Author: ynot

For more than sixty years, outsiders have tried to answer one deceptively simple question about Cuba: Who really runs the country? For decades, the answer seemed obvious. First there was Fidel Castro. Then there was Raúl Castro. Today, officially, there is President Miguel Díaz-Canel. But Cuba has never operated like an ordinary presidential democracy where political authority can be understood simply by reading an organizational chart. Real power has traditionally existed at the intersection of the Communist Party, the Revolutionary Armed Forces, the Ministry of the Interior, state security, military-controlled businesses, and personal relationships extending back to the revolution … Continue readingCuba After Raúl? “El Cangrejo,” the Castro Family, and the Quiet Battle Over Who Controls the Island Next

Nike Hercules, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the Nuclear Missiles Hidden in Our Backyard Most people who think about South Florida and the Cuban Missile Crisis picture Soviet missiles in Cuba pointed toward the United States. But there is another side of that story that is rarely discussed. The United States had nuclear missiles in South Florida too. Not strategic ICBMs buried in giant silos. These were Nike Hercules surface-to-air missiles, positioned around Miami, Homestead, the Everglades and the Florida Keys. Some carried nuclear warheads. And although their primary mission was to destroy attacking aircraft, the Nike Hercules also … Continue readingThe Forgotten Nuclear History of South Florida

There are moments in the history of a country that cannot be measured by elections, armies, speeches, or revolutions. They are measured by something much smaller. A suitcase. A passport. A photograph folded into a shirt pocket. A mother standing behind a glass partition at an airport, watching her child walk away. Between 1960 and 1962, 14,048 Cuban children arrived in the United States without their parents in an extraordinary exodus that became known as Operation Pedro Pan — Operación Pedro Pan. The National Archives describes it as the largest recorded exodus of unaccompanied minors in the Western Hemisphere. They were … Continue readingLos Hijos del Cielo Operation Pedro Pan and the Children Who Flew Alone

The City Where Everybody Eventually Passed Through There was an old joke about Miami in the 1980s: one-third of the city was supported by drugs, another third by the CIA, Cuban intelligence or the clandestine war, and only the remaining third was involved in normal business. The mathematics were almost certainly nonsense. But the fact that people could tell the joke—and that everyone in Miami understood what it meant—says something about the city at the time. Because for a remarkable period during the Cold War, it sometimes seemed as if every secret war in the Western Hemisphere eventually passed … Continue readingMiami, in the Center of It All – Drugs, Spies, Exiles, Covert Wars

How Castro Fought the CIA, the ounterrevolution, and the Secret War Against Cuba When Fidel Castro entered Havana in January 1959, the Cuban Revolution had won the war against Fulgencio Batista. It had not won peace. Within a remarkably short period, Cuba became the center of another conflict—one fought with guerrillas in the mountains, clandestine radios, boats crossing the Florida Straits, intelligence agents, neighborhood informants, sabotage teams, political prisoners, double agents, hijacked airplanes and competing governments that each believed the other was trying to destroy it. From Washington and Miami, the story looked like a struggle to overthrow an … Continue readingDefending the Revolution

A Timeline From Castro’s Revolution to the CIA, the Exile Armies and the Underground War, 1959–1980 When Fidel Castro entered Havana in January 1959, almost nobody could have predicted that the Cuban Revolution would produce a secret war lasting decades. Within two years, Cuban exiles would be training under the CIA. Within three, American intelligence officers would be planning sabotage and resistance operations against the new Cuban government. Within four, independent exile commandos would be attacking Cuba from small boats. Within eight, a Cuban exile working alongside the CIA would stand in a Bolivian schoolhouse with Che Guevara shortly before Che was executed. Within … Continue readingTwenty Years of the Secret CIA War for Cuba 1959–1980

For decades, Cuba exported revolution while the Soviet Union picked up the tab. Cuban blood, Soviet money, and foreign countries paid the price. Cuba’s Military Campaigns, Proxy Wars, and Intelligence Operations Abroad After 1959, Cuba was not merely a poor island claiming to defend itself against the United States. Under Fidel Castro, Cuba became an exporter of armed revolution. The regime sent soldiers, tanks, pilots, doctors, advisers, intelligence officers, trainers, weapons, propaganda, and political operatives across Africa, the Middle East, Latin America, and the United States. Havana called it “internationalism.” Its enemies called it subversion. In reality, it was … Continue readingCUBA Exports the Revolution

Batista spared Fidel Castro after Moncada. Cuban exiles financed his return. They believed they were funding Cuba’s liberation—only to discover they had financed the man who would imprison the nation. –YNOT! On July 26, 1953, Fidel Castro led roughly 160 armed followers in coordinated attacks against the Moncada Barracks in Santiago de Cuba and the Carlos Manuel de Céspedes Barracks in Bayamo. The plan was to capture weapons, seize strategic positions, and spark a national uprising against Fulgencio Batista, who had taken power through the military coup of March 10, 1952. Militarily, it was a disaster. The convoy became … Continue readingThe Man Batista Spared and Miami sent Back to Cuba