In 1960 Bernardo Benes, a lawyer, fled his home in Cuba. Quickly making a name for himself in Miami, he became a leading advocate for exile causes in South Florida. Making 75 secret trips to Cuba - where he met with Castro for Presidents Carter and Reagan

This is a compelling and dramatic account of Cuban policy in Africa from 1959 to 1976 and of its escalating clash with U.S. policy toward the continent. Piero Gleijeses's fast-paced narrative takes the reader from Cuba's first steps to assist Algerian rebels fighting France in 1961, to the secret war between Havana and Washington in Zaire in 1964-65--where 100 Cubans led by Che Guevara clashed with 1,000 mercenaries controlled by the CIA--and, finally, to the dramatic dispatch of 30,000 Cubans to Angola in 1975-76, which stopped the South African advance on Luanda and doomed Henry Kissinger's major covert operation there. Based on unprecedented archival research and firsthand interviews in virtually all of the countries involved--Gleijeses was even able to gain extensive access to closed Cuban archives--this comprehensive and balanced work sheds new light on U.S. foreign policy and CIA covert operations. It revolutionizes our view of Cuba's international role, challenges conventional U.S. beliefs about the influence of the Soviet Union in directing Cuba's actions in Africa, and provides, for the first time ever, a look from the inside at Cuba's foreign policy during the Cold War. "Fascinating . . . and often downright entertaining. . . . Gleijeses recounts the Cuban story with considerable flair, taking good advantage of rich material.--Washington Post Book World "Gleijeses's research . . . bluntly contradicts the Congressional testimony of the era and the memoirs of Henry A. Kissinger. . . . After reviewing Dr. Gleijeses's work, several former senior United States diplomats who were involved in making policy toward Angola broadly endorsed its conclusions.--New York Times "With the publication of Conflicting Missions, Piero Gleijeses establishes his reputation as the most impressive historian of the Cold War in the Third World. Drawing on previously unavailable Cuban and African as well as American sources, he tells a story that's full of fresh and surprising information. And best of all, he does this with a remarkable sensitivity to the perspectives of the protagonists. This book will become an instant classic.--John Lewis Gaddis, author of We Now Know: Rethinking Cold War History Based on unprecedented research in Cuban, American, and European archives, this is the compelling story of Cuban policy in Africa from 1959 to 1976 and of its escalating clash with U.S. policy toward the continent. Piero Gleijeses sheds new light on U.S. foreign policy and CIA covert operations, revolutionizes our view of Cuba's international role, and provides the first look from the inside at Cuba's foreign policy during the Cold War. -->

History is being made in U.S.-Cuban relations. Now in paperback and updated to tell the real story behind the stunning December 17, 2014, announcement by President Obama and President Castro of their move to restore full diplomatic relations, this powerful book is essential to understanding ongoing efforts toward normalization in a new era of engagement. Challenging the conventional wisdom of perpetual conflict and aggression between the United States and Cuba since 1959, Back Channel to Cuba chronicles a surprising, untold history of bilateral efforts toward rapprochement and reconciliation. William M. LeoGrande and Peter Kornbluh here present a remarkably new and relevant account, describing how, despite the intense political clamor surrounding efforts to improve relations with Havana, negotiations have been conducted by every presidential administration since Eisenhower's through secret, back-channel diplomacy. From John F. Kennedy's offering of an olive branch to Fidel Castro after the missile crisis, to Henry Kissinger's top secret quest for normalization, to Barack Obama's promise of a new approach, LeoGrande and Kornbluh uncovered hundreds of formerly secret U.S. documents and conducted interviews with dozens of negotiators, intermediaries, and policy makers, including Fidel Castro and Jimmy Carter. They reveal a fifty-year record of dialogue and negotiations, both open and furtive, that provides the historical foundation for the dramatic breakthrough in U.S.-Cuba ties.

This book is the first examination of the Cuban military in the context of Cuba's political and economic challenges in the aftermath of the collapse of the USSR - and therefore of Soviet economic, political and psychological support. It provides important historical and political contexts of the development and engagement of the military.

A thorough examination of the history of the controversial island country looks at little-known aspects of its past, from its pre-Columbian origins to the fate of its native peoples, complete with up-to-date information on Cuba's place in a post-Soviet world.

In Only a Few Blocks to Cuba, Mauricio Castro shows how the U.S. government came to view Cuban migration to Miami as a strategic asset during the Cold War, in the process investing heavily in the city’s development and shaping its future as a global metropolis. When Cuban refugees fleeing Communist revolution began to arrive in Miami in 1959, the city was faced with a humanitarian crisis it was ill-equipped to handle and sought to have the federal government solve what local politicians clearly viewed as a Cold War geopolitical problem. In response, the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations, and their successors, provided an unprecedented level of federal largesse and freedom of transit to these refugees. The changes to the city this investment wrought were as impactful and permanent as they were unintended. What was meant to be a short-term geopolitical stratagem instead became a new reality in South Florida. A growing and increasingly powerful Cuban community contested their place in Miami and navigated challenges like bilingualism, internal political disputes, socioeconomic polarization, and ongoing struggles and negotiations with Washington and Havana in the decades that followed. This contested process, argues Mauricio Castro, not only transformed South Florida, but American foreign policy and the calculus of national politics. Castro uses extensive archival research in local and national sources to demonstrate that the Cuban diaspora and Cold War refugee policy made South Florida a key space to understanding the shifting landscape of the late twentieth century. In this way, Miami serves as an example of both the lived effects of defense spending in urban spaces and of how local communities can shape national politics and international relations. American politics, foreign relations, immigration policy, and urban development all intersected on the streets of Miami.

Foreign Policy Toward Cuba is a timely exploration of the ways in which Cuba is understood in the Western Hemisphere. The book examines the depth of disagreement between different foreign policy-making communities, and the potential impacts of diverse national approaches--not just for Cuba, but for the whole Carribbean region.

Funny name for a man who has threatened the United States with nuclear war, who has made common cause with Islamic terrorists against the United States, and whose people risk death to escape him. But there's a lot that Hollywood liberals and other Fidel Castro admirers would rather you didn't know about the dictator of Cuba—like how he imprisoned more people as a percentage of population than the prewar Nazis; how Fidel's firing squads killed thousands of Cubans; how Fidel's subjects would rather inject themselves with AIDS than live under his tyranny. Drawing on a wealth of research—including interviews with former Castro regime officials, anti-Castro freedom fighters, and Castro’s political prisoners—acclaimed author Humberto Fontova reveals the ugly face of the Castro regime.

This is the first book in more than three decades to offer a complete and chronological history of revolutionary Cuba, including the years of rebellion that led to the revolution. Beginning with Batista’s coup in 1952, which catalyzed the rebels, and bringing the reader to the present-day transformations initiated by Raúl Castro, Luis Martínez-Fernández provides a balanced interpretive synthesis of the major topics of contemporary Cuban history. Expertly weaving the myriad historic, social, and political forces that shaped the island nation during this period, Martínez-Fernández examines the circumstances that allowed the revolution to consolidate in the early 1960s, the Soviet influence throughout the latter part of the Cold War, and the struggle to survive the catastrophic Special Period of the 1990s after the collapse of the U.S.S.R. He tackles the island’s chronic dependence on sugar production, which started with the plantations centuries ago and continues to shape culture and society. He analyzes the revolutionary pendulum that continues to swing between idealism and pragmatism, focusing on its effects on the everyday lives of the Cuban people, and—bucking established trends in Cuban scholarship—Martínez-Fernández systematically integrates the Cuban diaspora into the larger discourse of the revolution. Concise, well written, and accessible, this book is an indispensable survey of the history and themes of the socialist revolution that forever changed Cuba and the world.

1960. As the Cold War reaches its height, so does postwar prosperity, and the American people celebrate their optimism by electing as president the young, charismatic John F. Kennedy. Just 90 miles from the United States, the Cuban people are celebrating the rise of Fidel Castro, their own young and charismatic populist leader who overthrew Batista's oppressive regime. Around the world, a rising tide of Communism is absorbing one country after another. President Kennedy, vowing to keep Communism out of the Western Hemisphere, knows he must confront Castro. It will mean not only testing his own resolve, but maintaining a precarious balancing act. Kennedy cannot allow the United States to be seen as weak, yet he cannot be too aggressive and risk nuclear annihilation. How then to weaken Castro's grip on Cuba--without forcing a showdown between the United States and the Soviet Union? With the aid of his attorney general, his younger brother Robert, the new president, in effect, declares a secret war against Fidel Castro, enlisting the CIA and Cuban refugees. During the next few years, the Kennedys and Castro engage in the most dangerous and covert duel of the Cold War, a fierce vendetta that will take the world to the brink of nuclear confrontation. Now, in this powerful, eye-opening new book, William B. Breuer reveals the startling truth behind the Cuban crisis of the early 1960s. From the Bay of Pigs to Guantanamo Bay and the October '62 missile crisis, Breuer exposes how John and Robert Kennedy worked together to expand the clandestine, sometimes illegal activities to eliminate Castro. Vendetta! is a riveting account of recent history, complete with spies, saboteurs, guerrillas, murder plots, and kidnappings, told in the hard-hitting, dramatic style that has won the author critical acclaim as a chronicler of military intrigue. Based on new firsthand interviews with many of the people who directed and participated in the Kennedys' secret war, Vendetta! includes candid recollections from a host of government officials who are talking about these events for the first time, among them, W. Raymond Wannall, former assistant director of the FBI, and Theodore Shackley, the CIA official who directed the covert actions from Miami. As this fascinating chapter of modern day intrigue unfolds, we are swept into the middle of the action, from tense conferences in the Oval Office to terrifying encounters at Guantanamo Bay, where American-backed forces stood outnumbered and surrounded by Cuban troops. Vendetta! is William B. Breuer at his very best--real-life espionage, political fact and folly, thrilling adventure, and intrigue. Critical Acclaim for William B. Breuer SHADOW WARRIORS "Absorbing . . . with colorful yarns . . . as suitable for serious students of history as for fans of cloak-and-dagger mayhem, military style." --Publishers Weekly "An engrossing tale of unsung heroes and high-risk missions . . . penetrates the little-known espionage, propaganda, and guerrilla operations of the Korean War." --Kirkus Reviews FEUDING ALLIES "A valuable resource . . . highly recommended." --Booklist