The GREATEST Cuba Story

And The Movie About It!!
{Monday, April 22nd, 2019}

    At age 63 Peter Kornbluh is the world renowned Cuban expert at the National Security Archive in Washington. He also knows more about Fidel Castro than any American has ever known. In the May/June edition of Politico Magazine his article entitled "My Dearest Fidel" consumed that whole magazine and EVERYONE who read it. Kornbluh detailed a scorchingly true Fidel Castro love affair with a gorgeous U. S. journalist that literally turned Cuban and American history upside-down...figuring prominently in such epic events as the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas on November 22, 1963. One person who read that Peter Kornbluh article and was verily mesmerized by it turned out to be a powerful young Hollywood actress who quickly acquired powerful producers to turn "My Dearest Fidel" into what figures to be a blockbuster  Hollywood movie.

 This illustration by Christina Couceiro prefaced the Peter Kornbluh article in Politico Magazine that is now becoming a movie about one of history's most monumental and bittersweet love affairs -- the one between Fidel Castro and Lisa Howard.

     The powerful young actress still captivated by the Fidel Castro-Lisa Howard love affair is Gal Gadot. She is co-producing and starring in the movie. She is shown above with Sue Kroll who, along with her partner Jaron Varsano, have plenty of talent and enough money to make any movie they choose, and they too are mesmerized by the precise Peter Kornbluh documentation of the Fidel-Lisa nexus that changed history and surely galvanized a defining moment in U.S.-Cuban history that has reached heights far beyond any normal scope of an island nation. Gal Gadot, by the way, is the former Miss Israel and her Hollywood stardom includes the title role in the blockbuster Wonder Woman.

    The 1,000 Kennedy days in the White House and his assassination in Dallas at age 43 on Nov. 22, 1963, have been chronicled endlessly. That includes a vast myriad of conspiracy theories as well as great books such as this one by Pulitzer-prize winning author Anthony Summers.

  But no one has matched Peter Kornbluh's most pertinent details leading up to the murder of JFK in Dallas or the death...suicide or murder?...of Lisa Howard at age 39 on July 4th, 1965, in New York. Those intimate details documented by Peter Kornbluh in that Politico Magazine article is precisely the material that will make the upcoming movie not only unforgettable but also very important, I think.

  The beautiful and talented Lisa Howard starred in Hollywood movies and then had a leading continuous role on the popular television Soap Opera "The Edge of Night." But she wanted to be a news reporter and, starting on network radio, she became a good one. After gaining some national scoops she was hired by ABC-News in 1957 when, along with NBC and CBS they were the three networks in the USA. At ABC Lisa quickly gained more scoops, including a notable interview with Nikita Khrushchev, the dictator of the Soviet Union. As it turned out, Lisa -- the actress-turn-newscaster -- was mostly fascinated with the Cuban Revolution that had shocked the world on Jan. 1-1959 by overthrowing the U.S.-backed Batista-Mafia dictatorship on the island of Cuba, and then backed it up by further shocking the world by defending off the U.S.-Batistiano-Mafiosi Bay of Pigs attack in April of 1961.

    But most of all, -- not unlike many Hollywood actresses including Rita Hayworth, Maureen O'Hara, etc. -- Lisa Howard became enchanted with the new world-renowned Cuban rebel Fidel Castro. Soon, his enchantment with her would be mutual and rock the world.

    After rising to become a star anchor at ABC News, Lisa Howard had her journalistic excuse to meet Fidel Castro on the exotic island that had become his. The journalism quickly turned into passion. Intimate Lisa-Fidel photos like the ones above were taken by the great photographer Elliott Erwitt/Magnum. Mr. Erwitt is now 90-years-old and lives in Paris, France.

   Thanks to Peter Kornbluh's diligence, we have access to both CIA documents and Lisa Howard's own written accounts of torrid journalistic meetings as well as hot private meetings between Lisa and Fidel. The document on the left above is one that the CIA marked as Read by POTUS, meaning President Kennedy, and dated May 1, 1963. The typed letters on the right above were the first two pages of a 4-page letter that Lisa wrote to "My Dearest Fidel." While having a torrid love affair with Fidel, Lisa also had two hugely popular ABC News interviews with the Cuban leader. But it is in her letters and notes  that she revealed intimate details: "We talked and lay on the bed...he kissed and caressed me, expertly with restrained passion..." "He talked about wanting to have me but would not undress or go all the way..." Later, in her own words, she said he did, and did so "expertly." In another letter uncovered by Kornbluh, Lisa wrote: "But we did get to bed and he made love to me quite expertly and it was, of course, thrilling and ecstatic...as much as anything I have ever experienced."

    In her ABC-TV interviews with Fidel, Lisa asked some tough questions but it was obvious that both of them were probing...testing the waters...to ascertain if it was possible to normalize relations with the U. S. even as Fidel tightened his relationship with the only other nuclear Superpower, the Soviet Union. So Lisa understood Fidel's herculean defense against the U. S. at the Bay of Pigs in April of 1961 and even tacitly comprehended the Cuban Missile Crisis in October of 1962. Lisa believed...that if the nearby nuclear Superpower wanted to annihilate Revolutionary Cuba, Fidel was at least somewhat justified in seeking help from the only other nuclear Superpower even if it was the faraway Soviet Union. In her nationally televised interviews with Fidel, and in writings, speeches, and interviews she gave apart from them, Lisa stressed that Fidel mostly wanted friendly trade relations with the United States. Many inside the U. S. government responded positively but it infuriated vicious Cuban exiles and their sycophants.

   Meanwhile, both as a star journalist and as a lover, Lisa and Fidel tried desperately to be together as privately as possible but found that almost impossible because of his fame and notoriety, not to mention the security that surrounded history's all-time greatest survivor BY FAR of assassination attempts by three very competent assassins -- the CIA, the Mafia, and the Cuban exiles.

   Even a semi-private stroll like this with Lisa frightened Fidel's security detail. In her now revealed writings, Lisa said Fidel longed for being able to "spend endless hours just talking with me." And she added these definitive and exact two sentences in a letter to him: "You are right, Fidel. Our intellectual relationship is the essential one. Though the other one is rather pleasant too, the frosting on the cake."

     Meanwhile, these two photos reveal...apart from loving both Fidel and the Cuban Revolution...Lisa had become a massively controversial celebrity for trying to broker normal relations between the U. S. and Cuba. She won over some very important Americans, notably President Kennedy that Lisa is shown with in the above photo on the left. And Lisa had the support of the legendary rebel Che Guevara who is shown above on the right in Lisa's Manhattan apartment where she also entertained powerful U. S. pro-Cuban politicians such as Eugene McCarthy. Of course, Lisa's mounting notoriety gained her massive enemies too...assassins included.

      But, of course, Lisa's attempts to be intimate with Fidel were often thwarted because of who he was, and that included desired rendezvous sessions in Cuba and in New York when he visited the UN. Even attired in a huge coat in a car or briefly on a street heading to a car, Fidel encountered hordes of fans or reporters, so even a somewhat private meeting with Lisa in a field next to a stockyard became a little success.

Almost alone in a crowd -- Fidel & Lisa.

Nearly alone in a corner -- Lisa & Fidel.

     The televised Lisa interviews with Fidel reportedly impressed President John Kennedy but Lisa kept getting insider tips that she was "grossly irking a powerful man" and that was Vice President Lyndon Johnson.

     Lisa Howard became very afraid of Vice President Lyndon Johnson, based on the insider tips. Lisa had developed a close relationship with President John Kennedy and she believed that the older LBJ, as well as some vicious people around him, craved the Presidency but was blocked for the next six years by the younger and popular JFK.

     Still, as this graphic indicates, Lisa had become the absolute intermediary between her lover Fidel Castro and U. S. President John Kennedy. In early November of 1963, directly as a result of the incredible work Lisa had done, President Kennedy told his closer friends and advisers -- Kenneth O'Donnell, Arthur Schlesinger Jr., Ted Sorensen, and Pierre Salinger -- that as soon as he got back from a 3-city political trip, the last being to Dallas, they would all work to NORMALIZE relations with Cuba as their "top priority." Lisa, when she got that message, was elated, to put it mildly. However, there were some who took the exact opposite view.

    On Nov. 22nd, 1963, President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. Conspiracy theories abound to this day. Did his plan to normalize relations with Cuba predicate the murder? That is debatable but one thing is known: Regardless of who or what group finalized the assassination, Kennedy's normalization plans relating to Cuba emboldened assassination attempts against him.

    Two people distraught over the assassination of President Kennedy were Lisa Howard and Fidel Castro. Fidel had lost his chance to have much-needed normal trade relations with the United States. To her credit, Lisa continued valiantly to promote the normalization of relations between Cuba and the United States. But now the U. S. President was...Lyndon Johnson. It was LBJ who personally pressured ABC News to fire Lisa...and prevent her from getting another network job in television news.

    On July 4th, 1965, while vacationing in the Hamptons, the 39-year-old Lisa Howard's body was found beside a stream. It was ruled a suicide...an overdose. Whether it was suicide or murder, one thing is certain: Lisa Howard died because of the incomparable passion she had to normalize relations between Cuba and the United States, something she likely would have accomplished if President Kennedy had returned from Dallas alive on Nov. 22nd, 1963. IF his first term would have ended normally, his reelection was a given, giving him time to cement his normalization plans with Cuba.

    Of course, both Kennedy brothers were assassinated -- John in Dallas in 1963 while he was President and Robert in Los Angeles in 1968 while he was running for President. Early on, many blamed JFK's murder on Fidel Castro as retribution for the numerous assassination attempts on Fidel's life. But as the powerful Attorney General who would leave no stones unturned, Robert Kennedy had quickly absolved Fidel who also quickly provided pertinent information in Havana to U. S. investigators. Later, it is worth noting, both John F. Kennedy Jr. and Robert Kennedy Jr. made separate visits as adults to Havana to be cordially hosted by their friend, Fidel Castro himself.

    And that brings us back around to the Gal Gadot-Sue Kroll movie that is being made with the title "My Dearest Fidel." Based on the great Peter Kornbluh's meticulous research, the torrid, historic, and bittersweet love affair between Lisa Howard and Fidel Castro richly deserves an honest cinematic telling.

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