Smithsonian Magazine Spotlights Havana

A Terrific 18-Page Update!!
{Updated Wednesday, May 2nd, 2018}

     The new edition -- dated May-2018 -- of Smithsonian Magazine, a magnificent offshoot of the famed Smithsonian Institute, reached my mailbox this week and it featured an 18-page article entitled "The Man Who Saved Havana." Brilliantly written by Tony Perrottet and buttressed with splendid photographs by Nestor Marti, the Smithsonian Magazine paints the best portrait of what is actually happening in the historic capital city of the Western World's most intriguing and, perhaps, most misunderstood island nation, a nation whose new and historic President, Miguel Diaz-Canel, turned 58-years-old just a few days ago.

Smithsonian photo of Eusebio Leal.

"The Man Who Saved Havana"

      The current -- dated May-2018 -- edition of Smithsonian Magazine features this map to delineate 15 of the historic landmarks in Havana that the now 75-year-old Eusebio Leal has "saved" with truly incredible reconstruction projects first approved and funded by Fidel Castro after Leal was sharp enough back in the 1970s to get Celia Sanchez to persuade Fidel to finance Leal's ambitious rebuilding plans. The new edition of Smithsonian Magazine reveals, with 18 splendid pages, that Leal's visions have come to remarkable fruition and are now on vivid display in Havana, Cuba.

    This is the magnificent 5-Star Hotel Manzana Kempinski restored by Eusebio Leal in Old Havana. The building dated from 1917 and had been run-down prior to Leal.

    This is the now restored Palacio del Segundo Cabo that Leal restored from a building that was first constructed in 1772. Smithsonian Magazine says it is now "the center for Cuban-European relations." {Those are key relations for Cuba's future}.

     This is the Hotel Ambos Mundos in Old Havana after it has been magnificently restored by Eusebio Leal. This is the building where Hemingway wrote "For Whom the Bell Tolls" when he was paying $1.50 a day for his room. Smithsonian Magazine says Havana is "one of the most extraordinary urban historical centers in the world." Leal himself told Smithsonian Magazine that, "Much has been done but much more can be done." And much more is being done in Havana thanks to Mr. Leal.

     When powerful people come to Havana, like Federica Mogherini above, they often ask to be shown around by the capital city's truly renowned Historian Eusebio Leal.

     The top official at the 28-nation European Union, Federica Mogherini, is depicted above being shown around historic Old Havana by Eusebio Leal when she visited Cuba on January 3, 2018. In the recent past Eusebio Leal has done the same for many historic figures such as Pope Francis and United States President Barack Obama.

     The greatest of the world's Travel Journalists, Tony Perrottet, wrote this latest masterpiece for Smithsonian Magazine -- the 18-page update for May of 2018 about "The Man Who Saved Havana." It is a splendid piece of journalism about Cuba that the mainstream U. S. media will not provide, and I heartily recommend it. It also reveals why I am a regular subscriber to the print edition of Smithsonian Magazine.

AND BY THE WAY:

     As one of two American biographers of Celia Sanchez, I'm aware that she -- as the Super Heroine of the Cuban Revolution and the one person that Fidel Castro idolized above all others -- I found it interesting that the aforementioned Smithsonian Magazine article revealed that Eusebio Leal credited Celia Sanchez for giving him the green light to restore Havana's historic landmarks. Leal told Smithsonian that, "Celia helped and protected me." America's best Castro biographer, Georgia Anne Geyer, wrote that Celia "over-ruled Fidel" wherever and whenever she chose, with his complete concurrence. Marta Rojas, Cuba's greatest {and still-living} author-historian, told me in 2005, "Since Celia Sanchez died of cancer at age 59 on Jan. 11, 1980, Fidel has ruled Cuba only as he precisely believes Celia would want him to rule it." And while she lived, any smart person who wanted something from Fidel, like Leal, first consulted Celia Sanchez.

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