A Big Week Ahead for Cuba

At the Summit of the Americas!!
{Monday, April 9th, 2018}

First two photos courtesy of: Roberto Saurez.

   The photo above shows a large and enthusiastic contingent of Cubans arriving yesterday {Sunday, April 8th, 2018} in Lima, Peru. They are there for this week's Summit of the Americas conferences. Cuba has often dismissed the Summit of the Americas for being overly dominated by the United States.

    With their Cuban Airlines plane in the background, the Cubans were still enthused about representing their island. The Summit of the Americas in Lima this week will also have a strong contingent from the anti-Cuban USA Trump administration, with Presidents Castro and Trump both invited.

     This 8th Summit of the Americas in Lima, Peru will have meetings starting today -- Monday, April 9th, 2018 -- but the main sessions will take place Friday & Saturday, April 13th & 14th. Twenty Presidents have confirmed their participation. A major headline Sunday in the Miami Herald had this title: "A Trump-Castro Encounter May Steal the Show at the Summit of the Americas." The article was written by the Miami Herald's long-established Counter Revolutionary Andres Oppenheimer, so understand it's anti-Cuba from start to finish.

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Cuba-US: What Might Have Been

{Perhaps} The End of the World!!
{Monday, April 9th, 2018}

    The map above is a vivid reminder that contentious U.S.-Cuban relations in October of 1962 could have ended the world as we knew it then and as we know it now. This map is now being put up for sale by a Boston-based company. Why? It was authenticated by the U. S. Secretary of Defense in 1962, Robert McNamara, that this is the map President John Kennedy "pored over" as his top Generals were unanimously urging him to make a devastating nuclear attack on Cuba during the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis. That event to this day remains the closest the world has come to a nuclear holocaust. After painstakingly studying this map, President Kennedy bravely and sanely decided not to attack Cuba but instead worked out a much-needed diplomatic solution with the Soviet Union to remove that nation's nuclear missiles from Cuba. At the time...like today with the USA and Russia...in 1962 both the U. S. and the Soviet Union each had enough nuclear weapons to destroy the entire world.

      The incredibly "secret" but historically significant data above -- dated "October 27, 1962" -- was also carefully studied by President Kennedy as later confirmed by his Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara. Many of the right-wing holdovers from the Eisenhower administration were heatedly urging Kennedy on Oct. 27-1962 to annihilate Cuba with a nuclear attack but the more decent and far-more-intelligent Kennedy refused because he knew the Soviet Union could and would retaliate.

     On Saturday, Oct. 27th, 1962 -- while five top Generals were begging President Kennedy to make a nuclear strike on Cuba, word reached the White House in Washington that a U-2 Spy Plane, supposedly flying over Cuba much too high to be shot down, was in fact shot down, killing the U. S. pilot from Alabama. Still, President Kennedy defied his Generals and refused to engage the Soviet Union in a nuclear war.

  U. S. U-2 Spy plane shot down in Cuba.

     The U-2 pilot killed on Cuban soil on October 27, 1962 was Air Force Major Rudy Anderson from Alabama. The incident caused the top U. S. Generals, led by Curtis LeMay and Lyman Lemnitzer, to go ballistic in berating President Kennedy to launch an all-out nuclear attack on Cuba. The world survived because Kennedy refused.

Cuban Missile Crisis historic facts.

More Cuban Missile Crisis facts.

     The photo above shows four top U. S. generals, in the Oval Office at the White House, begging President John Kennedy to attack Cuba with America's nuclear missiles. The general closest to Kennedy above is Curtis LeMay. In this first week of April, 2018, CNN has aired a 4-part series entitled: "American Dynasties: The Kennedys." The CNN documentary relating to the Cuban Missile Crisis includes chilling audio recordings of LeMay, the World War II hero, brow-beating President Kennedy in an attempt to goad him into attacking Cuba with nuclear weapons.

     This photo shows President John Kennedy with General Curtis LeMay ominously at Kennedy's left shoulder. If the Democrat Kennedy had not bravely and brilliantly resisted right-wingers that his presidency inherited in 1960 from the Republican Eisenhower administration, the whole world may have been devastated during the Cuban Missile Crisis in October of 1962. In January of 1960 Kennedy had inherited the firm plans for the April-1961 Bay of Pigs military attack on Cuba; Kennedy had also inherited massive CIA-Cuban exile-Mafia plans to assassinate Fidel Castro; and Kennedy had also inherited Operation Northwoods, which was a unanimous plan concocted by General Lyman Lemnitzer and his entire Joint Chiefs of Staff to murder innocent Americans and create havoc on U. S. streets and blame it on Cuba so as to create a pretext for an all-out military attack on Cuba. President Kennedy, except for Operation Northwoods, initially carried through on such diabolical plans he inherited from Eisenhower right-wing thugs, many of whom had, back in 1952, teamed the U. S. democracy with the Mafia to support the brutal, thieving Batista dictatorship in Cuba, an American tactic that spawned the Cuban Revolution. But by October of 1962, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, the young President Kennedy believed the powerful right-wing thugs were more anti-American than Revolutionary Cuba. FAMOUSLY, as confirmed by renowned Kennedy aides Arthur Schlesinger Jr. and Pierre Salinger, an exasperated President Kennedy one day in the White House screamed, "If I could I would blow the CIA to smithereens!!" But shortly, just as he was emerging as perhaps America's greatest President, John Kennedy was murdered on November 22, 1963, in Dallas, Texas. The week before leaving for Dallas President Kennedy had told his top aides, including Schlesinger and Salinger, that his "top priority" upon returning from Dallas would be "to normalize relations with Cuba." But he returned in a casket.

      Into the last seconds of his life in Dallas on Nov. 22-1963 John Kennedy, despite the right-wing thugs he had inherited, was emerging as a truly great U. S. President and world leader, one who had just decided to normalize relations with Cuba. Such new-found greatness, however, earned him some powerful and deadly enemies.

      And now today in APRIL OF 2018 the above map going on sale in Boston confirms the greatness of President John Kennedy in October of 1962. His generals presented the map to him to show the prime areas in Cuba they were going to attack with their nuclear weapons. The only man that prevented that from happening...and thus prevented the Soviet Union's nuclear response...was President Kennedy. So, this map is historically important because it shows how President Kennedy perhaps saved the world from annihilation. He's gotten credit for that, but not enough credit. By the same token, the right-wing thugs he inherited from the Eisenhower administration have never received the condemnation they so rightly deserve.

      And that October-1962 map that is now on sale in Boston...along with siccing the Mafia on Cuba in 1952 and other such egregious acts...is precisely why the Cuban Revolution from 1952 till 1959 and to this very day says a helluva lot more about the superpower United States than it says about the island of Cuba. And what it says is this: The U. S. needs a great President in 2018 to combat militant war-mongers.

      In April of 2018 Americans, I believe, should understand the meaning of the above photo-montage. It shows President Donald Trump flanked by John Bolton on the left and Mike Pompeo on the right. In recent days Trump has appointed Bolton as his top National Security Adviser and Pompeo as his omnipotent Secretary of State. Both Bolton and Pompeo are renowned right-wing thugs who have advocated overthrowing Revolutionary Cuba, among other foreign objectives. Donald Trump is no John Kennedy. And that's an American crisis confirmed by Bolton and Pompeo.

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Cuba Welcomes Foreign Journalists

To Counter Anti-Cuba Propaganda!

      One of the very best broadcast journalists in Miami, Hatzel Vela, is now stationed in Havana and makes regular reports from Cuba for WPLG Channel 10, the ABC Network's affiliate in Miami. Like great BBC & Reuters journalists stationed in Cuba, Hatzel Vela faces no restrictions from the Cuban government regarding what he reports back to Miami on that nearby American city's best television newscasts.

     Whether reporting back to Miami from Havana or elsewhere around Cuba, Hatzel Vela is free to say whatever he chooses. His latest report  -- April 5th, 2018 -- on Miami's ABC Channel 10 was entitled: "Castro Loyalist Prepares to Make History in Cuba." That referenced the historic change in Cuba later this month, on April 19th, when Miguel Diaz-Canel -- a non-Castro and a non-Revolutionary -- takes over as Cuba's President. Vela's fair reporting on the important topic mentioned the fact that U. S. President Donald Trump has recently added Counter Revolutionary zealots John Bolton and Mike Pompeo as key and very militant anti-Cuban advisers and officials.

     America's top Latin American correspondents -- such as Leyla Santiago of CNN -- can fly into and out of Cuba anytime they choose and report on anything in Cuba.

         SO NO WONDER, frankly, that Cuba's own Superstar broadcast journalist and anchor -- Cristina Escobar -- has made headlines, both in Spanish & English and on both Cuban & U. S. soil, with headline-making quotations such as:

*****"Cuban journalists have more freedom to tell the truth about the U. S. than U. S. journalists have to tell the truth about Cuba."

*****"Cuba's fate is up to Cubans on the island, not Cubans in Miami and Washington."

      This is Cristina Escobar anchoring a newscast in Cuba, which actually has excellent journalism featuring many well-educated and talented journalists. Many non-Cuban impartial observers consider her the best all-around television periodista {journalist} in the Western Hemisphere. As Cuba's Superstar news anchor, reporter, and interviewer, she is practically nonpareil. I'm a retired USA television anchor and I consider Cristina Escobar the best all-around television journalist I've ever seen. She is also one of the most dedicated.

     As a matter of fact, it seems that former U. S. President Barack Obama and NBC News' long-time Chief Foreign Correspondent Andrea Mitchell agree with me regarding Cristina Escobar being the best broadcast journalist, or at least one of the very best, in the Western Hemisphere. That's why, during the Obama presidency, Cristina made history -- as shown above -- by being the only Cuban journalist to ask questions at a White House news conference. And she dominated the session by asking 4 pertinent questions plus two timely follow-ups. In Cuba, the brilliant Cristina anchors a major newscast in Spanish AND a regional newscast in English. She is so well respected in the U. S. that she has spoken at three American universities and been well received in major cities from Washington-D.C. to California. However, like Nelson Mandela she was treated rudely in Miami.

     In Miami, apparently because she is not about to defect, Cristina Escobar was rudely called "a Castro spy." Note her expression spawned by the words "con espia Castrista", which means "with Castro's female spy." And note in the photo on the right the red arrow pointed at Cristina as she tried to have a quiet, friendly meal at a Miami restaurant. Such typical Miami tactics, so typical since 1959, are perhaps more America's problem than Cuba's since 1959. Cristina Escobar, Cuba's Superstar broadcast journalist, is treated rudely in Miami because there is no chance she will defect. On the other hand, Miami's broadcast journalist, Hatzel Vela stationed in Havana, is treated well. Americans should not ignore that dichotomy.

      Meanwhile, back on her home turf in Cuba, Cristina Escobar remains the best all-around broadcast journalist that this old retired USA broadcast journalist has ever seen. The versatile Cristina's nonpareil skills as an anchor, reporter, writer, and interviewer -- along with her sheer dedication to honest journalism -- sets her apart in her very honorable profession.

   As an anchor, interviewer, and reporter, Cristina Escobar personifies the very best in broadcast journalism. She doesn't rest on her laurels as a star studio anchor; she readily goes out on the streets and byways of Cuba to cover important events. In this photo, beyond her studio desk, Cristina is shown covering a recent impromptu news conference in which Cuba's Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez was being quizzed about the island's recent municipal elections held at some 24,000 polling places. Cristina takes tremendous pride in journalism and she is not adverse to criticizing the government if she thinks criticism is warranted. Needless to say, Cristina is one of the most beloved and respected young adults on the island, and the island's fate in transitioning to a new President and in the Age of Trump rests largely on the young adult generation of Cubans IN CUBA.

      Very studious, Cristina Escobar is often interviewed in English or Spanish by international networks because of her expertise in journalism AND IN the always contentious U.S.-Cuba relations. Her thesis at the University of Havana eerily predicted the exact effect that President Obama would have on Cuba.

      The first time I saw the ultra-talented Cristina Escobar anchor a newscast on Cuban television, I thought she was something special and a credit to broadcast journalism. And I still do.

Happily married on her island, Cristina Escobar!

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Cuba's Historic April-2018 Transition

To A Non-Castro Leader!!

      In a few days -- on April 19th, 2018 -- the 86-year-old Raul Castro will retire as Cuba's President and be replaced by mild-mannered 57-year-old Miguel Diaz-Canel.

   The best article this week related to the upcoming monumental change in Cuba is written, not surprisingly, by William LeoGrande. A renowned Cuban expert, Dean LeoGrande is the Professor of Government at American University and he has been a prolific writer & author on Cuba for the past four decades. His article this week is entitled: "Cuba's New President: What to Expect?" The sub-title is: "For the First Time in Six Decades His Last Name Will Not be Castro." The article includes this sentence: "This is a momentous occasion -- one of the most important I've seen in 40 years of studying and writing on Cuba." Dean LeoGrande explains that Miguel Diaz-Canel will face two monumental challenges: {1} "growing Cuba's economy" and {2} "contending with the United States." And that's terrific insight.

    In the United States for 6 decades the U. S. government and the mainstream U. S. media have allowed only Counter Revolutionary extremists in Miami and in the United States Congress to dictate America's Cuban narrative and much of America's Cuban policies, which have centered around revenge against the Cuban Revolution and continuous, unsavory, and fervent attempts to regain control of the nearby, pugnacious island. Thus, Americans are usually devoid of unbiased data regarding Cuba, a topic that resulted in a 191-to-0 condemnation of the United States in the United Nations, a denunciation that was approved by then President Barack Obama. But, as William LeoGrande vividly explains in his insightful article this week, this month's voluminous change in Cuba's leadership should finally, at the very least, be treated even in the United States with at least modicums of intelligence and honesty.

 Another renowned award-winning journalist, Mimi Whitefield at the Miami Herald, also has a well-written, knowledgeable, well-researched, and unbiased article this week on Cuba's impending presidential transition later this month. Ms. Whitefield's article is entitled: "Cuba Desperately Needs to Reform Currency System. But Timing Couldn't be Worse." She agrees with William LeoGrande that Cuba's first non-Castro President since 1959, Miguel Diaz-Balart, will be tasked with improving Cuba's economy and doing so even though the friendly Obama administration in Washington has been replaced by yet another Counter Revolutionary Republican assault led by President Donald Trump. Mimi Whitefield's update is both fair and solidly informative.

     And by the way, Jon Lee Anderson for the past two decades has been one of the greatest writers-authors regarding Cuba, Latin America, and other important topics. That's why, at least among fellow journalists, the caricature above readily distinguishes Jon Lee Anderson from everyone else. His latest essay in The New Yorker emphatically explains why it is not only High Time but Long Past Time for the United States to finally attach some decency and sanity to its Cuban policies.

      This photo shows the real Jon Lee Anderson, a heralded staff writer for The New Yorker since 1988. His latest article in that esteemed publication is devoted to the changes in  Cuba. It is one that should be read by anyone interested in Cuba and its relations with the USA. It is entitled: "As Castro Prepares to Leave Office, Trump's Cuba Policy Is A Road to Nowhere." Somehow Revolutionary Cuba has survived for six decades and IF it can survive Trump, Jon Lee Anderson's thoughts are revealing.

Photo courtesy: Calvin Abe/Los Angeles Times.

     Meanwhile, Cubans on the island -- like the man driving the blue 1950s vintage convertible above -- will try to survive man-made or natural hurricanes that will target the coveted island.

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USA Warmongers Target Cuba

Pushing Trump's War Capabilities!!
{Thursday, April 5th, 2018}

Photo courtesy: Jose A. Iglesias/Nuevo Herald.

     The photo above highlighted a big article this week -- April 2nd, 2018 -- in the Miami Herald entitled: "Travel to Cuba Is Getting Popular Again -- Just in Time For a Slew of New Havana Flights." The article referenced a recent and very surprising decision by the U. S. Department of Transportation to award new U.S-to-Havana flights to five major airlines from airports in Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Boston, Houston, etc. However, each time there is a positive in U.S.-Cuban relations, there is sure to follow counter-actions by a handful of rich and powerful Counter Revolutionary extremists. Another major article this week, April 2nd, is an example.

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Photo courtesy: Alexandre Meneghini/Reuters.

     The photo above is innocent enough. It shows a young Cuban wearing a USA T-shirt, a common sight in Cuba after former U. S. President Obama tried so hard to normalize relations with Cuba. That process would still be ongoing except for the fact that another Republican administration, Trump's, has once again aligned the U. S. government with the unending 6-decades-old attempt by Miami-based remnants of the Batista-Mafia dictatorship to, at long last, recapture the nearby island. The benign photo above was used to illustrate a major and extremely dark, war-mongering article published yesterday by a leading USA warmonger determined, now that Obama has been replaced by the Donald Trump presidency, to help the elderly Bay-of-Pigs Batistianos regain control of Cuba before the last of them die of old age in Miami. In a bitter article Tuesday that originated from the Council on Foreign Relations, Elliott Abrams, a right-wing disciple from the Bush dynasty, promoted war with Cuba using this title: "Time to Tighten the Screws on Cuba?" 

     The aforementioned article was written this week -- April 2nd, 2018 -- by famed warmonger Elliott Abrams in which he laid out a case for U. S. Commander-in-Chief Donald Trump to recapture Cuba for the Batistianos. Now 70-years-old and still warmongering, Abrams is yet another product of Harvard University, Harvard Law School, and the extreme {not the beloved moderate} Jewish lobby. He represents a perhaps fatal weakness in the incomparable Democracy created by America's Founding Fathers. That flaw is this: Powerful thugs within the bowels of the U. S. democracy can influence even criminal government policies against foreign countries and easily cover it up via so-called CLASSIFIED -- or hidden -- information. Or, AS IN THE CASE Of ELLIOTT ABRAMS, ACTUALLY BE CONVICTED OF SUCH CRIMINAL ACTS AND THEN BE PARDONED BY A CONSPIRATORIAL REPUBLICAN PRESIDENT. After such a judicious pardon, of course, such reprieves, as in the case of Elliott Abrams, can create high-paid executives at lobbying "Think Tanks" in Washington.

     And so, as an affront to Democracy, the pardoned Elliott Abrams, still a vicious warmonger, is today at age 70 a high-powered "Senior Fellow" at the high-powered "Council on Foreign Relations" propaganda Think Tank in Washington.

      As in previous War-Mongering Republican administrations, war-mongerers like ELLIOTT ABRAMS come out of virtual anonymity when another Republican, this time Trump, occupies the White House in America's flawed two-party system. {I was a lifelong Republican until cured by the war-mongering antics of the Bush dynasty}. So, aligned with Trump, an Elliott Abrams can emerge from beneath the wood-work and openly revert back to his war-mongering DNA characteristics, fully using the power of his Think Tank as well as the acquiescence of the milquetoast U. S. media.

     While he dis-honored America with his war-mongering during the Iran-Contra Scandal as well as well-documented Bush-related foreign operations in countries like Nicaragua and El Salvador, Elliott Abrams gets resurrected by the Trump presidency after first, of course, getting the prerequisite pardon from President George H. W. Bush who also issued many other pardons including one that made famed Cuban-American terrorist Orlando Bosch a lifetime heralded citizen of Miami. And so, with that backdrop, perhaps you can understand why Elliott Abrams this -- April 2nd, 2018 -- was openly making the case for the Trump administration to recapture Cuba -- YOU KNOW...FOR DEMOCRACY AND NOT JUST TO RETURN THE BATISTIANOS AND THE MAFIOSI TO THE NEARBY ISLAND.

     Once as a young-adult my favorite conservative two-term President, Ronald Reagan allowed powerful Counter-Cuban Revolutionary elements high-up in his administration, like Vice President George H. W. Bush, to dictate America's vile Cuban policy even while the Reagan presidency was mired down with huge scandals such as the S & L thefts, the Iran-Contra Affair, and the scurrilous Stock Market Crash.

     But I believe the George H. W. Bush anointing of future billionaire Jorge Mas Canosa, Miami's most vehement Cuban-American Counter-Revolutionary, as essentially America's Cuban dictator best defines why the U. S. Cuban policy got condemned 191-to-0 in the UN in 2016, the last year of the decent Obama presidency.

     And then, one of President Trump's first acts in 2017 was to annoint Senator Marco Rubio, another vicious Miami Counter Revolutionary, as essentially America's new Cuban dictator. Many find this anointment interesting because, back during the Republican presidential race in 2016, presidential-candidate Trump had demeaned Rubio by repeatedly calling him "Little Marco." Now "Little Marco" is a Big Man dictating many of America's most hurtful and controversial Cuban policies.

     This week as President Trump takes war-mongering Cuban advice from the Bush-pardoned war-mongering Elliott Abrams, the Bush-era war-mongering John Bolton is set to become next week, on April 9th, 2018, President Trump's top National Security Adviser. Bolton has long advocated the overthrow of Revolutionary Cuba, once claiming Cuba possessed Weapons of Mass Destruction as a pretext. The extreme Dangers of having a collection of well-known war-mongers like Bolton and Abrams as top advisers to President Trump should indeed scare Cubans but it should also scare Americans and many other citizens of the world.

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