’s supporters were still in denial and carried out their atrocities with abandon. Tension among the people in Havana had grown and as Christmas approached, it became obvious that this year things would be different. People that had been harassed, or worse, were in no mood to celebrate the holidays. With the country engaged in a civil war that affected everyone, Christmas was not celebrated in the usual manner during the winter of 1958.

Operation Pedro Pan It was like a raging wildfire that the Radio Swan story spread throughout Cuba! Many affluent Cubans, convinced that their children would actually be sent to Moscow for political indoctrination, panicked and sent their children to Florida. In all, as many as 14,000 Cuban children were airlifted to Miami, under a program named “Operation Peter Pan.” During the next two years, British Airways, under charter, flew many of the children to the United States by way of Kingston, Jamaica. The unaccompanied children started arriving in Miami in October of 1960. They arrived in waves, with the children of the more affluent families coming first. Their parents trusted their friends and family in the United States to take care of their children. Since the Castro régime was having economic difficulties very few people thought that it would last as long as it did. Most of them still believed that Castro was just a passing phenomenon until a counter-revolution would depose him.

Five years later, Albert Sabin published the results of an alternative polio vaccine he had used in an immunization campaign in Toluca, Mexico, a city of a hundred thousand people, where a polio outbreak was in progress. His was an oral vaccine, easier to administer than Salk’s injected one. It was also a live vaccine, containing weakened but intact poliovirus, and so it could produce not only immunity but also a mild contagious infection that would spread the immunity to others. In just four days, Sabin’s team managed to vaccinate more than 80 percent of the children under the age of eleven—26,000 children in all. It was a blitzkrieg assault. Within weeks, polio had disappeared from the city. This approach, Sabin argued, could be used to eliminate polio from entire countries, even the world. The only leader in the West who took him up on the idea was Fidel Castro. In 1962, Castro’s Committee for the Defense of the Revolution organized 82,366 local committees to carry out a succession of weeklong house-to-house national immunization campaigns using the Sabin vaccine. In 1963, only one case of polio occurred in Cuba.

A Conspiracy Theory that took hold was introduced by Anthony “Tony” Summers, the respected author of The Kennedy Conspiracy, published in 1980 and again in 1998 as “Not in Your Lifetime.” He believes that anti-Castro activists, funded by Mafia mobsters who had been ousted from Cuba, killed Kennedy. Summers believes that members of the CIA took part in this conspiracy and named the people he suspected. Summers also stated in an article published in the National Enquirer magazine, on October 25, 2013, that Lee Harvey Oswald didn’t act alone. The National Enquirer stated that Herminio Diaz, born in Cuba in 1923, had, in 1948, shot Pipi Hernandez, who was a Dominican exile employed at the naval base at Guantanamo. This killing took place at the Cuban Consulate in Mexico. In 1957, he was involved with an assassination attempt against President José Figueres of Costa Rica, who incidentally was a trained Army Ranger and a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point. According to JFKFacts published on May 27, 2014, General Fabián Escalante, the historian of Cuban State Security and Castro’s former bodyguard, said that the assassin Herminio Diaz, along with Eladio del Valle and three American mobsters: Richard Gaines, Lenny Patrick, and Dave Yara, were the shooters at Dealey Plaza.

There was enough intimidation, witness tampering and foul play to go around. Many books have been published about this subject, witnesses have died, some violently, under very suspicious conditions. Over the years, evidence has been tampered with, and fearing for their lives, most other people have decided to clam up and withdraw into the shadows. Personally I still retain a list of convenient deaths after the Kennedy Assassination that happened rounding the Dealey Plaza in Dallas on November 22, 1963! In February 1996, Robert Kennedy, Jr. and his brother, Michael, flew to Havana for a meeting with Fidel Castro. As a gesture of goodwill, they brought with them a file of formerly top-secret U.S. documents. These documents were specifically about the Kennedy administration’s attempt to find a peaceful settlement with Cuba. Castro thanked them for the file and shared the impression that it was President Kennedy’s desire to normalize relations between the United States and Cuba. “It’s unfortunate,” Castro said, “that things happened as they did.” Castro also indicated that normalization might have been possible, had it not been for President Kennedy’s assassination in 1963. Although numerous attempts at normalization between the two countries have been attempted since this meeting, powerful anti-Castro factions continued to thwart all of these efforts. Perhaps we are now witnessing the time when ways will be found to improve the relations between the United States and Cuba and then again perhaps not!

Cuba has nine official National Public Holidays January 1st - Liberation Day & New Year’s Liberation Day is also called “Triunfo de la Revolucion.” This day celebrates the removal of dictator Batista from power and the start of Fidel Castro’s power. January 2nd - Victory of the Armed Forces A holiday commemorating its revolution’s history. Good Friday Good Friday became a national holiday following the visit of Pope Benedict XVI. The first Good Friday recognized as a holiday was in 2014, according to Granma, the Official Body Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba. May 1st - International Labour Day Called “Dia de los Trabajadores,” Havana-Guide.com noted there are many celebrations this holiday, including “speeches on the ‘Plaza de la Revolucion’ celebrating the work force and the Communist party.” July 25th till 27th - Commemmoration of the Assault to Moncada/National Rebellion Day This three-day long holiday remembers the 1953 capture and exile of Fidel Castro, according to VisitarCuba. This happened near Santiago in the Moncada army barracks. This week is also celebrated with carnivals in Santiago as the saint day of St. James (Santiago). October 19th - Independence Day, “Dia de la Independencia” Independence Day celebrates the early independence of Cuba in 1868, when Carlos Manuel Cespedes freed his slaves and began the War of Independence against Spain, according to Travel Cuba. December 25, 2017 - Christmas, “Natividad” Christmas has only recently been re-established as a holiday due to Pope John Paul’s visit in 1998.

The more that injustice, exploitation, inequality, unemployment, poverty, hunger, and misery prevail in human society, the more Che's stature will grow. The more that the power of imperialism, hegemonism, domina­tion, and interventionism grow, to the detriment of the most sa­cred rights of the peoples-especially the weak, backward, and poor peoples who for centuries were colonies of the West and sources of slave labor-the more the values Che defended will be upheld. The more that abuses, selfishness, and alienation exist; the more that Indians, ethnic minorities, women, and immigrants suffer dis­ crimination; the more that children are bought and sold for sex or forced into the workforce in their hundreds of millions; the more that ignorance, unsanitary conditions, insecurity, and homelessness prevail-the more Che's deeply humanistic message will stand out. The more that corrupt, demagogic, and hypocritical politicians exist anywhere, the more Che's example of a pure, revolutionary, and consistent human being will come through. The more cowards, opportunists, and traitors there are on the face of the earth, the more Che's personal courage and revolution­ary integrity will be admired. The more that others lack the ability to fulfill their duty, the more Che's iron willpower will be admired. The more that some individuals lack the most basic self-respect, the more Che's sense of honor and dignity will be admired. The more that skeptics abound, the more Che's faith in man will be admired. The more pessimists there are, the more Che's optimism will be admired. The more vacillators there are, the more Che's audacity will be admired. The more that loafers squander the prod­uct of the labor of others, the more Che's austerity, his spirit of study and work, will be admired.

One of Castro’s first acts as Cuba’s Prime Minister was to go on a diplomatic tour that started on April 15, 1959. His first stop was the United States, where he met with Vice President Nixon, after having been snubbed by President Eisenhower, who thought it more important to go golfing than to encourage friendly relations with a neighboring country. It seemed that the U.S. Administration did not take the new Cuban Prime Minister seriously after he showed up dressed in revolutionary garb. Delegating his Vice President to meet the new Cuban leader was an obvious rebuff. However, what was worse was that an instant dislike developed between the two men, when Fidel Castro met Vice President Richard Milhous Nixon. This dislike was amplified when Nixon openly badgered Castro with anti-communistic rhetoric. Once again, Castro explained that he was not a Communist and that he was with the West in the Cold War. However, during this period following the McCarthy era, Nixon was not listening. During Castro’s tour to the United States, Canada and Latin America, everyone in Cuba listened intently to what he had to say. Fidel’s speeches, that were shown on Cuban television, were troubling to Raúl and he feared that his brother was deviating from Cuba’s path towards communism. Becoming concerned by Fidel’s candid remarks, Raúl conferred with his close friend “Che” Guevara, and finally called Fidel about how he was being perceived in Cuba. Following this conversation, Raúl flew to Texas where he met with his brother Fidel in Houston. Raúl informed him that the Cuban press saw his diplomacy as a concession to the United States. The two brothers argued openly at the airport and again later at the posh Houston Shamrock Hotel, where they stayed. With the pressure on Fidel to embrace Communism he reluctantly agreed…. In time he whole heartily accepted Communism as the philosophy for the Cuban Government.

Fidel Castro, who always enjoyed sports, promoted programs that helped Cuba become a front-runner in Latin America. The island nation fields outstanding baseball, soccer, basketball and volleyball teams. It also excels in amateur boxing. Believing that sports should be available for everyone, not just the privileged few, the phrase “Sports for all” is a motto frequently used. When Castro took power, he abolished all professional sports. Only amateur baseball has been played in Cuba since 1961. An unexpected consequence of this initiative was that many players discovered that they could get much better deals if they left Cuba. As an attempt to prevent this, Fidel forbade players from playing abroad and if they did leave the island, he would prevent their families from joining them. Originally, many Cuban baseball players played for teams in the American Negro league. This ended when Jackie Robinson was allowed to play with the Brooklyn Dodgers during the late 1940’s. Afterwards, all Cuban baseball players played for the regular leagues regardless of their race. The Negro National League ceased after the 1948 season, and the last All-Star game was held in 1962. The Indianapolis Clowns were the last remaining Negro/Latin league team and played until 1966. Cuban players with greater skill joined the Major League Baseball (MLB) teams. If they defected to the United States directly, they had to enter the MLB Draft. However, if they first defected to another country they could become free agents. Knowing this, many came to the United States via Mexico. In all, about 84 players have defected from Cuba since the Revolution. The largest contract ever given to a defector from Cuba was to Rusney Castillo. In 2014, the outfielder negotiated a seven-year contract with the Boston Red Sox for $72.5 million. Starting in 1999, about 21 Cuban soccer players have defected to the United States. The Cuban government considers these defectors as disloyal and treats their families with disrespect, even banning them from taking part in national sports.

En esa reunión, Fidel Castro, el dictador cubano, se haría una foto histórica al lado de David Rockefeller, uno de los símbolos del capitalismo multinacional. La imagen recorrería el planeta, pero era mucho menos sabido que Peggy, la hija de David, había visitado frecuentemente Cuba desde 1985 o que David Rockefeller se reuniría al día siguiente con Castro en el edificio del Consejo de Relaciones Exteriores en Park Avenue.91 Para muchos podía parecer un simple gesto de cortesía social o un acto incomprensible, pero sería el propio David Rockefeller el que explicaría perfectamente su conducta en el año 2002 en sus Memorias. Millonario, filántropo, participante habitual en los círculos más elevados del poder, David Rockefeller realizaría la siguiente confesión: «Algunos creen incluso que nosotros — los Rockefeller — somos parte de una cábala secreta que trabaja contra los mejores intereses de los Estados Unidos, caracterizando a mi familia y a mí como «internacionalistas» que conspiran alrededor del mundo con otros para construir una estructura global política y económica más integrada — un mundo, si se quiere. Si esa es la acusación, me declaro culpable y estoy orgulloso de ello». La afirmación de Rockefeller resultaba de enorme relevancia no solo por su sinceridad, sino por su contundencia. Ante la acusación de que desarrollaba una agenda que no era la de los Estados Unidos y que incluso iba contra los intereses de esta nación, una agenda que manifestaba en su cordialidad ante el dictador cubano Fidel Castro, David Rockefeller se declaraba culpable y además orgulloso de serlo. Ante la acusación de ser un internacionalista que conspiraba con otros en todo el mundo, se declaraba culpable y orgulloso de serlo. Ante la acusación de estar construyendo una estructura política y económica de carácter global que avanzara hacia un solo mundo se declaraba culpable y orgulloso de serlo. A inicios de este siglo, apenas perpetrados los atentados del 11-S, Rockefeller no tenía el menor reparo en reconocer públicamente que sostenía una agenda globalista cuya finalidad era someter al mundo a un nuevo orden que chocaba incluso con los intereses de naciones como los Estados Unidos.

Demonstrating for peace to promote war was nothing new. Totalitarianism always requires a tangible enemy. To the ancient Greeks, a holocaust was simply a burnt sacrifice. Khrushchev wanted to go down in history as the Soviet leader who exported communism to the American continent. In 1959 he was able to install the Castro brothers in Havana and soon my foreign intelligence service became involved in helping Cuba's new communist rulers to export revolution throughout South America. At that point it did not work. In the 1950s and 1960s most Latin Americans were poor, religious peasants who had accepted the status quo. A black version of liberation theology began growing in a few radical-leftist black churches in the US where Marxist thought is predicated on a system pf oppressor class ( white ) versus victim class ( black ) and it sees just one solution: the destruction of the enemy. In the 1950s UNESCO was perceived by many as a platform for communists to attack the West and the KGB used it to place agents around the world. Che Guevara's diaries, with an introduction by Fidel Castro, were produced by the Kremlin's dezinformatsiya machine. Changing minds is what Soviet communism was all about. Khrushchev's political necrophagy ( = blaming and condemning one's predecessor in office. It is a dangerous game. It hurts the country's national pride and it usually turns against its own user ) evolved from the Soviet tradition of sanctifying the supreme ruler. Although the communists publicly proclaimed the decisive role of the people in history, the Kremlin and its KGB believed that only the leader counted. Change the public image of the leader and you change history, I heard over and over from Khrushchev's lips. Khrushchev was certainly the most controversial Soviet to reign in the Kremlin. He unmasked Stalin's crimes, but he made political assassination a main instrument of his own foreign policy; he authored a policy of peaceful coexistence with the West but he pushed the world to the brink of nuclear war; he repaired Moscow's relationships with Yugoslavia's Tito, but he destroyed the unity of the communist world. His close association with Stalin's killings made him aware of what political crime could accomplish and gave him a taste for the simple criminal solution. His total ignorance about the civilized world, together with his irrational hatred of the "bourgeoisie" and his propensity to offend people, made him believe that disinformation and threats were the most efficient and dignified way for a Soviet leader to deal with "bourgeois" governments. As that very clever master of deception Yuri Andropov once told me, if a good piece of disinformation is repeated over and over, after a while it will take on a life of its own and will, all by itself, generate a horde or unwitting but passionate advocates. When I was working for Ceausescu, I always tried to find a way to help him reach a decision on his own, rather than telling him directly what I thought he should do about something. That way both of us were happy. From our KGB advisors, I had learned that the best way to ut over a deception was to let the target see something for himself, with his own eyes. By 1999, President Yeltsin's ill-conceived privatization had enabled a small clique of predatory insiders to plunder Russia's most valuable assets. The corruption generated by this widespread looting penetrated every corner of the country and it eventually created a Mafia-style economic system that threatened the stability of Russia itself. During the old Cold War, the KGB was a state within a state. In Putin's time, the KGB now rechristened FSB, is the state. The Soviet Union had one KGB officer for every 428 citizens. In 2004, Putin's Russia had one FSB officer for every 297 citizens.

Since Soviet “mistakes” (including the murder of millions of its own citizens) had ruined its chances for providing a haven for existentialist politics, Sartre was forced to take on the American juggernaut alone. America’s global empire, he warned, was being assembled by means of its control over a global mass communications and technological network and the “world economic system.” “This One World,” as Sartre described it, was actually a nightmare of American cultural and political hegemony, enabling six percent of the earth’s population to dominate the other ninety-four percent.41 He began looking desperately for humanist alternatives. He turned to other Marxist countries, including Tito’s Yugoslavia, Castro’s Cuba, Ho Chi Minh’s North Vietnam (declaring in 1967 that “the Vietnamese are fighting for all men, and the Americans against all men”), and still later Mao’s China.42 He also took up other anti-Western crusades. He led a host of leftist intellectuals in protests against France’s war in Algeria in 1954 to ’56 and embraced the cause of the Marxist FLN rebels—which led to his friendship with Frantz Fanon.

mojitos

There were nearly six thousand U.S. property claims on what Fidel had seized, and many more claims by Cuban exiles who were not American citizens at the time of seizure. As far as sanctions go, it was the American claims that really mattered.

Si hubiera racionalidad en el análisis de los hechos políticos, éste sería un elemento de juicio suficiente sobre todos los regímenes marxista-leninistas que el mundo ha conocido (y desde luego sobre la Cuba de Fidel Castro) y que son los únicos sistemas políticos en la historia de los cuales ha sido preciso impedir por la fuerza que la gente huya, dispuestos a dejar todo atrás, no sólo bienes, sino la familia más inmediata, viniendo a resultar el exilio voluntario no un gesto excepcional, doloroso de una ínfima minoría principista o muy activa políticamente,10 sino como una esperanza loca de casi todo el mundo, aunque casi imposible de alcanzar salvo para algunos pocos bienaventurados.

We can glean some insight by contrasting how these same organs of the press and political institutions have chosen to remember or depict another man and country of whom Mandela was a great admirer; Castro and Cuba. Somehow these belated anti-apartheid types have either forgotten or do not know that the only non-African nation to send its troops to actually fight the apartheid regime was Cuba.

vaccinators—recruited by the committees and trained for just half an hour—administered candies or sugar cubes permeated with live attenuated poliovirus. The goal was to immunize every susceptible child in Cuba. Castro’s invention of vaccination days, coupled with the use of Sabin’s doses, achieved rapid success in interrupting transmission and making Cuba the first country to eliminate polio.

On one farm visit, Morgan had his first look at the inside of a bohío. The wary but hospitable peasants invited the Rebels in for coffee cut with black beans and seeds. Even here, at the heart of Cuba’s coffee-producing land,

Since the beginning of the negotiations, Castro’s instructions had been to be polite as long as the other side was polite, but not to allow insults: “Be very calm, laugh, and smile,” but if the others became offensive, then “put them in their place.” Aldana behaved accordingly. “Cuba would have no problem . . . announcing publicly that the negotiations had deadlocked,” he began. He then went where Ndalu had not dared to go, stressing “the ignorance, the racism and the contradictions” that characterized American society. He said that it was not surprising that in a country whose president mistook Brazil for Bolivia (as Reagan had done) and placed Jamaica in the Mediterranean (another Reagan lapse), the population would not know “what Angola is and what Namibia is.” This was not the kind of language that Crocker was used to hearing.

wrote to Fidel Castro that Neto would allow SWAPO, the African National Congress of South Africa (ANC), and the Zimbabwe African People’s Union (ZAPU) to have military camps in Angola and that he would grant them “every facility” to receive help from other countries, especially Cuba and the Soviet Union.97 Castro was eager to help. “The struggle for liberation is the most righteous endeavor,” he said.98 Helping SWAPO, the ANC, and ZAPU became a tripartite effort: the Cubans provided most of the instructors, the Soviets the weapons, and the Angolans the land.

Eventually it came to health care. Here a remarkable exchange took place among Cubans, while the Angolans listened in silence. It began when Rodolfo Puente Ferro, the able Cuban ambassador in Angola, said, “There are regions, provincial capitals, where really there is no medicine. The sick are given prescriptions, but then they have to go to the witch doctor, to the traditional healer, because there is no medicine. The mortality rate is high because of this lack of medicine.” The Cuban health authorities had tried to help, offering fifty-five types of medicine that were manufactured in Cuba, “that are really necessary and indispensable for the diseases that are found in Angola.” They had offered them at cost—$700,000 for a six-month supply. After months of silence, the Angolans had finally asked for twenty-nine of these medicines, but they had not yet been shipped because Luanda had failed to release the requisite letters of credit. Castro asked, “Can we manufacture this medicine for $700,000?” After Puente Ferro confirmed that this was possible, Fidel continued, “Well . . . then let’s do it and send it to Angola, and let them pay later. . . . We don’t want to make any profit with this medicine; we will sell it at cost. . . . If the situation is critical, we’ll send it on the first available ship, and let them pay later.” He insisted, “We cannot let a man die in a hospital, or a child, or an old person, or a wounded person, or a soldier, or whoever it may be, because someone forgot to write a letter of credit or because someone didn’t sign it. Besides, we’re not talking about large quantities. We won’t go bankrupt if you can’t pay. We won’t be ruined. If we were talking about one hundred million dollars, I would have to say, ‘Comrades, we cannot afford it.’ But if we’re only talking about $700,000 . . . We can handle it.

The only population Communism has ever successfully fed is the shark population swimming the Florida Straits.

Of all the problems that the Revolution faced from the very beginning, the racial problem was the only one that did not receive specific, systematic, and consistent attention. • As a result of the above, the social policy of the Revolution never specifically addressed the question with reference to the different points of social departure from which blacks, whites, and mulattos arrived. • After intervention on the matter in March 1959 by Fidel Castro, Commander in chief of the Revolution, and a few initial attempts to promote the discussion, a zone of silence surrounded the racial question, which did not help at all to an understanding that it required an extensive and specific methodology. No doubt it was thought that including it within the general context of social justice for all would be sufficient. • The predominant thought that the racial problem would be resolved solely on the basis of a redistributive equity, framed by the great humanist work of the Revolution, generated an idealist error that has yet to be overcome. • The black and racially mixed population, feeling represented and protected by revolutionary work, plunged into forgetfulness of all the long years of suffering and discrimination. The Revolution had given them clear guarantees that such situations would not return. How are we to explain why such a position on the racial question was taken and accepted by the immense majority of the people, in particular blacks and mulattos?

What I say here will be then repeated many times, not because it comes from my lips, but because the problem of justice is eternal and the people have a deep sense of justice above and beyond the hairsplitting of jurisprudence. The people wield simple but implacable logic, in conflict with all that is absurd and contradictory. Furthermore, if there is in this world a people that utterly abhors favoritism and inequality, it is the Cuban people. To them, justice is symbolized by a maiden with a scale and a sword in her hands. Should she cower before one group and furiously wield that sword against another group, then to the people of Cuba the maiden of justice will seem nothing more than a prostitute brandishing a dagger. My logic is the simple logic of the people.

In Havana, everyone I met talked constantly about the future, about what might happen when the United States lifted its embargo and when Castro retired, both of which events they expected soon. To the people I met in Cuba, the present seemed provisional and the past nearly forgotten, and their yearning was keen—charged with anticipation. In Miami, the present moment is satisfying, and thought is given to the future, but the past seems like the richest place—frequently visited and as familiar and real and comforting as an old family home.

plan de Dios en la historia”. Castro respondió: “Si la Iglesia creara un Estado”, lo “haría como el nuestro”.8 Cuba era un Estado cristiano. Él ocupaba toda la escena: bendecía y excomulgaba, blandía y castigaba, daba y quitaba. Era jefe del Estado y jefe del gobierno, dirigía el partido y comandaba a las fuerzas armadas, vitalicio como un rey, eterno como un papa.

The United States, unlike its European cousins, had always preferred the indirect mode of domination, one which soon became the norm: formally independent and sovereign states, but heavily dependent on their metropolitan masters... The function of these formally independent states was to serve the economic needs of the imperial powers, at the cost of their own political and economic sovereignty. This often resulted in a plantation culture ruled by the production of a single commodity-- sugarcane, in the case of Cuba-- or the extraction of mineral and oil resources, as in Africa and the Middle East.

What is the history of Cuba but the history of Latin America? And what is the history of Latin America but the history of Asia, Africa and Oceania? And what is the history of all these peoples but the history of the most pitiless and cruel exploitation by imperialism throughout the world? At the end of the last and the beginning of the present century a handful of economically developed nations had finished partitioning the world among themselves, subjecting to its economic and political domination two-thirds of humanity, which was thus forced to work for the ruling classes of the economically advanced capitalist countries.

In South America a governing creole elite, ruling in most cases with US political and military support, held the continent with relative ease. Rebellions, such as that led by Sandino in Nicaragua, were isolated and crushed. Physical and cultural repression of the indigenous population (with the exception of Mexico) was regarded as normal. Populist experiments (Argentina and Brazil) did not last too long. Few thought of Cuba as the likely venue for the first anti-capitalist revolution. (Introduction by Tariq Ali)

Ironically, it was the U.S. government and the Deep State behind the Deep State who put Castro in power to begin with, according to the U.S. ambassador to Cuba at the time, Earl Smith, who even wrote a book about it.

Los mal alimentados serán siempre gobernados, desde arriba, por los bien alimentados.

…a medida que la lucha por recursos cada vez menores se recrudezca, estas dictaduras nacionales tenderán a convertirse en más y más opresivas en sus países y más cruelmente competitivas en el exterior.

Se puede trasladar a una persona una fábrica, pero no se la puede obligar a pensar y a tener buenas ideas amenazándolas con la muerte.

Leading the propaganda blitz was Marco Rubio, the Florida senator born into Miami's notoriously reactionary Cuban expat community. A middle-aged career politician with boyish looks and cowlick-y hair, Rubio was once considered a rising Republican star — despite a questionable past. In 2011, the Washington Post revealed that Rubio had based his entire political coming-of-age story on a lie. Though he repeatedly spouted a clichéd south Florida tale of his parents' escape from Fidel Castro's socialist hellscape, immigration records demonstrated that the Rubios had in fact gained permanent US residency nearly three years before Cuba's 1959 revolution — meaning they had actually fled the regime of the country's US-backed military dictator, Fulgencio Batista. Aside from pathetic dishonesty, Rubio's character was tarnished by revelations that throughout the 1980s, his brother-in-law, Orlando Cicilia, directed a $75 million cocaine smuggling ring out of his home in West Kendall, Florida. Cicilia was convicted of drug trafficking and sentenced to thirty-five years in prison in 1989, but released early in the year 2000. In his 2013 memoir, Rubio — who by then had featured Cicilia at numerous campaign events — claimed that he was unaware of his brother-in-law's criminal activity and had been "stunned" by news of his arrest. Yet a 2016 investigation by the Miami New Times cast doubt on the senator's account, revealing that as a teenager, Rubio had actually lived in the home at the center of Cicilia's drug operation. "For anyone to argue that teens or adults living at this time in Miami didn't know their family members were in the coke business is total horseshit," a former Miami-Dade detective told the publication in response to Rubio's claims of ignorance. Though Rubio declined to comment on the story, it earned him the nickname "Narco Rubio" among Venezuelans, including government officials whom the senator repeatedly accused of trafficking drugs. The senator's most well-known moniker, however, was "Little Marco," an alias bestowed upon him by then candidate Trump during the 2016 Republican primary, when the future president publicly mocked Rubio's affinity for high-heeled boots — an apparent product of his dearth of height.

I was troubled by this, finding their passion as inexplicable as that of white American truck drivers who had supported Ronald Reagan. The Cuban Americans claimed that Castro had rendered Cuba an "unfree" country. But had they thought Cuba a freer society before Castro?

As Sir Eric Williams wrote in From Columbus to Castro: The situation was more discouraging in Cuba, which was in every sense of the term an American colony. The Americans openly supported, in the interest of stability, the dictator Machado who raised no awkward questions of Cuban independence and who was concerned merely with the exile or assassination of hostile labour leaders and the reckless and enormous increase of the public debt, both public and private. America dominated the scene. One American writer has stated that no one could become President of Cuba without the endorsement of the United States. According to another, the American Ambassador in Havana was the most important man in Cuba. A third analyses United States policy as "putting a veto on revolution whatever the cause". The Platt Amendment dominated the relations between the United States and Cuba. On the occasion of a threatened rebellion by a Negro political party, the Independent Party of Colour, the United States sent troops to Cuba. In reply to Cuba's protests Secretary of State Knox stated: "The United States does not undertake first to consult the Cuban Government if a crisis arises requiring a temporary landing somewhere." In 1933 Ambassador Sumner Welles identified six desirable characteristics which a Cuban president should possess. These read in part: "First, his thorough acquaintance with the desires of this Government… Sixth, his amenability to suggestions or advice which might be made to him by the American Legation.

As a result of their own experience in a country with historical social mobility, American policy makers are often blind to deeply embedded social stratifications that characterize other societies. The only successful political revolution in the western hemisphere that also resulted in a social revolution was that of Fidel Castro’s Cuba in 1959, a revolution that the United States spent the next fifty-plus years trying to contain or reverse.

By the time the Freedom Flights, to use the US description, came to an end, more than 260,000 Cubans had been airlifted to the United States, every one of them registered by the Swiss before they left Cuba.

Fidel Castro becomes a Sex Symbol “After entering Havana on January 8, 1959 as the conquering hero, women threw themselves at the normally quiet Fidel Castro. Much to his own surprise, he became a sex symbol and was tempted by the many bikini-clad young ladies at the as the conquering hero, women threw themselves at the normally quiet Fidel. Much to his own surprise, he became a sex symbol and was tempted by the many bikini-clad young ladies at the hotel pool of the Hotel Nacional de Cuba. Errol Flynn, the famous movie star and ladies’ man of that era, met Castro and had a number of Hollywood beauties with him, expecting to make a movie in Havana. For the most part Fidel was preoccupied with the affairs of government, but he always made time for the chosen few.

The first stacked dolls better known as Russian Nesting Dolls, matryoshka dolls or Babushka Dolls, were first made in 1890 by Vasily Zvyozdochkin. Much of the artistry is in the painting of the usual 5 dolls, although the world record is 51 dolls. Each doll, which when opened reveals a smaller doll of the same type inside ending with the smallest innermost doll, which is considered the baby doll and is carved from a single piece of wood. Frequently these dolls are of a woman, dressed in a full length traditional Russian peasant dress called a sarafan. When I served with the Military Intelligence Corps of the U.S.Army, the concept of onion skins was a similar metaphor used to denote that we were always encouraged to look beyond the obvious. That it was essential to delve deeper into a subject, so as to arrive at the essence of the situation or matter. This is the same principle I employed in writing my award winning book, The Exciting Story of Cuba. Although it can be considered a history book, it is actually a book comprised of many stories or vignettes that when woven together give the reader a view into the inner workings of the Island Nation, just 90 miles south of Key West. The early 1950’s are an example of this. At that time President Batista was hailed a champion of business interests and considered this a direct endorsement of his régime. Sugar prices remained high during this period and Cuba enjoyed some of its best years agriculturally. For those at the top of the ladder, the Cuban economy flourished! However, it was during this same period that the people lower on the economic ladder struggled. A populist movement was started, resulting in a number of rebel bands to challenge the entrenched regime, including the followers of autocrats such as Fidel and Raul Castro. Castro’s M 26 7 militia had a reputation of indiscriminately placing bombs, one of which blew a young woman to pieces in the once-grand theater, “Teatro America.” A farmer, who failed to cooperate with Batista’s army, was locked into his home with his wife and his daughter, which was then set on fire killing them all. What had been a corrupt but peaceful government, quickly turned into a war zone. Despite of Batista’s constitutional abuses and his alliance with the Mafia, the years under his régime were still the most prosperous ones in Cuba’s history. Of course most of the money went to those at the top of the economic ladder and on the lower end of the scale a house maid was lucky to make $25 to $30 a month.

Esteban Ventura Novo rose to the rank of a police Lieutenant Colonel during the Batista regime in Cuba. Feared by many, he became known as the white-suited assassin and was infamous in Havana’s Fifth Precinct. He later moved to the Ninth Precinct where he continued his reign of terror. The University of Havana was closed due to the ongoing revolution and the students feared for their lives. Esteban Ventura Novo was known for the cruel torturing of people and how he dispatched his adversaries. On April 20, 1957 Ventura organized the largest massacre of students in Havana. At the time he sent a squad of undercover police to find Fructuoso Rodríguez, the president of the Federation of University Students and his followers and without hesitation Ventura ordered that they be killed in cold blood. During the second half of 1958, the swinging city of Havana became a dangerous place in which to live. The ruthless but dapper Ventura who started as a police snitch gained his promotions by means of his vicious conduct and the diabolical way he eliminated the so-called “enemies of the state.” Ventura, was condemned to death by Fidel Castro’s revolutionary army but managed to escape to Miami where he and other members of the Batista regime found refuge. Ventura settled in Miami, where he founded a security agency, which was located on First South West Street and Bacon Boulevard. On April 1, 1959, Ventura was granted permission to stay in the United States. He had escaped justice despite the overwhelming evidence against him. Esteban Ventura Novo, the “Man in the White Suit” continued to live a comfortable life in South Florida, until his death at the age of 87.

In May of 1952, about a dozen individuals lead by Fidel Castro formed a group of anti-Batista rebels called “The Movement.” Fidel Castro had become a well-known activist and wrote articles intended to fire up the public in an underground newspaper El Acusador (The Accuser). In one year, his group grew to about 1,200 people. They began accumulating weapons with the idea that they would openly attack a Batista stronghold as a uniformed militant force. Being careful, Castro kept his intentions secret and only a few people knew that the target would be the Moncada Barracks in Santiago de Cuba. The attack on the second largest military barracks in Cuba, named after General Guillermón Moncada, a hero of the War of Independence, was worked out in the tiny two-room apartment of Abel Santamaría. Abel and his sister Haydée lived on the corner of 25th and O Streets in El Vedado, Havana. Only Abel, Haydée and seven other people were entrusted with the details of the attack. Tight security was maintained throughout and since the volunteers of the revolution were divided into cells, few of them knew each other…. One hundred and thirty two men and two women went up against 1,000 trained soldiers and although the battle ended badly for the Castro brothers, the attack on the barracks caused a public fury throughout Cuba. At his sentencing for leading the failed mission, Fidel delivered his famous “History will Absolve Me” speech. Read more in “The Exciting Story of Cuba.

Happy New Year, Cuban Style In Havana, Christmas of 1958 had not been celebrated with the usual festivity. The week between Christmas and New Year’s was filled with uncertainty and the usual joyous season was suspended by many. Visitations among family and friends were few; as people held their breath waiting to see what would happen. It was obvious that the rebel forces were moving ever closer to Havana and on December 31, 1958, when Santa Clara came under the control of “Che” Guevara and Camilo Cienfuegos, the people knew that Havana would be next. What they didn’t know was that their President was preparing to leave, taking with him a large part of the national treasury. Aside from the tourists celebrating at the casinos and some private parties held by the naïve elite, very few celebrated New Year’s Eve. A select few left Cuba with Batista, but the majority didn’t find out that they were without a President until the morning of the following day…. January 1, 1959, became a day of hasty departure for many of Batista’s supporters that had been left behind. Those with boats or airplanes left the island nation for Florida or the Dominican Republic, and the rest sought refuge in foreign embassies. The high=flying era of Batista and his chosen few came to a sudden end. Gone were the police that had made such an overwhelming presence while Batista was in power, and in their place were young people wearing black and red “26th of July” armbands. Not wanting a repeat of when Machado fled Cuba, they went around securing government buildings and the homes of the wealthy. Many of these same buildings had been looted and burned after the revolt of 1933. It was expected that Fidel Castro’s rise to power would be organized and orderly. Although the casinos were raided and gambling tables overturned and sometimes burned in the streets, there was no widespread looting with the exception of the hated parking meters that became symbolic of the corruption in Batista’s government. Castro called for a general “walk-out” and when the country ground to a halt, it gave them a movement time to establish a new government. The entire transition took about a week, while his tanks and army trucks rolled into Havana. The revolutionaries sought out Batista’s henchmen and government ministers and arrested them until their status could be established. A few of Batista’s loyalists attempted to shoot it out and were killed for their efforts. Others were tried and executed, but many were simply jailed, awaiting trial at a later time.

On the ninth anniversary celebration of the Moncada Barracks Attack, Castro gave a speech in Santiago stating that the only thing Cuba had to fear was a direct attack by the United States. At the same time, the Russians were off-loading men and equipment from ships at the small, hardly-noticed port of Mariel. They transported their equipment, mostly at night, into a thickly wooded area in the mountains near San Cristóbal, which was 26 miles away from the port and approximately 50 miles from Havana. The CIA received a report that a twenty-six foot missile had been seen being transported on Cuban Highway A 1. This was twice the size of a SAM missile and the CIA deemed it highly unlikely that the Soviet Union would send offensive weapons of this size to Cuba. However, with the cold war in high gear, Khrushchev thought that he could change the balance of power between the United States and the Soviet Union by placing missiles on Cuban soil. This operation was conducted in strict secrecy, with Castro reluctantly agreeing to it. Castro still felt that Cuba’s alliance with the Soviet’s was risky and that this was a negative compromise undermining Cuban autonomy. Their secret however became confirmed by an Air Force U 2 surveillance aircraft, sent on a reconnaissance mission, dispatched over the western part of the island. The United States and the Soviet Union agreed on a deal. In return for pulling the Russian missiles out of Cuba the U.S. agreed to pull its missiles out of Turkey.

His book For Whom the Bell Tolls was an instant success in the summer of 1940, and afforded him the means to live in style at his villa outside of Havana with his new wife Mary Welsh, whom he married in 1946. It was during this period that he started getting headaches and gaining weight, frequently becoming depressed. Being able to shake off his problems, he wrote a series of books on the Land, Air and Sea, and later wrote The Old Man and the Sea for which he won the Pulitzer Prize in May 1954. Hemingway on a trip to Africa where he barely survived two successive airplane crashes. Returning to Cuba, Ernest worked reshaping the recovered work and wrote his memoir, A Moveable Feast. He also finished True at First Light and The Garden of Eden. Being security conscious, he stored his works in a safe deposit box at a bank in Havana. His home Finca Vigía had become a hub for friends and even visiting tourists. It was reliably disclosed to me that he frequently enjoyed swinger’s parties and orgies at his Cuban home. In Spain after divorcing Frank Sinatra Hemingway introduced Ava Gardner to many of the bullfighters he knew and in a free for all, she seduced many of hotter ones. After Ava Gardner’s affair with the famous Spanish bullfighter Luis Miguel Dominguín crashed, she came to Cuba and stayed at Finca Vigía, where she had what was termed to be a poignant relationship with Ernest. Ava Gardner swam nude in the pool, located down the slope from the Hemingway house, after which he told his staff that the water was not to be emptied. An intimate friendship grew between Hemingway’s forth and second wife, Mary and Pauline. Pauline often came to Finca Vigia, in the early 1950s, and likewise Mary made the crossing of the Florida Straits, back to Key West several times. The ex-wife and the current wife enjoyed gossiping about their prior husbands and lovers and had choice words regarding Ernest. In 1959, Hemingway was in Cuba during the revolution, and was delighted that Batista, who owned the nearby property, that later became the location of the dismal Pan Americana Housing Development, was overthrown. He shared the love of fishing with Fidel Castro and remained on good terms with him. Reading the tea leaves, he decided to leave Cuba after hearing that Fidel wanted to nationalize the properties owned by Americans and other foreign nationals. In the summer of 1960, while working on a manuscript for Life magazine, Hemingway developed dementia becoming disorganized and confused. His eyesight had been failing and he became despondent and depressed. On July 25, 1960, he and his wife Mary left Cuba for the last time. He never retrieved his books or the manuscripts that he left in the bank vault. Following the Bay of Pigs Invasion, the Cuban government took ownership of his home and the works he left behind, including an estimated 5,000 books from his personal library. After years of neglect, his home, which was designed by the Spanish architect Miguel Pascual y Baguer in 1886, has now been largely restored as the Hemingway Museum. The museum, overlooking San Francisco de Paula, as well as the Straits of Florida in the distance, houses much of his work as well as his boat housed near his pool.

Castro’s revolution, with all of its supposedly good intentions, put a stop to the growth of Havana. Of course it put an end to the Mafia controlling the casinos and entertainment, but for them it was a minor setback. They just packed their bags and went to Las Vegas where they expanded and developed “The Strip!” Batista and his followers fled Cuba for the Dominican Republic, Europe and South Florida. Many Cubans lost everything they had but others fled taking their wealth with them. The upheaval in 1959 marked the beginning of austerity for this former freewheeling city. The communistic de-privatization of all businesses, along with the embargo imposed by the United States, created a serious decline in Havana’s economy. The constant pressure to nationalize, as well as the severe crackdown by the régime to keep people in line, curtailed growth and placed an enormous hardship on the Cuban people. Since the Castro Revolution, the people of Havana have been severely affected, because of the absence of commerce with its former trading partner, the United States, located only 90 miles to the north. In all Havana has taken a severe toll economically, with its dilapidated houses, and the pre-1959 cars on the streets of the city being a testimony to the bygone era. It is only now that with the hope of normalization between the governments of Cuba and the United States that perhaps the people will benefit. For the greatest part, the Port of Havana has also been bypassed, chiefly due to the restrictions placed on them by the United States. However, the Cuban government is now attempting a comeback by attracting tourism from Canada, Mexico, the Bahamas, Latin America, Asia and Europe. The city of Havana has renovated the Sierra Maestra Cruise Port, but only very few cruise companies consider Havana a port of call. Slowly, German and British ships started to arrive, including the Fred Olsen Cruises and Carnival Cruise Line. Technically Real Estate Brokers and Automobile Dealers are illegal in Cuba, although real-estate offices and car dealerships are blatantly open for business. The buying and selling of real estate and cars, which was forbidden for many years, can now be done because of some changes brought about by Raúl Castro, but only by full-time residents of Cuba. However, gray market sales are thriving through the use of friends and family as proxies.

After January 1, 1959, the Castro Revolution changed the way business was done in Cuba. Abruptly, supplies for Cubana were no longer available, most routes were altered or suspended, and many of the pilots deserted their jobs or were exiled. In May of 1960, the new Castro administration merged all of the existing Cuban airlines and nationalized them under a drastically restructured Cubana management. At the time, many of Cubana’s experienced personnel took advantage of their foreign connections, and left for employment with other airlines. During the Bay of Pigs Invasion in April of 1961, two of the remaining Cubana DC-3’s were destroyed in the selective bombing of Cuba’s airports. Actually the only civil aviation airport that was proven to be bombed was the Antonio Maceo Airport in Santiago de Cuba. During the following years, the number of hijackings increased and some aircraft were abandoned at American airports, as the flight crews sought asylum in the United States. This corporate instability, as well as political unrest, resulted in a drastic reduction of passengers willing to fly with Cubana. Of course, this resulted in a severe reduction in revenue, making the airline less competitive. The Castro régime reacted by blaming the CIA for many of Cubana’s problems. However, slowly, except to the United States, most of the scheduled flights were restored. Not being able to replace their aging fleet with American manufactured aircraft, they turned to the Soviet Union. Currently Cubana’s fleet includes Ukrainian designed and built Antonov An-148’s and An-158’s. The Cubana fleet also has Soviet designed and built Illyushin II-96’s and Tupolev TU-204’s built in Kazan, Russia. Despite daunting difficulties, primarily due to the United States’ imposed embargo and the lack of sufficient assistance from Canada, efforts to expand and improve operations during the 1990’s proved successful. “AeroCaribbean” originally named “Empresa Aero” was established in 1982 to serve as Cuba’s domestic airline. It also supported Cubana’s operations and undertook its maintenance. Today Cubana’s scheduled service includes many Caribbean, European, South and Central American destinations. In North America, the airline flies to Mexico and Canada. With Cuban tourism increasing, Cubana has positioned itself to be relatively competitive. However much depends on Cuba’s future relations with the United States. The embargo imposed in February of 1962 continues and is the longest on record. However, Cubana has continued to expand, helping to make Cuba one of the most important tourist destinations in Latin America. A little known fact is that although Cubana, as expected, is wholly owned by the Cuban government, the other Cuban airlines are technically not. Instead, they are held, operated and maintained by the Cuban military, having been created by Raúl Castro during his tenure as the Minister of the Revolutionary Armed Forces.

In 1948, upon his return to Havana from Bogotá, Castro, as well as others spoke out against Grau’s attempt to raise bus fares, even though they were less than ten cents at the time. Privately operated buses were the primary way students and workers got around. They also spoke out against the violent gangs that roamed the streets. In response, Grau agreed to suppress the gangs, but then found that they were already too powerful for him to handle. In some instances, he elevated gang leaders to high positions in law enforcement, just to appease the gangs. It was a way of paying them off….

During the “Bay of Pigs Invasion” One Douglas “B-26” airplane with counterfeit Cuban markings was fired on and crashed into the sea about 30 miles north of the island. Another of these aircraft, which was also damaged but still air worthy, continued north and landed at Boca Chica Key Naval Air Station near Key West, Florida. The following day the crew was quickly flown to exile in Nicaragua. The United States government announced that the downed aircraft belonged to the Cuban air force and was manned by Cuban dissidents. In reply to this, Castro appeared on Cuban State television and denounced these claims. He put his military on high alert and directed defensive operations from the Cuban Military Headquarters, which had just been bombed by two of the masquerading airplanes. Fidel issued orders to detain anyone who was suspected of conspiracy or treason. Lists of these people had previously been prepared and were used to round up suspected dissenters. Within days, his overzealous police force and army incarcerated about 20,000 Cuban citizens, using whatever means were available, including a sports stadium. In a speech to the people, Fidel finally admitted to the public that his Movement was Socialistic. The Cuban Foreign Minister Raúl Roa García, successfully presented evidence at the United Nations, proving that the attacks were foreign in origin. Adlai Stevenson, the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, replied that the United States had not participated in any action against Cuba. Ambassador Stevenson, knowing better, insisted that the aircraft that had landed in Miami had Cuban markings and therefore must have been of Cuban origin. Stevenson’s comments sounded contrived since the aircraft had Plexiglas noses, normally used as the bombardier’s station, whereas the actual Cuban B-26’s had solid noses with armament. It was obvious to the General Assembly that the United States Ambassador had been perpetrating an outright lie or, in diplomatic double talk, an untruth! It was an embarrassing moment that left the United States’ veracity open to ridicule

In the Cuban House of Representatives in 1955, Díaz-Balart spoke out against the amnesty granted to Castro by Batista. He went on to become the Majority Leader of the House of Representatives and Minister of the Interior during the Batista administration. Although he was elected to the Cuban Senate in 1958, he was unable to take the seat due to Castro’s revolution. Fleeing Cuba, he moved to Spain becoming employed as an insurance company executive, before moving to Miami. In 1959, Díaz-Balart founded the first anti-Castro organization “La Rosa Blanca,” “The White Rose.” He was the father of former Republican U.S. Congressman Lincoln Díaz-Balart, of the 21st Congressional District in Florida. Lincoln Díaz-Balart and his immediate family were all Democrats, before switching their affiliation to the Republican Party. He was also father of the present Republican U.S. Congressman Mario Díaz-Balart of the new 25th Congressional District in Florida. He had two other sons, José Díaz-Balart, a TV news journalist with Telemundo and MSNBC, and Rafael Díaz-Balart, founder and CEO of Vestec International Corporation, a private banking and investment firm.

Frank Fiorini, better known as Frank Sturgis, had an interesting career that started when he quit high school during his senior year to join the United States Marine Corps as an enlisted man. During World War II he served in the Pacific Theater of Operations with Edson’s Raiders, of the First Marine Raiders Battalion under Colonel “Red Mike.” In 1945 at the end of World War II, he received an honorable discharge and the following year joined the Norfolk, Virginia Police Department. Getting involved in an altercation with his sergeant, he resigned and found employment as the manager of the local Havana-Madrid Tavern, known to have had a clientele consisting primarily of Cuban seamen. In 1947 while still working at the tavern, he joined the U.S. Navy’s Flight Program. A year later, he received an honorable discharge and joined the U.S. Army as an Intelligence Officer. Again, in 1949, he received an honorable discharge, this time from the U.S. Army. Then in 1957, he moved to Miami where he met former Cuban President Carlos Prío, following which he joined a Cuban group opposing the Cuban dictator Batista. After this, Frank Sturgis went to Cuba and set up a training camp in the Sierra Maestra Mountains, teaching guerrilla warfare to Castro’s forces. He was appointed a Captain in Castro’s M 26 7 Brigade, and as such, he made use of some CIA connections that he apparently had cultivated, to supply Castro with weapons and ammunition. After they entered Havana as victors of the revolution, Sturgis was appointed to a high security, intelligence position within the reorganized Cuban air force. Strangely, Frank Sturgis returned to the United States after the Cuban Revolution, and mysteriously turned up as one of the Watergate burglars who were caught installing listening devices in the National Democratic Campaign offices. In 1973 Frank A. Sturgis, E. Howard Hunt, Eugenio R. Martínez, G. Gordon Liddy, Virgilio R. “Villo” González, Bernard L. Barker and James W. McCord, Jr. were convicted of conspiracy. While in prison, Sturgis feared for his life if anything he had done, regarding his associations and contacts, became public knowledge. In 1975, Sturgis admitted to being a spy, stating that he was involved in assassinations and plots to overthrow undisclosed foreign governments. However, at the Rockefeller Commission hearings in 1975, their concluding report stated that he was never a part of the CIA…. Go figure! In 1979, Sturgis surfaced in Angola where he trained and helped the rebels fight the Cuban-supported communists. Following this, he went to Honduras to train the Contras in their fight against the communist-supported Sandinista government. He also met with Yasser Arafat in Tunis, following which he was debriefed by the CIA. Furthermore, it is documented that he met and talked to the Venezuelan terrorist Ilich Ramírez Sánchez, or Carlos the Jackal, who is now serving a life sentence for murdering two French counter intelligence agents. On December 4, 1993, Sturgis suddenly died of lung cancer at the Veterans Hospital in Miami, Florida. He was buried in an unmarked grave south of Miami…. Or was he? In this murky underworld, anything is possible.

In 1952 when Batista seized power and anointed himself as the President of Cuba for a second time, Castro along with many others, branded him a dictator and started to campaign against him. On June 7, 1952, the Cuban Workers League newspaper Alerta carried an article written by Castro directly attacking Batista, but by June 16th the newspaper was shut down by the régime… so much for freedom of the press. Castro initiated legal action against Batista, but realizing that his efforts were ineffective he began to plot other ways to overthrow the Batista administration.

In 1948 upon his return to Havana from Bogotá, Columbia, Castro, as well as others, spoke out against President Grau’s attempt to raise bus fares, even though they were less than ten cents at the time. Privately operated buses were the primary way students and workers got around. They also spoke out against the violent gangs that roamed the streets. In response, President Grau agreed to suppress the gangs, but then found that they were already too powerful for him to handle. In some instances, he elevated gang leaders to high positions in law enforcement to appease the gangs. It was a way of paying them off….

To smooth over Castro’s ruffled feathers; Khrushchev eventually wrote him a personal letter explaining his reasons for reaching an agreement with the United States following the Cuban Missile Crisis. In it, he also extended Castro an invitation to come and visit him in Moscow. The Cuban leader, feeling that this enhanced his international standing, set aside his resentments and swallowed his pride, knowing that his country would have to depend on the USSR for its many needs. He also understood that the ideology that brought his country to where it was had also created many divisions among its people. The United States, on which Cuba had depended on for so many years, was no longer an ally they could trade with, and the new friendship with a distant country created many of its own problems. Many of Cuba’s professional class had fled the country for the United States, when the companies they worked for became nationalized. The brain drain Cuba experienced was hard to replace, and most of those that had stayed, were not prepared to fill the more technical positions. The shelves were bare and people were becoming intolerant of the many domestic problems they were required to face.

…the following day, after only six months in office, Manuel Urrutia Lleó resigned from the Presidency of Cuba, to which people in attendance started to applaud. He simply took off his suit coat and changed into a guayabera. Then leaving through a back door, he made his way to the Venezuelan Embassy where he sought asylum. Shortly thereafter, he emigrated from Cuba to the United States where he became bitter and depressed. In 1964 the former President Urrutia wrote a book named ''Fidel Castro & Company, Inc.: Communist Tyranny in Cuba,” condemning the Castro régime. Urrutia charged that he had been ousted from the presidency because Castro sought to stop what he called the “neutralization of his march toward Communism.” On July 5, 1981, Manuel Urrutia Lleó died at St. John's Hospital in Queens, New York. At the time of his death he was 79 years old.

Castro’s marriage to Mirta failed primarily because her entire family opposed his political views, however his promiscuous ways certainly did not help. Mirta remained married to Fidel for a total of seven years. In 1955 after he was released from prison for attacking the Moncada Barracks, Fidel fled to Mexico. It was there, while in exile, that his divorce was finalized and Mirta was awarded custody of their son Fidelito. As soon as she received her divorce from Fidel, Mirta and their son Fidelito moved to Fort Lauderdale. During this difficult time, Mirta had to work two jobs to make ends meet. She taught at a private school and also worked as a hostess at Creighton’s Restaurant. A year later in 1956, she and Fidelito returned to Havana where she met and married Dr. Emilio Núñez Blanco, the son of Emilio Núñez Portuondo. Dr. Núñez Portuondo was the President of the United Nations Security Council during the Soviet invasion of Hungary. Dr. Núñez Blanco's grandfather, General Emilio Núñez was the Vice President of Cuba from 1917-1921, during the second administration of President Mario García Menocal. Immediately after their marriage, they lived in New York City, where Fidelito attended a school in the borough of Queens. For Mirta and Fidelito things were looking up.

For some politics has become a battle ground that allows them to vent their frustrations, while at the same time hide behind the anonymity of the social media. For others it has become a weapon to overwhelm their opponents by the weight of the number of comments sent to the originator of the blog or article. Fair or not, this method of cyber warfare works and could possibly change the course of history. A continuance of this cyber activity is still not totally understood by most bloggers, but certainly can be threatening and intimidating. Recently we have witnessed where foreign countries become involved in the attempt to rig elections by altering the mind set of those receiving overwhelming amounts of mostly altered news. This is certainly presently true in France. In Pakistan a student was murdered by his fellow students, simply because he had a difference of opinion. Art has become a victim of this form of attack, being accused of being a financial drain on the country’s economy whereas it, in all of its forms, is a stabilizer of civilization. Helping and feeding those less fortunate then ourselves also stabilizes a good society. On the opposite side of this topic a destabilizing activity is war, which cost us much more, however it does get us to alter our focus. It is the threat of nuclear annihilation that really gets our attention and may even eventually offer job opportunities to the survivors. I feel certain that the opposing sides of these issues are already marshaling their forces and stand fast to their beliefs. You would think that funding for the arts should be non-political, however I have found it to be a hot button issue, whereas going to war is accepted by an overwhelming majority of people, even before we attempt peaceful diplomatic negotiations. Building a wall separating us from Mexico is a great idea that is embraced by many who still believe that Mexico will eventually pay for it, but our “Affordable Health Care” must be thrown out! What will give our people more bang for the buck? An improved health care Bill or a Beautiful Wall? I’ve heard that Medicare and Social Security are things we can no longer afford, but it’s the same people who still believe that we can afford a nuclear war. These are issues that we can and should address, however I’ll just get back to my books and deal with the pro or anti Castro activists, or neo-Nazis, or whoever else wants to make a political statement. My next book “Seawater One….” will have some sex in it…. Perhaps we can all agree that, that’s a good thing or perhaps not.

On a number of occasions, Tamara joined “Che” on his sorties into the Bolivian highlands, without incident. However, on March 24, 1967, a guerrilla fighter who had been captured by the Bolivian army betrayed her by giving away Tamara’s location. Although she escaped, the Bolivian soldiers found an address book in her Jeep and came after her in hot pursuit. With no other place to hide, she made her way back to “Che” Guevara’s forces. It was considered an open secret that Tamara had been intimate with “Che” but now the troops could not help but notice what was going on. The way they looked into each other’s eyes, and whispered sweet nothings, left no doubt in anyone’s mind, but that she was his lover…. The Bolivian highlands are notorious for the infestation of the Chigoe flea parasite, which infected Tamara. Having a leg injury and running a high fever, she and 16 other ailing fighters were ordered out of the region by Guevara. On August 31, 1967, up to her waist in the Rio Grande of Bolivia, and holding her M 1 rifle above her head, she and eight men were shot and killed in a hail of gunfire by Bolivian soldiers. Leaving their bodies in the water, it was several days before they were recovered downstream. Piranhas had attacked the bodies and their decomposing carcasses were polluting the water. Since the water was being used for drinking purposes by the people in a nearby village, the soldiers were ordered to clear the bodies out of the river. As they were preparing to bury Tamara’s remains in an unmarked grave, a local woman protested what was happening, and demanded that a woman should receive a Christian burial. When he received the news of what had happened, Guevara was stunned and refused to accept it, thinking it was just a propaganda stunt to demoralize him. In Havana Fidel Castro declared her a “Heroine of the Revolution.” There is always the possibility that Tamara was a double agent, whose mission it was to play up to “Che” when they met in Leipzig and then report back to the DDR (Democratic German Republic), who would in turn inform the USSR of “Che’s” activities. The spy game is a little like peeling an onion. Peel off one layer and what you find is yet another layer.

Fidel Castro alitenda haki katika taifa lake ndiyo maana Mungu akamsaidia yeye na wananchi wake. Ijapokuwa ameondoka, lakini fikira zake sahihi zitaendelea kuwepo. Taifa la Kuba Mungu ataendelea kulibariki, kwa sababu fikira za Wakuba ni fikira za Fidel Castro.

Marita Lorenz, was born on August 18, 1939, in Bremen, Germany. In January of 1960 Marita, described as an attractive “curvy, black-haired young lady was named American’s “Mata Hari” by New York Daily News reporter Paul Meskil. Having had an affair with Fidel Castro that turned sour, she now returned to Havana where she attempted to take part in an assassination attempt, supposedly orchestrated by the Mafia and the CIA. Marita brought along poison pills in her cold cream jar, which predictably melted in the tropical heat. Besides, she later said that she really did not have the stomach for killing her former lover. Apparently Castro aware of why she returned to Cuba, handed her his pistol with a dare for her to use it. Even after knowing the truth regarding her visit, he allowed her to safely leave Cuba. Returning to Miami, Marita said that Frank Sturgis, presumably a CIA operative, was involved in this attempt, however it was his close associate, Alex Rorke, who was responsible for orchestrating the plan to poison Castro. Sturgis was extremely angry when she returned and rebuked her for putting the pills into the warm cold cream, calling her stupid, over and over again. For a few years after leaving the island, Marita was looked after and protected by a mobster named Ed Levi. It was his job to protect her from, what was considered, a likely attempt on her life by “Cuban Intelligence Operatives.” In 1961, Marita met Marcos Pérez Jiménez, the former President of Venezuela, in Miami. Marcos told her that he was anxious to meet her because he knew she was “Fidel's girl." He successfully pursued Marita, and when she gave in, they had an affair that resulted in the birth of a daughter.

A theory held that an anti-Castro group was behind the assassination…. Sylvia Orenstein, who was born in New York City on 22nd July, 1921, promoted this theory while taking evening classes at Brooklyn College. The marriage to her professor, James Meagher, accounted for her name change. As Sylvia Meagher, she became a research analyst at the UN’s World Health Organization. Her book, “Accessories After the Fact: The Warren Commission, the Authorities, and the Report After the Fact,” published in 1967, supported this widely held theory. In her book, she expressed that she was not convinced that Lee Harvey Oswald had been a lone gunman. Her conclusion was that the Warren Commission had attempted to cover-up important details of the actual people behind the assassination. In 1980, Meagher co-authored another book named “Master Index to the John F. Kennedy Assassination Investigations.” Meagher continued to believe that John F. Kennedy had been killed by Anti-Castro exiles until her death at St. Vincent's Hospital in New York City, at the age of 67, on January 14, 1989.

Photos have emerged establishing that David William Ferrie had been in the same Civil Air Patrol unit as Lee Harvey Oswald and apparently Ferrie had met with Oswald during the summer of 1963. Ferrie was extremely against the Communistic philosophy. He was a member of the anti-Castro Cuban Revolutionary group, and was dubbed the master of intrigue. Once when he gave an anti-Kennedy speech to an American veterans’ group in New Orleans regarding the Bay of Pigs Invasion, his rant against the President was so belligerent that he was asked to leave the podium. On February 22, 1967, Ferrie mysteriously died of a stroke. The strange part concerning his death was that he left behind two suicide notes and then died of natural causes. In the days preceding his death, he had told friends that he was a dead man. Ferrie was only one of many who were somehow connected to Kennedy’s death and who later died in a mysterious way.

The FBI has stated that the investigation relating to Kennedy’s assassination is officially closed. The government’s position still stands behind the Warren Commission’s finding, maintaining that Oswald acted alone. The book “Reclaiming History” was published in 2007 by Vincent Bugliosi, an American attorney and New York Times bestselling author. He wrote 1,632 pages that categorically attempt to debunk the conspiracy theories, however human nature will most likely prevail and these theories will probably continue. In addition, there are still findings of relevance that are surfacing. Although there is a smoking gun suggesting a cover-up, no details have appeared with enough definitive evidence to prove that a conspiracy took place. Was the Castro régime involved or was it the anti-Castro faction in South Florida? These questions are still open but may be answered when President Trump releases the final files presently held by the government. Fifty years after the assassination the World may finally learn the truth… or not!