The Cuban Revolution and the American Mafia

A Nexus Conveniently Overlooked

      The U. S. government's love affair with the Mafia created the Cuban Revolution in 1952. The U. S. government's love affair with the Mafia created the necessity and the wherewithal for the triumph of the Cuban Revolution in 1959. The U. S. government's love affair with the Mafia is the reason Revolutionary Cuba is still alive at the dawn of the New Year 2013. Self-ordained American "patriots" such as Sean Hannity and Rob Sequin will call you "anti-American" or "a Commie" if you subscribe to those facts. But Americans are living a lie if they don't believe them. Permit me, a democracy-loving zealot, to explain.

     As a young man, Thomas Dewey [above] was a true American patriot, not a self-anointed or self-congratulatory one. He left a lucrative position as a Wall Street lawyer to become a Special Prosecutor in New York because he believed that the great American city should be ruled by the will of the majority of its citizens, not by fiendish Mafia kingpins. Against dire threats on his life, Dewey declared war on Mafia underlings till he worked his way up to Lucky Luciano, the undisputed American crime and Mafia leader who, as such, was the most significant ruler in New York City. Dewey could not charge Luciano with his many murders because no one left alive would dare testify against him. But Dewey led raids on 80 of Luciano's prostitution houses and used the evidence to arrest and prosecute Luciano, who was sentenced to 50 years in prison. The fantastic achievement rocketed Dewey to national and international fame. He became Governor of New York. In 1944 and 1948 he was the Republican presidential candidate.

      In fact, Dewey came so close to winning the 1948 Presidential election over incumbent Harry Truman that on Nov. 3-1948, the day after the election, the headline in the Chicago Daily Tribune proclaimed: "Dewey Defeats Truman!" It turned out to be an erroneous headline but the legend of Thomas Dewey, who died at age 69 in 1971, was etched in stone as a good and brave man, for whatever that is worth then and now.

      Lucky Luciano [above] was born Salvatore Lucania in Sicily in 1897. In New York City as head of the Italian Mafia he was responsible for at least 40 well-known murders on his pernicious, perilous path to becoming head of the Genovese Mafia Family, as well as numerous murders thereafter. He was feared by all and earned the historic distinction as The Father of Organized Crime in the United States. But there was one politician -- Dewey -- who was neither scared of Luciano nor willing to be bought off by the killer-thief.

   Thanks to Thomas Dewey, Mafia kingpin Lucky Luciano was arrested, prosecuted, and sentenced to 50 years in prison. New Yorkers felt safe, but only briefly. Lucky, it turned out, had the lucky key to freedom.

     Shortly, photos of Lucky Luciano depicted him celebrating in his favorite watering holes around New York City. Once again free as a bird, he was America's prime killer, thief, and most feared leader -- not only of the Mafia but New York City too. The U. S. government claimed it freed Luciano because it needed his Mafia to protect the vast New York City waterways from German sabotage during World War II and also needed Luciano's Italian-Mafia connections prior to the invasion of Italy by American and British soldiers. Was Lucky Luciano that indispensable, that brilliant? Or did his money buy friends in high places?

       Benito Mussolini was Italy's fiendish Fascist dictator from 1922 till he was killed by partisans in 1945 when he was a staunch ally of Germany's ruthless dictator Adolph Hitler. Mussolini had used his powerful army to totally wipe out the Mafia in Italy and Sicily. [Note: Mussolini was not anti-crime but he was adamantly against sharing his dictatorship with the Mafia.] Mussolini had either killed or imprisoned all the Mafioso leaders in their home-bases of Italy and Sicily. But by the end of World War II in 1945, as a way of thanking Lucky Luciano, the U. S. government freed the Mafia leaders from their Italian prisons.

      Rampant crime, not to mention such entities as The Godfather movies, benefited enormously. However, the vast majority of the world, including Cuba during the 1950s, suffered immensely because of the rejuvenated Mafia. The U. S. - Mafia love affair began reshaping a world made safe for criminal bigwigs.

       On Lucky Luciano's order, Santo Trafficante Jr. [above] was the #3 man behind Batista and Meyer Lansky in the 1952-1959 dictatorship in Cuba. While all the other Batistiano and Mafia leaders fled the island in the early morning hours of Jan. 1-1959, Trafficante Jr. stayed behind because he believed Fidel Castro would accept his 40% kick-back offer. Fidel put Trafficante Jr. in prison. Che Guevara was going to have him shot. Celia Sanchez, believing that Revolutionary Cuba needed to have friendly terms with the U. S., freed Trafficante Jr. as a friendly gesture to America. Trafficante Jr. returned in triumph to Tampa as that city's powerful Mafia kingpin, believing Cuba would be quickly recaptured by the United States military.

       Trafficante Jr., like his father before him, lived a long life as the Mafia kingpin in Tampa. He was arrested once in Tampa but his lawyer, Frank Ragano, got him out of jail before dark. So the only time Trafficante Jr. spent a few nights in jail was in Havana when he attempted to buy a large piece of Revolutionary Cuba from Fidel Castro. The U. S., like Batista's Cuba, was a Mafia haven.

      As early as November of 1959, sitting in the offices of The Granma newspaper, Celia Sanchez told her friend [the still-living] Marta Rojas of "my irretrievable mistake in freeing that Mafia bug so he can hit us again and again from his safe haven." Celia Sanchez was the most brilliant Cuban revolutionary but she misjudged the Batista-Mafia dictatorship almost immediately reconstituting itself on U. S. soil in nearby Florida.

       Third from the left in the above photo is Carlos Marcello, the Mafia kingpin of New Orleans and Dallas; sitting just to Marcello's left cocking his eyes to the right and holding a glass in his right hand is Santo Trafficante Jr.; and their lawyer Frank Ragano is facing forward just to Trafficante Jr.'s left at the end of the table also holding a glass in his right hand. This was during the period when Marcello and Trafficante Jr. were trying to get the U. S. and the Cuban exiles to recapture Cuba for the Mafia. Regano, the lawyer for Marcello and Trafficante Jr., would later confirm that his two wealthy Mafia clients not only viciously sponsored terrorist attacks against Cuba but also both men vowed to murder both President John Kennedy and Robert Kennedy, whom they blamed for not defeating Cuba at the Bay of Pigs in April of 1961. 

        Out of prison for good in the early 1940s thanks to his friends in the U. S. government, Lucky Luciano could relax in public from his reinstated throne, or soft perches, and once again openly rule as America's top criminal. His friends in the U. S. government had over-ruled Prosecutor Thomas Dewey and the state of New York. Having the Feds as a friend freed him from prison. Lucky Luciano's restored freedom would sharply impact and drastically darken American, world, and Cuban history. He was the first, for example, to mastermind and orchestrate massive influxes of illegal drugs into the United States. In the 1950s the Mafia used the ports of Havana and Miami to facilitate a prodigious flow of illegal drugs throughout America.

       Decent entities within the confines of the U. S. government, such as the FBI, could monitor and keep charts [above] of the Mafia, also known as La Cosa Nostra. But more powerful federal entities, such as the CIA, prevailed from 1947 -- just after World War II -- till the present day. Thus, murderous Mafia kingpins such as Carlos Marcello of New Orleans and Santo Trafficante Jr. and Sr. in Tampa were free to make millions of dollars while terrorizing both the United States and Cuba. [Note Marcello and Trafficante Jr. in the lower-center of the above FBI chart compiled in 1963.] In other words, the FBI knew all bout the inter-workings of the Mafia kingpins but was unable to do much about them, especially in the Mafia strongholds of New York, New Jersey, and Chicago but also in the southern cities of Miami, Tampa, and Havana {till 1959}. The FBI, you see, was a powerful component of the U. S. government, but not the most powerful.

        Thus, almost all of the famed Mafia kingpins served little or no prison time but died of natural causes as very rich and very free men. The above photo shows Lucky Luciano's body being removed from an airport in Naples, Italy, after he had died of a heart attack at age 64 on January 26, 1962. Lucky was at that airport in Naples to sign a movie contract with a producer who had purchased his life story.  

     The collage above depicts Lucky Luciano [on the left], Meyer Lansky [Luciano's top lieutenant in the front-center] and ruthless dictator Fulgencio Batista [in the upper-right military uniform] when they brutally raped and robbed Cuba in the 1950s while being supported by the United States government. [Note: The translation of "El Imperio En La Habana" is "The Empire in Havana."] The Empire, especially via its senseless and gruesome brutality against Cuban women and children, birthed the Cuban Revolution. In pre-revolutionary Cuba the Big Four decision-makers, backed by the United States, were: Fulgencio Batista, Lucky Luciano, Meyer Lansky, and Santo Trafficante Jr. [A rather brutal, thieving quartet]
                                          

     After the triumph of the Cuban Revolution on January 1, 1959, the new Big Four decision-makers in Cuba were the Castro brothers Fidel and Raul along with two of the prime female guerrilla fighters -- Vilma Espin [on the left above] and Celia Sanchez [on the right]. Early in 1959 Vilma married Raul Castro; beginning in the closing days of December, 1956, when he joined her in the Sierra Maestra Mountains, Fidel Castro has verily worshipped the ground Celia Sanchez walked on. Thus, to this day at age 86 Fidel Castro still rates Revolutionary Cuba's Big Four as the ones pictured above and, beyond question, he continues to rate Celia Sanchez the clear #1. Beginning in the early days of Revolutionary Cuba, the Castro brothers were mainly concerned with defensive and military matters and, while they lived, Celia and Vilma were the most important day-to-day decision-makers on the island. [Celia died of cancer in 1980; Vilma died of cancer in 2007]. The two powerful women, of course, immediately instituted a still-existing system designed to protect the island's children in stark contrast to the years when Batista, Luciano, Lansky, and Trafficante Jr. were the prime decision-makers on the island backed by a neighboring country that happened to be the strongest nation in the world, a superpower that to this day defends its Cuban policy.

      The U. S. State Department lists Cuba on its very short list {four} of "Nations That Sponsor Terrorism." It does so in the face of clear evidence that every Caribbean and Latin American nation, as well as almost all nations in the world, believe that the only reason the U. S. lists Cuba as a "terrorist" nation is to sate the wishes of a handful of hardcore anti-Castro Cuban-exile zealots. The same unanimity of nations well understands, as evidenced by the yearly UN vote concerning the U. S. embargo of Cuba, that the very same hardcore Cuban-exile minority also controls that and all other aspects of the U. S. - Cuban policy, and have done so since 1959 to the continuous detriment of all nations in the world, including the U. S. 

     Since 1959 it is well known that children on the island of Cuba are among the safest in the world. But the image of a DC-8 airplane {the actual airplane shown above} is a reminder that even Cuban children, when off the island, are in dire jeopardy of being victims of terrorism. The above plane was Cubana Flight 455 when it flew two dozen young Cuban athletes to Caracas, Venezuela, for the Central American Youth Championships. On its return flight to Cuba -- on Oct. 6-1976 -- it was blown out the sky by plastic time-detonated bombs. All 73 on board died. Because it was a Cuban civilian airplane, Americans accepted the two most salient quotations that resonated in the Miami media from the two prime alleged terrorists: "It's the biggest blow yet against Castro!" and "There were no innocents on that airplane." 

       Openly displayed in Cuba to this day are photos of all 73 victims of Cubana Flight 455. Each photo is a vivid reminder that it was not the biggest blow yet against Castro but instead one flagrant reason that Castro is preferable on the island to those responsible for such horrific acts of terrorism. As to whether there were no innocents on that airplane, the consensus of world opinion is that all 73 were innocents.

        Beginning in 1959 at the Army School of the Americas at Fort Benning, Georgia, the U. S. began training hundreds of the most zealous anti-Castro Cuban-born exiles, such as Posada Carriles. Decades later, in a famous interview by the omnipresent Ann Louise Bardach for the New York Times, Posada Carriles lavishly praised the U. S. government for its training in explosives and for additional financial support from entities such as Jorge Mas Canosa's super-powerful Cuban American National Foundation.

To this day Posada Carriles is a well-protected and heralded citizen of Miami.

      Around the world, including in nations that are America's best friends, U. S. - based terrorism against Cuba is considered shameful. The Cuban girl and Cuban woman featured in the above poster behind an image of Posada Carriles had just been told at Jose Marti Airport in Havana that their loved ones would not be returning on Cubana Flight 455. So, why does the U. S. State Department get away with listing Cuba as a sponsor of terrorism as opposed to a victim of terrorism? Many, including America's best friends around the world, believe the answer is: Cuba is a little island and the United States is the world's superpower.

      Jim DeFede was the top columnist at the Miami Herald. Then he very bravely wrote a famous column pointing out that terrorism against Cuba was the same as terrorism against America, England, or any other country. In that article DeFede excoriated Cuban-born U. S. members of Congress from Miami -- specifically Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Lincoln Diaz-Balart -- for their incredible support of well-known Miami terrorists. DeFede, of course, didn't remain at the Miami Herald very long after that article was published.

However, Jim DeFede remains a highly respected journalist on CBS-4 television in Miami.

      Cuban-exile Emilio Millan was the top journalist in Miami in 1976 when he used his newscast to criticize Miami-based terrorism against Cuba. When he turned the ignition in his car {above}, the car exploded.

      The Cuban lady speaking at the podium above is Nancy Pavon. Nancy has one leg. The other one was blown off when she was 15-years-old as she slept in a coastal cabin in her fishing village of Boca de Sama. Two huge speed boats with cannon anchored on tripods blasted the cabin, killing Nancy's parents, wounding her younger sister and "slicing off my leg as if it was cut by a machete." As the speedboats returned to Miami, the media was informed so their triumphant return could be registered by TV-Radio and newspaper coverage. In the speech above Nancy Pavon thanked the Cuban government for treating her injured leg "all these decades" while she also suggested that "the U. S. taxpayers are the ones who paid for those bullets and they are the ones who should be paying for my injury." 

        Jose Basulto, shown above promoting his book, is one of Miami's most famous Cuban-born exiles. He has bragged about being back in Cuba in April of 1961 committing sabotage as a prelude to the U. S./Cuban-exile Bay of Pigs attack. Basulto says he was caught by surprise when the U. S. airplanes began bombing the island, so he scrambled over the fence at the U. S. Guantanamo Naval Base. Basulto is also one of many Cuban exiles who have successfully sued Cuba in U. S. courtrooms in which Cuba is never represented. And, yes, the U. S. government has followed up with the awarded money, usually claiming its from "frozen Cuban assets" such as money from Cuba's percentage of telephone calls to the island. It should be noted, I think, that such lawsuits are "lawful" in U. S. courtrooms only because the U. S. State Department lists Cuba as "a sponsor of terrorism." So, do you think that is a prime reason the U. S. State Department lists Cuba as a "sponsor of terrorism?" Of course, if you are politically correct you are supposed to firmly answer that question this way: "Ahhh, NO! No way!" Thank you, for being politically, if not truthfully, correct.

      Thus, beginning in January of 1959, signs like the one above began to be posted block-by-block all over the island. Thanks to Celia Sanchez and Vilma Espin, each block had Cuban citizens as integral parts of Committees for the Defense of the Revolution. Their prime task was not to defend the island from foreign attack but to defend the children on each block from domestic or foreign harm. Because of the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution, children on the island of Cuba, to this day, are considered [by UN observers as well as American journalists stationed on the island] as perhaps the safest children on the planet. No longer is violence a part of their everyday lives on the sovereign island of Cuba. 

        Repetitious murders of children to quell dissent in Batista's Cuba instead spawned history's first revolution created by outraged women. The brave march depicted above was to loudly protest the torture-murders of little Willie Soler and his three schoolmates. The four bodies were left in a vacant warehouse. The lady bravely carrying the sign in the above photo helped inspire what became The Committees for the Defense of the Revolution. So the death of her son was "not in vain" as she later stated.

       From 1959 till today, the Federation of Cuban Women has been a powerful force on the island of Cuba. It's purpose is to mandate the welfare of women and children, an idea spawned by the treatment of women and children during the Batista dictatorship. Revolutionary Cuban women defeated the Mafia in defense of their children.

     Vilma Espin will be remembered as long as the Cuban Revolution is remembered. She was President of the Cuban Federation of Women from 1959 till her death in 2007. No one on the island, including her husband Raul Castro, ever over-ruled her. ["Unidas Por La Patria" means "United for the Motherland."

      The two female guerrilla fighters shown above -- the stoic Celia Sanchez is typically the studious one while the effervescent Vilma Espin is the cheerful one -- earned their right to replace Batista, Luciano, Lansky, and Trafficante Jr. as the prime decision-makers on the island of Cuba. Celia Sanchez had the following quotation to explain how and why the Cuban Revolution shocked the world with its triumph over the Batista dictatorship: "In the end it came down to...for us leaders it was do-or-die and for their leaders it was do-and-run."  If that quotation does not define the Cuban Revolution, then surely this one, also from Celia Sanchez, does: "The Batistianos will never regain control of Cuba as long as I live or as long as Fidel lives."

       The Cuban Revolution also stands tall as the only revolution in which audacious women were at the very forefront as prime guerrilla fighters. That includes the two warriors -- Haydee Santamaria and Celia Sanchez -- pictured above. As smart as Luciano, Lansky, Trafficante, and Batista supposedly were, they ignorantly and needlessly ignited the firestorm in half the Cuban population, the female half. Haydee, for example, was tied to a chair and forced to watch the torture-murders of her brother and fiance, and then their warm testicles and eyeballs were rubbed over her chest. Celia was transformed from an angelic doctor's daughter into a fierce fighter and leader after the legal rape-murder of a ten-year-old girl, Maria Ochoa, that she adored. Except for such atrocities, Batista would never have been overthrown. Dutifully study the faces of the two female guerrilla fighters above. Now you can understand the Cuban Revolution.

      Tete Puebla, now a General in the Cuban Army, had just become a teenager when the infamous Masferrer Tigers came to her village and burned alive some of her relatives and friends in locked gunny sacks and sheds. By the time she was in her mid-teens, Tete was a ferocious guerrilla fighter in the Sierra Maestra Mountains. The Batista-Lansky-Masferrer brutality had created a hard-to-handle female warrior.

       This past summer Linda Pressly [above], a top producer at the BBC in London, contacted me because she was doing a documentary on Celia Sanchez. We exchanged about ten emails and five London-to-Virginia phone calls. Linda told me she was going to Cuba to finish her Celia Sanchez investigation and asked me who I would suggest she talk to. I gave her several names, most notably General Tete Puebla.

      General Tete Puebla graciously consented to discuss her memories of Celia Sanchez with the BBC's Linda Pressly. To this day, General Puebla stands ready to fight the Batistianos, the Mafia, the Masferror Tigers, or any other threat to Revolutionary Cuba. My point is: The biggest mistake the U. S., the Batistianos, and the Mafia made back in the 1950s was not in angering a young lawyer named Fidel Castro. It was in outraging young Cuban females such as Celia Sanchez, Haydee Santamaria, and Tete Puebla. Fidel Castro's enormous legend is based on the fact he was smart enough to exploit and build on that outrage.

            The second biggest mistake the United States ever made concerning the Cuban Revolution was in permitting the fleeing Batistiano and Mafioso leaders, complete with planeloads and shiploads of ill-gotten money, to reconstitute the Batista dictatorship on U. S. soil. The above photo shows the Masferrer brothers flanking the pistol-toting Rafael Diaz-Balart at a political rally in Batista's Cuba in 1958. Beginning in January of 1959, all three of these men were among the first to form paramilitary units in South Florida that hit back viciously at Revolutionary Cuba from U. S. soil. The late Rafael Diaz-Balart, one of South Florida's richest men, passed along his anti-Castro zeal to his four sons -- one a internationally known broadcaster, another a well-off banker-investor, and two -- Lincoln and Mario -- as members of the U. S. Congress from their safe district in Miami. (Mirta Diaz-Balart, Rafael's sister, married Fidel Castro in 1948 and till this day visits Fidel and their son in Havana, where she has a home). In the unique case of the Cuban Revolution, the losers have mostly written the history of that historic event. Thus, for the most part, Americans believe to this day that the Batista supporters were Mother Teresa-like angels and Pope Benedict-like saints while the Castro supporters were greedy fiends. That, of course, is a distortion of both history and topicality. If you disagree with that, why not do what the BBC's Linda Pressly did? Linda flew to Cuba and talked with General Tete Puebla. Tete is a first-hand expert on angels, saints, and...fiends.

     Irish-American author T. J. English graphically described "How the Mob Owned Cuba...and Then Lost It to the Revolution" in his best-seller "Havana Nocturne." It is a worthwhile, beautifully written book about the darkness of pre-revolutionary Havana that most authors ignore and most Americans are unaware of.

      Ann Louise Bardach, in books such as "Cuba Confidential," skillfully and truthfully chronicled the Cuban Revolution, including its gigantic Mafia connotations. To not know Ms. Bardach's journalistic work is to not know the Cuban Revolution or Revolutionary Cuba. And most Americans do not know Ann Louise Bardach.

        Ann Louise Bardach -- in countless essays and articles in numerous well-known venues -- also has honestly presented, in depth, both sides of a two-sided story. That, of course, makes Ann Louise  Bardach somewhat unique within the realm of the usually distorted U.S.-Cuban cauldron.

       From the History Channel one can readily purchase "Godfathers of Havana." It is an excellent and gripping documentary that depicts the sheer brutality and startling thievery of the Batista dictatorship in Cuba in the 1950s, graphically explaining and showing why a revolution was both necessary and in its burgeoning infancy by 1953. It shows huge drug-loaded ships in Havana harbor and starving Cuban mothers trying to nurse infants. That dichotomy explains much of the bitter conflicts that followed.

       While the majority of Cuban peasant families were actually suffering from hunger and brutality back in the 1950s, as vividly depicted in the History Channel documentary Godfathers of Havana, Meyer Lansky's family [above] was one of the richest in North America, reportedly worth as much as $600 million in 1950s money. Such untaxed fortunes can be passed along to many generations.

          By the mid-1950s Latin American magazines were reporting that the top twenty-one officials in Cuba's Batista dictatorship each had in excess of $1 million in numbered Swiss bank accounts, with millions more sent to Miami and Union City banks or invested in various legal enterprises. As the rebels stormed from Santa Clara toward Havana, at least five planes and seven ships loaded with more loot were bolting for safer havens. Much of that money overwhelmed areas such as Miami and Union City on U. S. soil where the proud American democracy was more and more becoming susceptible to being purchased by wealthy special interests. Immoral, greedy ventures related to Cuba have greatly harmed the U. S. democracy.

      The above "Life Magazine" photo shows Meyer Lansky, accompanied by an elitist socialite, leaving the Rivieria Hotel with a satchel containing his one-night take from one of his famed casinos. The satchel contained $200,000 in cash. How do we know that? Well, at that point in Batista's Cuba he felt confident enough to show and to brag to "Life Magazine" about his Cuban piggy-bank. As illustrated in the aforementioned "The Godfather" movie, Lansky once told his friend Fulgencio Batista he already had plenty of money but he "wanted to own his own country." Batista obliged him. Their ownership of Cuba would never have been threatened --  not with their dictatorship supported by the strongest nation in the world -- except for their unnecessary brutality directed at the island's peasant women and children. That motivation provided Fidel Castro the wherewithal to overthrow Batista and to survive the Bay of Pigs attack as well as what the "Guinness Book of World Records" says is 638 assassination attempts. It also enabled him to enjoy a half-century [and counting] of revolutionary rule in Cuba and to produce a soon-to-be Fidel Castro legacy that will continue to spark the ire of the Batistianos, the Mafia, and American right-wingers. That money satchel in Lansky's hands helped create the need for a Fidel Castro in Cuba.

       It is interesting to note, I think, that Mafia kingpins took excellent care of their own families even as they wreaked havoc on others. The above photo shows Meyer Lansky and his daughter Sandi on a happy vacation in Israel. Sandi today is 74-years-old. She lives very quietly and quite decently in Florida.

       The Enrique Cirules book "The Mafia in Havana: A Caribbean Mob Story" is an excellent source to learn about how the Mafia impregnated and then birthed the historic Cuban Revolution.

      My abiding interest in the daunting nexus between the American Mafia and the Cuban Revolution is viewed through the prism of the U. S. democracy. Its impact is one reason I believe the Cuban Revolution and Revolutionary Cuba say a lot more about the United States than they say about Cuba. Cuba, after all, is a little island; the United States, after all, is the world economic and military superpower that once was also the most beloved nation in the world because it spread more goodwill around the globe than any other nation. Then came the 1950s when the United States began massively supporting ruthless right-wing dictatorships; in some cases {Congo, Chile, Iran, etc.} fledgling democracies were overthrown to install brutal U. S. - friendly dictatorships. The Cuban Revolution is unique because it is the only popular revolution to overthrow a U. S. - backed dictatorship, the only one to defeat an offensive U. S. military attack (the Bay of Pigs), the only one to survive in the midst of history's longest embargo ever employed by a powerful nation against a weak one, and the Cuban Revolution as well as Revolutionary Cuba uniquely constitute the only revolution and the only nation forced to confront the United States when the world superpower was aligned with the Mafia in its imperialist objectives. With all that being said, the biggest impact of the Cuban Revolution on the U. S. has been, since 1959, the reconstitution of Cuba's Batista-Mafia dictatorship on U. S. soil. Summary: It is self-evident that the United States support of the Batista-Mafia dictatorship in Cuba, exacerbated by the reconstitution of that overthrown dictatorship on American soil, has created a catastrophic cataclysm of misfortune and upheaval for the U. S. democracy.  

    The greatest weakness of the U. S. democracy, I believe, is embodied by the last two generations of Americans who clearly have not been patriotic enough, intelligent enough, or brave enough to ask questions...such as: Why did the U. S. free Lucky Luciano from Prison? Why did the U. S. align itself with the Mafia to support the Batista dictatorship in Cuba? Why did the U. S. government revive the totally de-horned Italian-Sicilian Mafia at the end of World War II? Why were leaders of the overthrown Batista-Mafia dictatorship allowed immediately (and it seems eternally) to reconstitute themselves on U. S. soil? Why, as superb Miami journalist Jim DeFede famously asked, does the U. S. denounce terrorism in all its forms except when terrorism is directed at innocent Cuban civilians? Etc., etc., etc.? In a future essay in this forum entitled "The Cuban Revolution and the United Fruit Company," I will endeavor to further answer those questions. In the meantime, I suggest you seek the answers yourself by, for example, Googling any of the aforementioned names or phrases mentioned herein and then forming your own opinions. But even if such investigative work inspires you to form your own opinions, the Mafia hopes you will continue to..."ask no questions." For example, don't ask: "Since the 1950s Cuba's mortal enemy has been the Mafia and Fidel Castro's mortal enemy has been the Mafia. And when it comes to Cuba, the Mafia's best friend has been the U. S. government. Now...is there something wrong with that picture that, for over half a century, remains the primary portrait of the Cuban Revolution in America?????" "HEY! NO QUESTIONS, REMEMBER?" "Uhhhh, sorry."

And don't forget...Cardinals and other wild birds need help with seeds in these cold winter months.

**************

Cuban Leader Astounded By Florida Corruption

Josefina Vidal: "A stronger democracy would not condone it"
Francisco Alvarado (Miami journalist): "Where democracy goes to die"

      Josefina Vidal, Cuba's Minister of North American Affairs and Fidel Castro's choice as the post-Castro leader of Cuba, often caresses her brow and glances off into the distance when she is asked a question that she was not expecting or, if truth be known, she did not want to answer so, uh, she would not offend anyone. 

            Such was the case recently when she was hit with this question: "You have lived in the United States of America, you have made major speeches in English at the Kennedy Library in Boston and elsewhere, Fidel Castro reportedly once told his son Alexander that you can walk on water, and DeWayne Wickham, the top columnist at USA Today, seems to think you are Cuba's firewall against a return of U. S. dominance on the island." [With that preface, Josefina Vidal began gently shaking her head as if in modest embarrassment. But the Jamaican reporter judiciously continued.] "With all that in mind, what do you consider the biggest hurdle blocking the normalization of U. S. - Cuban relations?"

        Unflustered as always, Josefina Vidal then answered the question this way: "The biggest obstacle to normal relations between the United States and Cuba, in my estimation, is the right-wing corruption that permeates the American democracy, rendering it, in many ways, worse than your run-of-the-mill Banana Republic. Having lived in the United States, as you pointed out, and having to monitor the United States daily in my capacity as Minister of North American Affairs, it forever shocks me that the American people, once blessed with the world's greatest democracy and arguably the greatest government in history, in recent generations have not exhibited the courage or the intelligence necessary to defend it. The cancerous condition began in the 1950s when the United States aligned with the Mafia to support the Batista dictatorship in Cuba while at the same time supporting brutal dictatorships in the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, the Congo, Iran...all around the world, really. The triumph of the Cuban Revolution in 1959 began changing that imperialist domination and encouraged others, such as a young Dilma Rousseff in Brazil, to fight against military dictatorships supported by foreigners, eventually leading to people like Dilma Rousseff becoming the primary democratically elected leaders in the Americas. If nothing else, as Dilma Rousseff points out today, the Cuban Revolution over-came the right-wing American dictator-lovers to lay the groundwork for the waves of democracy that swept over Latin America beginning in the 1970s and 1980s, and perhaps even influencing the Middle East revolutions we now see. People have discussed a democratic wave in Cuba and, if the majority on the island want that, then it will happen. But the majority on the island remember the sheer brutality of United States-supported Batista-Mafia rule in Cuba. The majority on the island remember such atrocities as the Bay of Pigs attack and terrorism such as befell Cubana Flight 455. The majority on the island are not anxious for a return of the Batista and Mafia types supported by the neighboring superpower. Americans are told there was no terrorist bombing of Cubana Flight 455, for example. Americans are not told that, for example, Fidel Castro did not declare himself a Socialist until after the Bay of Pigs attack when he had to gauge the best means of defending sovereignty on the island. So, all that factors into answering your question. But, to me, the biggest obstacle to normalizing Cuban-American relations is two-fold: (1) the U. S. democracy embracing the Batista-Mafia dictatorship; and (2) the U. S. democracy allowing that dictatorship to flee to and take over U. S. soil -- namely, Miami and Union City -- in an attempt once again to dictate things in Cuba. Miami and Union City, to this day, elect people they send to Washington enabling their local corruption to spread nationwide and region-wide. There is no democracy nor is there any dictatorship in the world that would not be embarrassed by the political corruption that goes on daily in Florida. It is that corruption that stands in the way of normalizing relations between the United States and Cuba. Like other so-called 'U.S.-friendly' small nations, Cuba would love to receive billions of dollars each year in U. S. aide and then have hundreds of Wal-Marts on the island to buy things for ourselves and our children. And if we sold out to be a 'U.S.-friendly' nation, we would not have to endure the embargo that restricts our own economic prowess. We all know that. But we are not willing to give up our sovereignty to qualify for such ill-gotten, sell-out money. Cuba is David. The U. S. is Goliath. Goliath has been trying to starve us or kill us since the 1950s with the whole world watching. They see we are suffering, but still standing. And standing proud, I should add." 

(Josefina Vidal; Dec. 2, 2012)

        Fidel Castro is now 86-years-old and quite ill but in his prime [above] he was famous for six-hour, extemporaneous speeches under the boiling sun in front of millions. Since then, Josefina Vidal has been the most prominent Cuban in candidly stating Cuba's most stringent anti-American positions.

      For example, at the recent news conference above Josefina Vidal called the U. S. "a liar" in regards to its posturing concerning Cuba's imprisonment of American Alan Gross. But before she speaks, Ms. Vidal meticulously studies the facts and then presents them in a vigorous and convincing prosecutable manner.

     That's why the USA Today's top columnist DeWayne Wickham [above] and many others consider Josefina Vidal the prime Cuban firewall against a return of foreign dominance of the island.

       Franciso Alvarado [above] has emerged as the top investigative journalist in Miami. His recent revelations replicate Josefina Vidal's impressions of the political corruption that permeates Florida and, via elected officials sent to Washington, spreads nationwide. Alvarado writes for The Miami New Times [www.miaminewtimes.com]. In his Dec. 13-2012 article Alvarado began with these words: "You'd think that after Demetrio Perez Jr. pleaded guilty in 2002 to defrauding a trio of frail elderly tenants in his low-income Little Havana apartments, Miami-Dade politicians would steer clear of the felonious former school board member. But then they couldn't grease up to Perez and his deep pockets whenever an election rolls around. How else can you explain Miami-Dade County Commissioner Bruno Barreiro and seven of his colleagues voting unanimously and without discussion last week to issue $110 million in municipal bonds to help Perez's private charter school business? Perez's scheme to scam old ladies in his low-income apartments wasn't his only scandal. Shortly after he pleaded guilty, a Miami Herald investigation alleged he also pocketed more than $1 million in rent payments from public school funds that were meant to benefit a program for at-risk children. So why are commissioners still supporting this guy? Well, in part because his school's treasure trove lets him shower campaign donations. Perez's biggest beneficiary was -- surprise! -- Barreiro."

       On Oct. 11, 2012, Francisco Alvarado's article was entitled "Florida Republicans' Ballot Fraud 2012" and also replicated Josefina Vidal's opinion of Florida's corruption. Alvarado, in meticulous detail, explained how Florida seems exempt from political criticism despite its incredible tendency in regards to election fraud. In this article, Alvarado simply said that Miami-Dade is "where democracy goes to die." Alvarado concentrated on present-day fraud but, of course, mentioned "George W. Bush's earth-shaking 2000 win" to saliently reference how fraud in Florida affects the entire nation, including who occupies the White House and/or the U. S. Congress. In the Oct. 11-2012 article Alvarado concluded: "The systematic fraud is mostly a one-sided game...scores of local Republicans have been tied to boleteros, including Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez, property appraiser-elect Carlos Lopez-Cantera, and state Reps. Manny Diaz Jr., Eddy Gonzalez, and Jose Oliva." As Miami journalist Francisco Alvarado and Cuba's Josefina Vidal suggest, the political corruption in Florida is of little concern to the last two generations of Americans who clearly are not the democracy-lovers that dominated America from 1776 through World War II. After Alvarado wrote that Miami-Dade "is where democracy goes to die," his very next sentence was: "It's not difficult to understand why the problem is so odious. For more than two decades, Tallahassee lawmakers have worked overtime to ensure..." Tallahassee is the capital of Florida and Alvarado is a top Miami journalist.

     Josefina Vidal has a lot on her plate in Cuba.  Managing a firewall, you know, can be all-consuming. But she graciously paused while leaving a recent news conference to offer her opinion about the biggest obstacle confronting Cuba, which to her is: "The retrenchment of the Batista-Mafia dictatorship in nearby Florida. Yes, a stronger democracy would not condone it. So, Cuba pays a price for the weakness of the United States democracy. Of course, Cuba's proximity to the United States has been the island's most glaring historical problem."

      People seriously interested in understanding the chasm that separates Cuba from America seek the views of Josefina Vidal even if it means a flight to Havana. In the above photo, Elliot Gerson -- a top executive with the Aspen Institute -- is displaying a serious interest in understanding the mammoth divide separating Cuba and the U. S. That's why he spent considerable time [above] with Ms. Vidal when he led a large contingent of Aspen Institute scholars to Havana recently. The Aspen Institute's Azalea Millan then wrote knowingly about the "multifaceted perspective" surrounding the U. S. - Cuban diaspora. Yes, it is multifaceted. That's why democracy-lovers listen to Josefina Vidal when she says that the U. S. democracy was hurt when it supported the Batista-Mafia dictatorship in Cuba and it continues to be hurt by supporting the "retrenched Batista-Mafia dictatorship on American soil." From her keen perspective in Havana, Josefina Vidal notices how politicians elected in Miami and Union City go to Washington where their monolithic anti-Cuban venom then adversely affects all of America, not just Cuba. In other words, when Vidal's side of the equation is ignored, Americans -- even in the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave -- are being deprived of the democracy that was bequeathed to them by far braver freedom-lovers from 1776 till the 1950s. "Yes, a stronger democracy would not condone it." Josefina Vidal made that quote in Havana; the Miami journalist Francisco Alvarado, in repetitive articles, has revealed what a stronger democracy would not condone.

       Someone -- I forget whom, exactly -- suggested that the six fellows above would surely add more color and less corruption to the U. S. Congress than the current six congressional members who hail from Miami and Union City. Josefina Vidal and Francisco Alvarado would probably agree with such simplistic deductive reasoning. I think the six fellows above would greatly improve the U. S. Congress, which has a 7% approval rating although, of course, it is almost impossible to boot out incumbents because of the reasons out-lined by journalist Francisco Alvarado. In the above photo, the orange, yellow, and green birds appear to be moderate Democrats. The red, blue, and purple birds look like conservative Republicans. As far as I can detect, there is neither a left-winger nor a right-winger in the bunch and corrupt money will not corrupt their politics. Yes, sir. Beautiful, incorruptible democracy-lovers are just what the U. S. Congress needs. That deductive reasoning reminds me of the lead article today at www.nationalmemo.com. It said: "According to Public Policy Polling's latest Kentucky survey, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is now the least popular senator in America. The poll also finds that Ashley Judd would be a strong favorite to win the Democratic nomination if she chooses to challenge McConnell." The Huffington Post today had this headline: "Ashley Judd Runs 4 Points Behind Mitch McConnell in Kentucky Senate Poll." Those two articles provide a glimmer of hope for democracy-lovers. Permit me to explain why that is so.

      The 70-year-old Senator Mitch McConnell is the quintessential U. S. congressman -- too old, too male, too right-wing, and two entrenched. A prime reason the U. S. Congress has about a 7% approval rating in a Democracy, McConnell is despised nationwide but his decades-long tenure in the Senate has been typically greased by local political favors along with massive bundles of money. Such incumbency shames the U. S. democracy and would surely shame its Founding Fathers, including my fellow Virginians James Madison, James Monroe, Thomas Jefferson, and George Washington.

      The actress Ashley Judd, should she indeed unseat Mitch McConnell in the 2014 election, would immediately strengthen the U. S. Senate but also drastically upgrade the U. S. democracy.

     Ashley Judd would help beautify and rectify the U. S. Senate. She is far more than an accomplished actress. Born in Los Angeles 44 years ago, Ms. Judd is an Honors graduate at both the University of Kentucky and Harvard University.  A passionate Kentucky Wildcats basketball fan, she is married to Dario Franchitti, the Scot who is a 3-time Indy 500 winner. She is also a philanthropist and a humanitarian who has traveled the globe to help others, especially to Africa in her tireless fight against AIDS. Her half-sister Wynonna, the renowned singer, struck it rich first and then gave Ashley a home and some land in Williamson County, Tennessee. Ashley still lives in that home and she has given much of her own money, and Franchitti's, to those less fortunate than her. She is a political activist who knows politics and she has more loving and honorable ties to Kentucky than Mitch McConnell, who was born in Alabama. Right-wing war-mongers -- McConnell, Graham, McCain, etc. -- have been entrenched in the lowly regarded U. S. Senate for decades. Women like Ashley Judd prefer to fight AIDS and other calamities, not other countries. She has not yet announced any plans for the U. S. Senate but many are hoping she will unseat McConnell. And you know what?  "U. S. Senator Ashley Judd" has a nice, refreshing ring to it. A politician not bought and paid for? Nice, refreshing, and inscrutably beautiful. And not impossible. Even if it sinks below 7% approval, the U. S. democracy can be resurrected. And it is richly deserving of that long overdue honor.  

Absolutely! These six birds and Ashley Judd could start a much-needed senatorial resurrection! 

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