Cartas Del Presidio


Book Description

Early in Ann Louise Bardach's Cuban voyage she came across Cartas de Presidio or The Prison Letters of Fidel Castro. Edited by Luis Conte Aguero, who was the recipient of most of these letters, they are cited in every important work from Hugh Thomas' opus Cuba to Tad Szulc's Fidel biography, and everything in between and since. These twenty-one letters (nine to Conte Aguero, six to his late sister and close collaborator, Lidia, one to his wife Mirta, one to his comrade in combat, Melba Hernandez letters, one to the great scholar Jorge Manach) are regarded as the single most valuable and revelatory document regarding Fidel Castro and the Cuban Revolution. Never before published in English, these letters were written when Castro was imprisoned for his failed attack on the Moncada from 1953 to 1955 and reveal a man of spectacular ambition and steely determination. A man, who despite being incarcerated to serve a lengthy prison term, never wavers in his confidence that he will one day rule Cuba.




The Prison Letters of Fidel Castro


Book Description

Early in Ann Louise Bardach's Cuban voyage she came across Cartas de Presidio or The Prison Letters of Fidel Castro. Edited by Luis Conte Aguero, who was the recipient of most of these letters, they are cited in every important work from Hugh Thomas' opus Cuba to Tad Szulc's Fidel biography, and everything in between and since. These twenty-one letters (nine to Conte Aguero, six to his late sister and close collaborator, Lidia, one to his wife Mirta, one to his comrade in combat, Melba Hernandez letters, one to the great scholar Jorge Manach) are regarded as the single most valuable and revelatory document regarding Fidel Castro and the Cuban Revolution. Never before published in English, these letters were written when Castro was imprisoned for his failed attack on the Moncada from 1953 to 1955 and reveal a man of spectacular ambition and steely determination. A man, who despite being incarcerated to serve a lengthy prison term, never wavers in his confidence that he will one day rule Cuba.




Young Castro


Book Description

This intimate, revisionist portrait of Fidel Castro, showing how an unlikely young Cuban led his country in revolution and transfixed the world, is “sure to become the standard on Castro’s early life” (Publishers Weekly). Until now, biographers have treated Castro’s life like prosecutors, scouring his past for evidence to convict a person they don’t like or don’t understand. Young Castro challenges us to put aside the caricature of a bearded, cigar-munching, anti-American hothead to discover how Castro became the dictator who acted as a thorn in the side of US presidents for nearly half a century. In this “gripping and edifying narrative…Hansen brings imposing research and notable erudition” (Booklist) to Castro’s early life, showing Castro getting his toughness from a father who survived Spain’s class system and colonial wars to become one of the most successful independent plantation owners in Cuba. We see a boy running around that plantation more comfortable playing with the children of his father’s laborers than his own classmates at elite boarding schools in Santiago de Cuba and Havana. We discover a young man who writes flowery love letters from prison and contemplates the meaning of life, a gregarious soul attentive to the needs of strangers but often indifferent to the needs of his own family. These pages show a liberal democrat who admires FDR’s New Deal policies and is skeptical of communism, but is also hostile to American imperialism. They show an audacious militant who stages a reckless attack on a military barracks but is canny about building an army of resisters. In short, Young Castro reveals a complex man. The first American historian in a generation to gain access to the Castro archives in Havana, Jonathan Hansen was able to secure cooperation from Castro’s family and closest confidants. He gained access to hundreds of never-before-seen letters and interviewed people he was the first to ask for their impressions of the man. The result is a nuanced and penetrating portrait of a man at once brilliant, arrogant, bold, vulnerable, and all too human: a man who, having grown up on an island that felt like a colonial cage, was compelled to lead his country to independence.




Without Fidel


Book Description

From the award-winning reporter and go-to source on Cuban-Miami politics Ann Louise Bardach comes a riveting, eye-opening account of the last chapter in the life of Fidel Castro: his near death and marathon finale, his enemies and their fifty-year failed battle to eliminate him, and the carefully planned succession and early reign of his brother Raúl. Ann Louise Bardach offers a spellbinding chronicle of the Havana-Washington political showdown, drawing on nearly two decades of reporting and countless interviews with everyone from the Comandante himself, his co-ruler and brother Raúl, and other family members, to ordinary Cubans as well as officials and politicos in Miami, Havana, and Washington. The result is an unforgettable dual portrait of Fidel and Raúl Castro -- arguably the most successful and enduring political brother team in history. Since 1959, Fidel Castro has been the supreme leader of Cuba, deftly checkmating his foes, both from within and abroad; confronting eleven American presidents; and outfoxing dozens of assassination attempts, vanquished only by collapsing health. As night descends on Castro's extraordinary fifty-year reign, Miami, Havana, and Washington are abuzz with anxious questions: What led to the lightning-bolt purge of key Cuban officials in March 2009? Who will be Raúl's heir? Will the U.S. embargo end now? Bardach offers profound and surprising answers to these questions as she meticulously chronicles Castro's protracted farewell and assesses his transformative impact on the world stage and the complex legacy that will long outlive him. She reports from three distinct vantage points: In Miami, where more than one million Cubans have fled, she interviews scores of exiles including Castro's would-be assassins Orlando Bosch and Luis Posada Carriles; in Washington, DC, she reports on the Obama administration's struggle to formulate a post-Castro strategy; in Havanah she permeates the bubble around the fiercely private and officially retired Castro to ascertain the extent of his undisclosed medical condition. Bardach delivers a compelling meditation on one of the most controversial, combative, and charismatic rulers in history. Without Fidel includes never-before-published reporting on Castro, his family, and his half-century grip on the largest country in the Caribbean while assessing how his departure will forever transform politics and policy in the Western Hemisphere -- and the world.




Revolutionary Struggle, 1947-1958


Book Description

A collection of Fidel Castro's chief statements -- letters, articles, interviews, press releases, proclamations, and decrees -- from the late 1940s to the fall of the Batista regime in 1959. Revolutionary Struggle 1947--1958: Volume 1 of the Selected Works of Fidel Castro is a comprehensive collection of Castro's chief statements -- letters, articles, interviews, press releases, proclamations, and decrees -- from the late 1940s to the fall of the Batista regime in 1959. An extensive editors' introduction places these statements in the context of both Castro's career and of the history of the Cuban revolutionary movement. A bibliography of Castro's works through 1958 is included as a tool for research.




After Fidel


Book Description

This is a compelling behind-the-scenes account of the extraordinary Castro brothers and the dynastic succession of Fidel's younger brother Raul. Brian Latell, the CIA analyst who has followed Castro since the sixties, gives an unprecedented view into Fidel and Raul's remarkable relationship, revealing how they have collaborated in policy making, divided responsibilities, and resolved disagreements for more than forty years--a challenge to the notion that Fidel always acts alone. Latell has had more access to the brothers than anyone else in this country, and his briefs to the CIA informed much of U.S. policy. Based on his knowledge of Raul Castro, Latell makes projections on what kind of leader Raul will be and how the shift in power might influence U.S.-Cuban relations.




Cuba Confidential


Book Description

From America’s number one Cuba reporter, PEN award–winning investigative journalist Ann Louise Bardach, comes the big book on Cuba we’ve all been waiting for. An incisive and spirited portrait of the twentieth century’s wiliest political survivor and his fiefdom, Cuba Confidential is the gripping story of the shattered families and warring personalities that lie at the heart of the forty-three-year standoff between Miami and Havana. Famous to many Americans for her cover stories and media appearances, Ann Louise Bardach has been covering Cuba for a decade. She’s talked to the crooks, spooks and politicians who have made history, and to their hired assassins and confidants. Based on exclusive interviews with Fidel Castro, his sister Juanita, his former brother-in-law Rafael Díaz-Balart, the family of Elián González, the friends and family of the legendary American fugitive Robert Vesco, the intrepid terrorist Luis Posada Carriles, and the inner circles of Jeb Bush and the late exile leader Jorge Mas Canosa, Cuba Confidential exposes the hardball take-no-prisoners tactics of the Cuban exile leadership, and its manipulation and exploitation by ten American presidents. Bardach homes in on Fidel Castro and his cronies, taking us closer than we’ve ever been—and on the militant exiles who have devoted their lives, with CIA connivance, to trying to eliminate him. From Calle Ocho to Juan Miguel González’s kitchen table in Cárdenas, from Guantánamo Bay to Union City to Washington, D.C., Ann Louise Bardach serves up an unforgettable portrait of Cuba and its exiles.




Fidel and Che


Book Description

Che Guevara has been dead for more than forty years, and long ago renounced by Fidel Castro-and yet they are forever linked: their coming to prominence together captivated a generation. For many, their romantic struggle for freedom still resonates; for others, they simply represent the last of a dying breed of rebel warriors. Yet, while much has been written about them both, surprisingly little is known about their personalities, and even less about the 12 years of their unique and highly consequential relationship, during which they linked arms in one of the world's greatest revolutionary movements. Fidel and Che follows them on their dramatic journey from the safe houses of Mexico's political underground in the 1950s, where they began hatching their plan for revolution, to the theatre of war in the Cuban mountains, to the paneled offices of a new government (the Bay of Pigs and Cuban Missile crises happened on their watch), and to the eventual rupture of their friendship, as Che left Cuba to pursue his revolutionary dreams, only to be assassinated by the CIA in 1966. Reid-Henry also reveals the more personal world of their inner lives as friends, husbands, lovers, fathers. What began as an association of convenience became the most profound relationship of their lives. It shaped their political ambitions and their personal attitudes, compelling them further than either had previously dared imagine. But if their times inspired a revolutionary friendship, they also destroyed it, for the tragic irony was that the more historical circumstance bound them together, the more personal ambitions pulled them apart. At a momentous turning point in Cuban history, Simon Reid-Henry has crafted a fascinating and original chronicle of two of the most powerful personalities in recent memory.




Ten Days in Harlem


Book Description

Rising star historian Simon Hall encapsulates the spirit of the 1960s in ten days that revolutionised the Cold War: Fidel Castro's visit to New York.




Castro's Daughter


Book Description

"Mommy, mommy, call him. Tell him to come here right away. I have so many things to tell him!" I had a ton of things to tell him. I wanted him to find a solution to all the shortages of clothes; of meat, so it would again be distributed through the ration books. I also wanted to ask him to give our Christmas back. And to come live with us. I wanted to let him know how much we really needed him... Fidel didn't answer my letter. I kept writing him letters from a sweet and well-behaved child, a brave but sad girl. Letters resembling those of a secret, spurned lover... As a girl growing up in Cuba, Alina Fernandez found nothing abnormal in the fact that Fidel Castro would occasionally visit her house bearing gifts just for her. At the age of ten, her mother finally told her the truth: she was Castro's Daughter.