Celia Sanchez's Saddest Days

As She Fueled The Revolution
Reposted on Tuesday 25th, 2021 from June-2015 Posting:

          This photo {Courtesy of AFP/Yamil Lage/Getty Images} shows Cuban girls in Havana this week enjoying their mobile devices. Cuba is opening 35 WI-FI stations in its bid to improve Internet accessibility on the island. In June of 2015 there remain off the island some well-to-do, powerful, self-serving and greedy people who benefit, at least vindictively, from hurting innocent Cubans such as the six girls depicted here. In the past six decades, in my opinion, the person who has done the most to benefit these girls is...Celia Sanchez. That's a conclusion I didn't reach lightly. Permit me to explain.

       September 17, 1958, should have been a happy day for Celia Sanchez because the guerrilla fighter-revolutionary leader most responsible for ending the Batista-Mafia dictatorship in Cuba had known since the decisive Battle of Jigue two months earlier that the Cuban Revolution would triumph. But that day Celia learned that two of her dearest friends -- Clodomira Acosta and Lidia Doce {right} -- had been captured and tortured to death by Batista's dreaded enforcer, Colonel Estevan Ventura Nova. Celia wept the rest of that day and throughout the night after losing her dear friends Clodomira and Lidia, two prominent losses in the bloody female-powered revolution.

        But to put one of Celia Sanchez's saddest days into a proper perspective, one must also comprehend her happiest days, such as the one above -- May 14, 1954. She and her father, Dr. Manuel Sanchez Silveira, had just hiked to one of their favorite spots, known as Mora Cove, high above the city of Pilon in eastern Cuba. Celia -- who was born on May 9, 1920, in the little Cuban town of Media Luna ("Half Moon") -- had just turned 34-years-old. Her father had asked her what he could do to make her birthday "happy." She replied: "I want for you and I, one more time, to spend a day hiking to Mora Cove." And so they did. They had hiked there and camped many times before. But Celia knew, based on her father's age and on her increasingly demanding role in the anti-Batista underground, that the May 14-1954 trek to Mora Cove would be their last one. The above photo at Mora Cove also represented the last full day Celia spent with her beloved father who had encouraged her dangerous anti-Batista activities as underground recruiter and guerrilla fighter.

       As the daughter of a rich doctor...Manuel owned three farms and had been head of the Cuban Medical Association...Celia lavished her time and money on eastern Cuba's peasant children. By 1953, shortly after the Batista-Mafia dictatorship had regained firm control of Cuba for a second time, Celia began to hear that rural peasant girls were being kidnapped and used to lure rich pedophiles to Mafia-run hotel-casinos. That revelation had induced Celia to join the anti-Batista urban underground, at least as a part-time tangential operative, in the nearby cities of Manzanilla, Holguin, Baracoa, Bayamo, and Santiago de Cuba.

      The kidnapping and rape-murder of a ten-year-old peasant girl named Maria Ochoa not only elevated Celia Sanchez into a full-time, do-or-die urban underground participant but also set her on the path to becoming the prime reason the U.S.-backed Batista-Mafia dictatorship was overthrown on the island of Cuba on January 1, 1959. In the year 2015 Americans generally understand the significance of January 1, 1959 when it comes to Cuban-U.S. history but few Americans comprehend the significance or nexus of Celia Sanchez {and little Maria Ochoa} to Cuban-U.S. history or to Cuban-U.S. topicality. Americans are simply not supposed to understand or comprehend such things. The Cuban narrative in the U. S. since 1959 has been tightly controlled by two generations of anti-Castro/anti-Celia exiles from the Batista-Mafia dictatorship. Vilifying Castro became a lucrative, power-grabbing cottage industry in the U. S., first in Miami and Union City -- two prime Mafia strongholds -- and later Washington after the exile extremists aligned solidly and eternally with the Bush political and economic dynasty in the 1980s. Vilifying Celia Sanchez, the child-loving doctor's daughter whose importance to the revolution exceeded Fidel's, was not possible. But pretending she didn't exist or was a non-factor in the Cuban Revolution or Revolutionary Cuba was easily accomplished in the U. S. where Americans got, and still get, their Cuban information from extremist exiles.

     Beginning in January of 1959, the leaders of the ousted Batista-Mafia regime in Cuba regrouped in South Florida and, from that day till this day, they have defined the history of the Cuban Revolution from their viewpoints and standpoints. The photo above shows key Batista Minister Rafael Diaz-Balart in 1958, with the holstered pistol, flanked by the infamous Masferrer brothers, Batista's brutal enforcers. All three in January of 1959 fled to Miami where two of Diaz-Balart's sons became members of the U. S. Congress and to this day remain powerful anti-Castro zealots allowed to dictate Cuban policy in the United States. 

      More than five decades have passed since the triumph of the Cuban Revolution. Thus, a second generation of viciously anti-Castro Cuban exiles -- such as these three current members of the U. S. Congress from Miami: Marco Rubio, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, and Mario Diaz-Balart -- now dictate most of America's Cuban policy as well as most of America's history and media coverage when it comes to Cuba.

         For example, Esteban Ventura Novo {above} was blamed by Celia Sanchez -- and supported by historical accounts -- for the gruesome torture-murders of her friends Clodomira Acosta and Lidia Doce in September of 1958. In the wee hours of January 1, 1959, Ventura was on the very same getaway airplane with Fulgencio Batista that fled to the Dominican Republic, which was ruled by the vicious U.S.-backed dictator Rafael Trujillo. Ventura within a few days had set up his new operation in the sanctuary of Miami. In the ensuing decades, at least five democratic governments in Latin America begged the U. S. to extradite Ventura so be could be put on trial but the good people high-up in the U. S. government, when it came to Cuban issues, were not strong enough to comply. Thus, Ventura lived a long, heralded, protected, and lucrative life in Miami before he had a heart attack and died on May 21, 2001. {You can research or google many sources to learn more about Esteban Ventura Nova, such as the Nov. 26-2004 edition of Bohemia Magazine that featured the man Celia Sanchez called "the typical Miami Batistiano killer." And you need to know who Ventura was to comprehend why September 17, 1954, was Celia Sanchez's saddest day}.

       The above photo was taken by Celia Sanchez in August of 1958, shortly after the rebel victory in the ten-day Battle of Jigue in July of 1948 over Batista's strongest army. That shocking rebel victory alerted Washington that the revolution in Cuba had, as a matter of fact, taken on a serious hue. The lady in the white blouse next to Fidel Castro in this photo is Lidia Doce, who was 48-years-old then but was one of Celia's bravest mountain messengers. The dark-haired lady next to Lidia is Griselda Sanchez, Celia's lookalike sister. After this last journey to bring Celia supplies and information, Lidia returned to her vital anti-Batista urban underground work. But she was soon captured, tortured for days, and then murdered.

   Twenty-two-year-old Clodomira Acosta {above} worked with Lidia Doce in the urban underground activity that was considered the most dangerous endeavors associated with the anti-Batista movement. On September 12, 1958, Lidia and Clodomira were in a Safe House coordinating details with four young urban underground men. But a police-army unit led by Colonel Esteban Ventura Novo, who was tipped off by a paid informer, surrounded the house and captured all six of the rebels. The four young men were beaten and then shot dead in front of the tied-up Lidia and Clodomira. The two women were kept alive so they could be tortured until, hopefully, they divulged the names of others involved in the underground.

      The mutilated bodies of the four assassinated young men were left on public display as a warning to others in the neighborhood not to assist the urban underground led by Celia Sanchez and Frank Pais. So photos of the bodies, such as that of young Fructuoso Rodriguez above, were published on billboards and in Batista-controlled newspapers and magazines. Herbert L. Mathews, the famed New York Times reporter, wrote, "U. S. tax dollars are paying for these atrocities, these photographs? I wonder if Americans care."

        But Ventura, not unexpectedly, had other plans for the two women -- Lidia and Clodomira. They were tortured for four days and nights in an effort to get them to divulge information about the urban underground and its ties to the rebel guerrillas that were then beginning to fight their way westward toward Havana. The torturers soon realized that Lidia and Clodomira, already near death, would die before they would give up one iota of information that would harm Celia Sanchez and the revolution. So Lidia and Clodomira were tied together and attached to a concrete slab by ropes and a chain. In that manner, they were dumped into the ocean and their bodies never recovered. But their work, confirmed by the urban underground, and their fate, confirmed by their captors, have established Lidia and Clodomira as two of the most memorialized martyrs of the Cuban Revolution. Cubans know their names; Americans should.

        By the way, when he was one of Batista's most infamous enforcers in Cuba during the 1950s AND when he lived out the rest of his life in Miami from 1959 till 2001, Estevan Ventura Nova {above} was known for always wearing expensive white suits. For example, his biography at www.latinaamericanstudies.org describes him as "the killer from Havana's Fifth Precinct" and "the white-suited hired assassin." Of course, in Havana and later in Miami Ventura had plenty of money to buy all the white suits he ever wanted.

       On July 30, 1957, 22-year-old schoolteacher Frank Pais -- vital to the anti-Batista underground -- was betrayed by a paid informer and captured at a safe house in Santiago-de-Cuba. One of Batista's brutal enforcers -- Colonel Jose Salas Canizares -- took Frank to a public street in Santiago-de-Cuba and brutally killed him. Notice the pistol near Frank's right hand. It had been placed there by Canizares. A few weeks earlier, Frank's 17-year-old brother Jesus had been brutally murdered just because he was Frank's brother. Children younger than Jesus were routinely murdered as warnings in Batista's Cuba.

         Incredibly brave female marches like this one fueled the nascent Cuban Revolution and eventually doomed Batista. These "Madres Cubanas, Cuban Mothers" carried placards denouncing the murders of their children. The lady in the white jacket in the center of this photo is the mother of William Soler. William and three of his classmates had been tortured, murdered, and their bodies left in an abandoned warehouse as a warning not to actively oppose the Batista brutality and thievery. William Soler's mother, Celia Sanchez, Haydee Santamaria, Vilma Espin, Tete Puebla, Marta Rojas, Lidia Doce, Clodimira Acosta and many other Cuban women didn't heed those warnings. Females, not macho men, keyed the Batista defeat.

             In Cuba today this is the William Soler Pediatric Hospital. If William Soler and his mother are not a part of the U.S.-Cuban history you have been told about for decades, then you have been lied to. 

         To this day in Cuba there are airports, hospitals, etc., named for Frank Pais and Celia Sanchez. And billboards like this one tie them together as the two greatest leaders of the urban underground, the force that eventually defeated the Batista-Mafia dictatorship. Frank Pais died at age 22 making it possible. When Frank was assassinated, there was an even larger Batista bounty on Celia Sanchez's head. If that bounty had ever been collected, the U.S.-backed Batista-Mafia dictatorship would never have been defeated.  

       For sure, Celia Sanchez's revolutionary fire was sparked by the fate of 10-year-old Maria Ochoa and then ignited further by the murders of 22-year-old Clodomira Acosta and 48-year-old Lidia Doce. It was that fire, that fervor, instilled within the delicate frame of the 99-pound doctor's daughter from the little Cuban town of Media Luna that booted the Batistianos, the Mafia, and the United States off the island of Cuba in 1959 and has kept them off for going on six decades. Celia was very shy and quite modest. She wouldn't mind at all that Americans don't know about her nor would she be surprised that the transplanted Batistianos, now through two generations, have chronicled the history of the Cuban Revolution in a fashion to suit their indulgence rather than the facts. So, the saddest days of Celia Sanchez's life were the days she learned the fates of 10-year-old Maria Ochoa, raped to death in a Mafia hotel, and the torture-murders of her dear friends Clodomira Acosta and Lidia Doce. Such tragedies turned the doctor's daughter into history's all-time greatest female revolutionary. Her imprint on Cuba and Latin American is huge.

         As a guerrilla fighter, as the leader of the urban underground along with the murdered young teacher Frank Pais, as the prime recruiter of rebels and supplies, and as the prime anti-Batista decision-maker, Celia Sanchez was the heart and soul of the Cuban Revolution. Fidel Castro, to this very day, is modest and honest enough to say, "No one rivaled Celia as the most important figure in the Revolution." Cuban historian Pedro Alvarez Tabio firmly states: "If Batista had managed to kill Celia Sanchez anytime between 1953 and 1957, there would have been no viable Cuban Revolution, and no revolution for Fidel and Che to join."

        Fidel Castro, after almost two years in a Batista prison and then another two off the island recruiting in the U. S. and Mexico, finally joined Celia Sanchez's revolution in the Sierra Maestra Mountains in December of 1956. In the above photo, that is Fidel inspecting the telescopic rifle that Celia had just given him. From that moment on, each day they fought together, gradually wearing down Batista's best armies.

       At night, side-by-side and often by candlelight, Celia and Fidel planned for the next day's guerrilla warfare against Batista's U.S.-armed soldiers. They were night-owls and indelible soulmates to the end. 

           After the smoke of many battles in 1957 and 1958 had drifted skyward, Celia led Fidel on a triumphant week-long trek from Santiago-de-Cuba to Havana in the first week of January, 1959. This photo was taken on Jan. 4-1959, halfway on that journey. It shows a tired Celia and a subdued Fidel. If Celia looks sad despite the startling triumph, she was. She had stayed in radio contact with the advance unit led by Camilo Cienfuegos and Che Guevara, hoping they could tell her that the leaders of the Batista-Mafia regime were still in Havana ready to defend their dictatorship. At this stop on January 4th, Celia had just been told by Camilo that, "They all ran, Celia. They had getaway boats, ships, airplanes standing by when we took Santa Clara. Then they fled...to Miami, the Dominican...anywhere but Cuba." A few months later Camilo told Bohemia Magazine of Celia's acute disappointment when he told her the Batista leaders had all fled. He said, "Celia damned the bastards for fleeing but when she calmed down she said, 'I knew they would do what cowards do, and that is to hook back up will all the money they have siphoned on this island.' Celia was hoping against hope they would stand and fight. She wanted the chance to make the killers pay. She knew their names. One night in the Sierra I heard her rattle off the twelve names she wanted to settle with." Indeed, history has recorded that the top 21 Batista leaders each had more than a million dollars in 1950s money stashed in numbered Swiss bank accounts, and it was presumed they each had stashed far more than that in Mafia-connected banks in Miami, Florida, and Union City, New Jersey. That is confirmed by many sources, including the best online chronological history of Cuba, which is Jerry A. Sierra's historyofcuba.com. Remnants of that siphoned loot, undoubtedly, have fueled tons of anti-Castro zealotry in the U. S. for two generations since 1959 and in 2015 it still fights President Barack Obama's plans to normalize relations with the island.

           The best singular source of information today regarding Celia Sanchez, Fidel Castro, and the Cuban Revolution is Marta Rojas. In the photo above that is Marta introducing Fidel Castro in December of 1959 for his very first televised speech to the nation. As a young and trusted journalist in Batista's Cuba, Marta had access to Fidel during his prison years -- 1953 till 1955. Unbeknownst to Batista, Marta worked for Celia Sanchez and the urban underground. She carried notes from Fidel, destined for Celia, out of the prison in her bra; in the same manner, notes from Celia reached Fidel in his cell. Later, in November of 1956 Fidel's contact with Celia from Mexico arranged the exact spot she and a force of rebels would be waiting for his arrival on the old yacht Granma with 81 other men. The over-loaded yacht was sinking before reaching the destination, resulting in an ambush that killed all but 17 of the men, but the survivors included the Castro brothers Fidel and Raul as well as Camilo Cienfuegos and Che Guevara. It was then that Fidel first laid eyes on Celia. As he nears his 89th birthday on August 13th, he still worships the ground she walked on. 

           Marta Rojas was born in 1928 in Santiago de Cuba. U. S. journalists desiring facts about Fidel Castro, Celia Sanchez, and the revolution ask Marta. Her vivid memories, often buttressed with photos and documents, include visits from Celia, such as late at night when Marta was working at the Granma newspaper or Bohemia magazine. Marta also emerged as one of Cuba's greatest authors and novelists.

         In Revolutionary Cuba, till she died of cancer at age 59 on January 11, 1980, Celia Sanchez was the prime decision-maker in Cuba, with the full concurrence of Fidel Castro. Not once did he ever overrule her, even if he disagreed with her decisions. It was Celia who set the parameters that have, against overwhelming odds, sustained revolutionary rule on the island for all these decades. In 1959, and twice in the 1960s, she established this mantra: "The Batistianos will never regain control of Cuba as long as I live or as long as Fidel lives." Considering the odds, no one believed her then. But they do now.

            Fidel Castro is unwell as he approaches his 89th birthday on August 13, 2015. But he is still alive and, thus, so is Celia Sanchez's proclamation. Till his last moments, his fondest revolutionary memories will revolve around Celia. To him, she will always be "The beautiful flower of the Cuban Revolution."

          Americans to this day are not supposed to comprehend the historical significance of Celia Sanchez. That would mitigate against the Cuban narrative in the U. S. that has been dictated by the remnants of the Batista dictatorship. But the best historians know her. More importantly, Cubans on the island know her, especially an old man named Fidel who was beside her day and night from 1957 till she died in 1980. 

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A Military Option In Cuba's Future?

The Island Doesn't Rule It Out
Updated: Friday, June 19th, 2015

         The enigmatic island of Cuba, day by day, is opening up fully to the outside world. The very influential youth newspaper -- Juventud Rebelde -- recently conducted an island-wide survey of young adults and discovered that their prime desire was to have access to the Internet. Since then the Cuban government has entertained suggestions from Goggle and Twitter executives. And Thursday's Juventud Rebelde edition reported that three dozen WI-FI spots are opening around the island this week. Also, the fees for online access have been drastically reduced. Just over one million of Cuba's 11.2 million citizens have Smart Phones and that number is increasing sharply in line with the increased Internet access.

        This AP/Desmond Boylan photo shows Adonis Ortiz speaking on his phone in Cuba to his father in the United States. Young Cubans like Adonis have told the Cuban government they want more access to Smart Phones and the Internet. And by all accounts from the island, the government is responding positively. 

       Cristina Escobar personifies the emerging influence of Cuba's young adults. The 26-year-old Cristina is the island's most ubiquitous television personality and top journalist. Extremely photogenic and telegenic, she stunned Americans when she traveled to Washington to cover the last diplomatic session featuring Cuba's Josefina Vidal and America's Roberta Jacobson. Well educated and fluent in English as well as Spanish, Cristina's journalistic skills blew Washington journalists away, as did her pro-Cuban speeches around Washington when she emphasized this point: "My personal mission to the United States is to point out that the lies the U. S. media tells about Cuba hurts everyday Cubans on the island most of all." Cristina praised President Barack Obama this week for "having the courage to stand up to the Cuban-American war-mongers in Miami and Washington. They are still there but the American President, by just not quivering before them, has allowed Cuba to open up more and, as we have reported this week, begin providing full Internet access to our people on the island. A few powerful Miami Cubans will continue to try to block any positive on the island, but at least President Obama has provided us an opening to come in out of the cold, so to speak." In Cuba when Cristina Escobar speaks, Cubans listen...especially young Cubans. At the moment, Cristina has far more influence on the island than what she calls "the well-funded Miami Cubans."

         The Cuban Revolution on January 1-1959 shocked the world by becoming the first grounds-root revolution to overthrow a U.S.-backed dictator, in this case the brutal and thieving Batista-Mafia regime.

         The chronology of the Cuban Revolution from 1952 till 1959 is now engraved on the pantheon of history. After the revolutionary victory on Januaary 1-1959, the Batista-Mafia leaders fled back to their sanctuaries, especially South Florida. The most vehement of the anti-Castro zealots, still with the backing of the U. S. government, became the leaders of what essentially was the very belligerent Cuban government-in-exile. The most radical among them -- including Jorge Mas Canosa and Luis Posada Carriles -- were quickly sent to Fort Benning in Georgia to attend the Army School of the Americas, which Americans knew nothing about, at least till it was revealed decades later during the Clinton administration. The Army School served as a training ground for soldiers from U.S.-backed dictatorships who were then sent back home to prop up those dictators in the Caribbean or Latin America. After the Cuban Revolution, the Cuban exiles at Fort Benning were trained to recapture Cuba and eliminate Fidel Castro and other revolutionary leaders. In a famous New York Times interview conducted by Ann Louise Bardach, Luis Posada Carriles thanked U. S. taxpayers and the very wealthy Mas Canosa for supporting his anti-Castro endeavors. Castro survived a myriad of assassination attempts but the prime thrust of the Fort Benning operation from 1959 till 1961 was to prepare for a military attack designed to recapture Cuba, taking full advantage of U.S.-backed anti-Castro dictators such as Trujillo in the Dominion Republic and Somoza in Nicaragua. The odds, as you may imagine, were stacked very high against Castro and Cuba in the imperialist early 1960s.

          In 1960 the neophyte John F. Kennedy administration inherited a military plan from the outgoing Eisenhower administration to launch a military attack to regain control of Cuba. The CIA famously gave Kennedy two assurances: {1} Fidel Castro would flee to his getaway airplane as soon as he heard U. S. bombers overhead; and {2} the Cubans on the island, once the attack began, would themselves rise up against Castro. With those assurances, Kennedy signed off on the Bay of Pigs shenanigans but the new President insisted on blatantly lying to the American people about the U. S. support of the cowardly attack.

         As it turned out, Fidel Castro, unlike Batista and his cronies, didn't have a "getaway airplane," so he raced to the front-lines at the Bay of Pigs to defend Cuba. The attack started on April 17, 1961, when 8 U. S. bombers left Nicaragua, which was then led by U.S.-backed dictator Somoza, to destroy Cuba's airfields. Another U. S. bomber was circling Havana for the sole purpose of bombing any residence Castro was believed to be residing. But the CIA never pinpointed which residence. When the first bombs fell on Havana's Camp Colombia airfield, Fidel happened to be at Celia Sanchez' Havana apartment, which was his normal practice. While the CIA didn't figure that out, two notable journalists -- Herbert L. Mathews of the New York Times and Cuba's Carlos Franqui -- guessed correctly and both telephoned the apartment and talked with both Fidel and Celia. Still tied to his lie about U. S. involvement, Kennedy twiddled his thumbs nervously in the Oval Office while Fidel raced to the Bay of Pigs, where he and Celia had earlier visited because they anticipated, perhaps with a pinpoint warning, that the impending ground attack would logically take place at the Bay of Pigs. Within 72 hours, Fidel's rebels had shocked the world a second time with its easy victory at the Bay of Pigs. The CIA-and-U.S.-taxpayer-trained Cuban exiles in Brigade 2506 were wiped out or captured. Kennedy and Castro later agreed to return the prisoners {above} to the U. S. in exchange for $53 million, mostly paid in medical supplies and boxes of Gerber Baby Food. A little deeper into his presidency, Kennedy famously bellowed to his aides, "I wish I could blow the CIA to smithereens." In other words, before his assassination and what would have been his easy reelection, President Kennedy had rebounded from the Republican plans that he had inherited, which was "blow Cuba to smithereens." 

         At 12:30 P. M. on Friday, November 22, 1963, President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. Prior to his trip to Dallas, Kennedy had told Pierre Salinger and other key aides that his "top priority" upon his return to Washington was to "normalize relations"  with Cuba. To this day it is not known how, or if, that pledge played a role in the assassination in Dallas but it is well known that Kennedy's plans to normalize relations with Cuba resulted in him being targeted anew by elements who had blamed the young and popular President for the Bay of Pigs debacle. From start to finish, Kennedy's presidency tightly revolved around the island of Cuba, from the inheritance of the 1961 Bay of Pigs plans, to the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, to the 1963 third year of his brief presidency when he felt strong enough to normalize relations with Cuba. The Kennedy saga is proof that America, Cuba, and the world would be better off if the lush island was not so mightily coveted by everyone from the Dulles brothers in the 1950s to the Diaz-Balart brothers in 2015. Kennedy once told Salinger: "What makes Cuba beautiful also makes it vulnerable, like a beautiful woman targeted by fiends. She never has time to enjoy the good life, la dolce vita, that's all around her." 

 This Wikipedia map delineates the location of the Bay of Pigs attack.

         This Wikipedia photo shows the Bay of Pigs Memorial today in Miami's Little Havana neighborhood. From 1961 until today, the Bay of Pigs remains the only U.S./Cuban-exile military attack designed to recapture Cuba. However, Little Havana's tight alliances with the Bush dynasty has resulted in Little Havana's dictation of America's Cuban policy in the U. S. Congress since the 1980s. That came about when the Bush-anointed Jorge Mas Canosa became the singular head of the Cuban government-in-exile. And then, in 1989, Havana-born Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Miami rode her Bush connections to become the first in a ever-growing line of anti-Castro zealots in Miami reaching the hallowed halls of the U. S. Congress. Since 1961 there have been no U.S.-backed military attacks on Cuba but there have been numerous U.S.-tolerated terrorists acts against the island, most notably the Oct. 6-1976 bombing of the civilian plane Cubana Flight 455. Since the 1960s, Democratic administrations -- Kennedy, Carter, Clinton, and Obama -- have tried but failed to normalize relations with Cuba. In all such attempts, the Little Havana stranglehold on the U. S. Congress has simply been too much to overcome. Like Presidents Kennedy, Carter, and Clinton, Mr. Obama will replicate those earlier failures. The Bay of Pigs Memorial in Little Havana, of course, has different connotations than the plethora of Bay of Pigs Memorials in Cuba, signifying the wide chasms between the two nations as well as the vast 90-miles of sea separating the two neighbors.  

For example......................

          ......................these three Miami-based Cuban-Americans in the U. S. Congress have far more influence on America's Cuban policy than President Obama. That's Mario Diaz-Balart on the left flanked on his left by Marco Rubio and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen. All are entrenched anti-Castro members of the Congress although Rubio is relinquishing his first-term Senate seat to make a serious bid for the U. S. Presidency. The Havana-born Ros-Lehtinen has been entrenched in the U. S. Congress from Miami since 1989 when Jeb Bush was her Campaign Manager. Today the Little Havana and Republican control of the U. S. Congress on all things Cuban will easily over-rule yet another Democratic President, Barack Obama.

        Roll Call, one of the most popular propaganda sheets masquerading as journalism in Washington, this week highlighted a fawning tribute to Congressman Mario Diaz-Balart. The propaganda piece, written by Emma Dumain, lauded Diaz-Balart, claiming he "has spoken out for years against corruption and human-rights abuses in Cuba." Sure he has. In Miami since 1959 that is a sure way to get rich and powerful...and all the way to Washington, either in the U. S. Congress or, soon, the White House. Of course, neither the Roll Call or any of the other not-so-subtle propaganda sheets will ever mention that Mario's father, Rafael Diaz-Balart, was one of the most powerful Ministers in the Batista dictatorship and one of the richest and most powerful anti-Castro zealots in Miami. Thus, mouthpieces like Roll Call and even the intimidated mainstream U. S. media are not about to question the second generation of Miami Diaz-Balarts -- four rich and powerful sons of Rafael -- when they assault Cuba for "corruption and human-rights abuses." Of course, the inference is that the Batista-Mafia rule of Cuba was strictly by Mother Teresa-types who showered nothing but love, affection, and generous welfare on the Cuban people from 1952 till 1959 and then, once chased to Miami, have tried their best to do the same to the unfortunate Cubans still on the island. When Miami's top Cuban-American newsman, Emilio Milian, objected to that premise, he was car-bombed. When the Miami Herald's top columnist, Jim DeFede, loudly excoriated Miami's members of the U. S. Congress -- namely the Diaz-Balarts and Ros-Lehtinen -- for what DeFede deemed their shameful support of Cuban terrorists in Miami, DeFede was fired. American citizens, over time, have been strongly advised to support the Diaz-Balarts and ignore brave, patriotic people like Emilio Milian, Jim DeFede, etc., and now brave, patriotic members of Congress such as Kathy Castor of Tampa, Florida, and Jeff Flake of Arizona. For sure, it is healthier and more politically correct to side with the Diaz-Balarts, not Congresswoman Castor or Senator Flake. As far as the six U. S. networks are concerned, the Diaz-Balarts, Rubio, etc., can have unlimited airtime to vilify Cuba and glorify Batista. {Jose Diaz-Balart, Mario's brother, has his own one-hour program at 9:00 A. M. each day on MSNBC in case you want a big dose of propaganda} On the other hand, those same networks are devoted to the principle that Americans should not ever hear the Cuban viewpoints of unbiased members of Congress, like Florida's Kathy Castor and Arizona's Jeff Flake. 

         It is interesting to note, as the money-crazed presidential campaign determines the next President beginning in January of 2017, how the Bush dynasty's Cuban connections play out. Jeb Bush, because of his name and the billions of dollars that back it up, is the Republican favorite. But his prime challenger is the young Senator Marco Rubio, a protege of both Jeb Bush and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the first Cuban-American to make it to Congress way back in 1989 when Jeb was her Campaign Manager in his bid to successfully ingratiate himself with the Cubans in Little Havana, still the thrust of his political power. In the heated presidential race, Ros-Lehtinen and others like her in Little Havana would be expected to support one of their own -- Senator Rubio. But that's not the case. The Bush alliance with the Cuban-American power-brokers favors Jeb over Marco. Despite that, when the dust settles, Rubio will deny Jeb what he considers his turn to be the next Bush in the White House. And even more flummoxing and interesting.....

           .............Josefina Vidal, Cuba's U. S. expert and the island's prime decision-maker on all things American, prefers Marco Rubio over Jeb Bush as the next President of the U. S. Moreover, after pushing past Jeb, Vidal believes Rubio will upend Democratic challenger Hillary Clinton, largely because of Clinton's ties to Wall Street and foreign money associated with the billionaire Clinton Foundation. And beyond all that, Vidal believes -- in the first post-Obama Republican administration -- the "big military option will be on the table." She believes the preamble to that, to dupe easily duped Americans, will be a provocation that will force Cuba to either capitulate or to react. "We will not capitulate," she says, "so draw your own conclusions regarding the response to our reaction." Her conclusion seems obvious: The pre-text for military action can be easily provoked because there is nothing regarding Cuba Americans will oppose. How nice. Vidal remembers that media battle-cry in Miami after the demise of Cubana Flight 455: "It's the biggest blow yet against Castro!" If that didn't solicit a whimper from Americans, she surmises, what will?

         If you doubt Josefina Vidal's American expertise from her vantage point in Havana, I suggest you study Andy Gomez's Cuban expertise from his base in Miami. Gomez has a family vendetta against Fidel Castro. That qualities him to be USA Today's Cuban expert in Miami. His column Wednesday -- June 17th -- was entitled "Too Early To Judge Obama's Cuba Plan." Is that because Gomez anticipates a military option post-Obama? Gomez wrote: "Any strategy designed to topple or significantly change a government system that doesn't include military intervention is going to take time. Especially in Cuba. Fidel Castro and his brother Raul have not ruled for 56 years by pure luck." The Castro brothers, both deep into their 80s, will soon be replaced by younger non-Castros like Miguel Diaz-Canel and Josefina Vidal. It appears that Little Havana in Miami does not want that transition to take place, believing it would deny them their well-grafted anti-Castro venom. Vilifying Diaz-Canel and Vidal to justify another half-century of the embargo might be too much for even proselytized Americans to take. So, before the post-Castro transition takes place, is a military option on the table if, and when, either Rubio or Bush succeeds Obama as Commander in Chief? Vidal, the Cuban expert on all things American, believes so. And Gomez, USA Today's expert on all things Cuban, used the phrase "military intervention" to suggest that anything else "is going to take time." As I read that summation from Andy Gomez this week, I was reminded that the Little Havana hard-liners have ample reason to believe that, regardless of what they do in regards to Cuba, the American people will, as always, be compliant. In any case, on a week in June of 2015 when Josefina Vidal in Havana and Andy Gomez in Miami both mention a post-Obama "military" option, that one-word nexus across the 90 miles of the Florida Straits should be taken seriously. Vidal: "Military option." Gomez: "Military intervention." One seems to dread it; the other seems to welcome it. Americans: They don't seem to care.

           Cuba, which keeps a sharp eye on the Miami media, is reacting to what it feels are unjustified assaults on Alejandro Castro Espin, the 49-year-old son of Cuban President Raul Castro and revolutionary icon Vilma Espin. Cuba believes the anti-Castro contingent in Miami is targeting Alejandro to belittle the fact that Raul Castro has already designated 55-year-old Miguel Diaz-Canel the next Cuban leader. Alejandro is a highly educated Colonel in Cuba's Interior Ministry and he is a key adviser to his father. But he says that he, his father, and his uncle Fidel "all agree there will not be a Castro monarchy because that would go against the revolution, which we feel was justified and remain proud of." Alejandro was recently interviewed by Mega TV in Greece. He is the only son of Raul Castro and Vilma Espin, who died of cancer in 2007. But he has three sisters -- Deborah, Mariela, and Nilsa. Of the four siblings, Mariela is the best known but Deborah is the most powerful. The word out of Miami this week is that Alejandro is being "groomed" as the next Cuban leader. "That's the absolute last thing I'm being groomed for," Alejandro said in Greece. 

         President Obama's efforts to normalize relations will Cuba have resulted in some successes and will have some more...even the opening of embassies in the capitals for the first time in 54 years. But like the other Democratic Presidents since 1963 -- Kennedy, Carter, and Clinton -- Obama's efforts will fail for the reasons mentioned in assessing the Vidal and Gomez assessments. U. S. failure regarding Cuba is endemic, a failure that democracy and its taxpayers pay a steep price in order to make it perpetual. 

         While the U. S. democracy -- backed by the strongest economy and military in the world -- remains strong, that is not the case when it comes to Cuba. In his Cuban venture, Mr. Obama has the majority support of Americans, Cuban-Americans, the Caribbean, Latin America, and the world. But that's not nearly enough. Right-wingers embedded high-up in the U. S. government -- such as the Dulles brothers in the 1950s and the leaders of the current Republican domination of the U. S. Congress -- can easily thwart the democratic ideals of any Democratic President when it comes to Cuba. Thus, President Obama is no match for the hard-line Cuban-exile core in Miami that, since its 1980s empowerment by the Bush dynasty, has readily dictated Cuban policy in the U. S. Congress by easily aligning with the requisite number of right-wing sycophants -- from Roberto Torricelli to Jesse Helms to John Boehner. Yes, America, the Cuban Revolution says a lot more about America than it says about Cuba. It has been that way for a long time.

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Cuba and the White House

A 2016 Nexus
Updated: Saturday, June 13th, 2015

              Reverend Joan Brown Campbell this week, June 11th, paid a visit to her good friend Fidel Castro in his Havana home. She is the former President of the National Council of Churches USA. A spokesman for Mr. Castro said, "Reverend Campbell and Fidel have had a friendship that dates back many years. She has given countless expressions of solidarity to Fidel and Cuba. She loves Fidel and the Cuban people." Reverend Campbell has represented Fidel in the U. S. on many touchy issues over the years -- such as the return to Cuba of 6-year-old Elian Gonzalez in 2000 and the return of the imprisoned Cuba 5 to Cuba in 2014.

Fidel Castro turns 89-years-old on August 13th, 2015.
Reverend Campbell's visit may indicate his health is declining.

       This week -- Thursday, June 11th, 2015 -- in Brussels, Belgium, all the nations of the Caribbean, Latin America, and the European Union issued a stirring denunciation of the U. S. embargo of Cuba, a cruel anachronism that has defamed America's and democracy's image since 1962. In a joint statement the Caribbean, Latin American, and European Union nations stated firmly: "We expect all necessary steps to be taken towards an early end to the embargo against Cuba." The nations of the world, each October, just as overwhelmingly, make the same denunciation. Yet, decade after decade, the United States maintains the embargo to appease a handful of Cuban-Americans in Miami and Union City as well as their self-serving right-wing sycophants in the U. S. Congress. A new poll in Miami issued yesterday also reveals that a huge majority of Cuban-Americans want the embargo ended. The UN nations, the Caribbean nations, the Latin American nations, and the European Union nations are surprised and ashamed that the U. S. democracy is not strong enough to end the embargo, which to them is nothing more and nothing less than a huge, strong nation punishing innocent people in a small, weak nation. Of course, Americans are supposed to continue to ignore world opinion as expressed at the UN, Caribbean opinion, Latin American opinion, and the opinions of the European Union's 28 nations. Thus, the image of America as depicted in the above graphic will continue around the world...for another six decades or so, or at least until a future generation of democracy-loving Americans can join the pantheon of the Greatest Generations of Americans.  

       Fashion designer Stella McCartney has issued this stunning tableau to herald President Obama's efforts to normalize relations with Cuba. {Photo courtesy: Quartz/BFA}

        At precisely 3:31 P. M. Wednesday {June 10th}, Gulfstream Air Charters made history when its jet left Orlando International Airport in Florida bound for, of all places, Cuba. However, fashion designers, airlines, etc., are being a bit premature as they take advantage of the lull before the next U.S.-Cuban storm. Permit me to explain.

      39-year-old Danny Diaz has been named Campaign Manager of Jeb Bush's floundering bid to become the Republican presidential candidate. After revamping his team with Diaz the leader, Bush flew to Europe for photo ops with notables such as Germany's Angela Merkel. Diaz is a hard-charging lobbyist with  PP1 Strategies in Washington. But it was in New Mexico as a publicist and strategist for two-time Governor Susana Martinez that Diaz established his political prowess and his indelible Bush connections. In 2004 he worked tirelessly in New Mexico for the unfortunate but successful re-election of President George W. Bush.

      But if Jeb Bush, backed by billions of dollars and the vast Bush connections, emerges as the Republican candidate, behind-the-scene power-brokers like Al Cardenas will have far more to do with it than young upfront whippersnappers like Danny Diaz. Since the late 1980s when Jeb Bush launched his political career in Florida as the Campaign Manager for Havana-born Ileana Ros-Lehtinen's successful and entrenched bid for the U. S. Congress {the seminal election that began the Miami-to-Washington pipeline}, Jeb has taken his directions, and orders, from Al Cardenas. Even as a two-term Governor of Florida, if Jeb wanted something, he asked Al Cardenas. If Al Cardenas wanted something, he told Jeb Bush. Jeb's asking and Al's telling remains today the economic and political relationship between Jeb and Al, which is far, far more important than any other Jeb Bush ties or connections.

         Al Cardenas was born in Havana in 1948. For years, he dominated Miami politics. Now as one of the most powerful lawyers-lobbyists in Washington, Mr. Cardenas is capable of putting either Jeb Bush or Marco Rubio in the White House in 2016. If and when that happens, Bush or Rubio would answer to Mr. Cardenas. Although Rubio is a Miami-produced Cuban American, Mr. Cardenas seems to prefer that Bush precedes Rubio in the White House, with the understanding that the young Mr. Rubio can wait his turn.

        Josefina Vidal is Cuba's expert and prime decision-maker on all things American. While television pundits in the U. S. will spend hours each day and night filling airtime with a litany of wild prognostications and updated polls on the current presidential sweepstakes, Vidal's less commercially involved predictions in Havana have proven far more accurate when it comes to the top echelon of U. S. politics. Vidal's main concern is maintaining Cuba's independence, not selling commercials or political ads. Vidal has already decided the outcome of America's presidential race, a process that she closely relates to Cuba's existence. And she has concluded this: Rubio will edge Bush for the Republican nomination and then Rubio will edge Hillary Clinton in the final one-against-one election. In the next fifteen months, the television networks will collect billions of dollars in political ads, and hope Americans ignore the prognosticator in Havana. Privately, Vidal told a Spanish reporter-friend, "Miami already dictates Cuban policy to the U. S. Congress. So, what the 2016 presidential election will mean is this: The Miami Batistianos will have captured Washington before they re-captured Havana." The Spanish reporter didn't have a follow-up question. He had already learned to accept Vidal's prognostications when it comes to American politics.

        President Marco Rubio, effective 2016! It is believed that Al Cardenas, on behalf of Jeb Bush, tried unsuccessfully to convince Marco Rubio to wait his turn for the White House, meaning right after Jeb's two terms. It is interesting that Havana-born Cardenas in Washington prefers Jeb over Little Havana {Miami}-born Rubio. It is also interesting that Ms. Vidal in Havana prefers Rubio over Jeb...in a scenario she knows as the lesser of two evils because she considers the Bush dynasty even more vindictive. But she believes if Rubio as Commander-in-Chief backs up his Cuban pre-election rhetoric, it will essentially mean war, one pitting an island against the nuclear superpower. Vidal, Havana's prime American decision-maker, is already preparing for what she believes will be a nuclear Bay of Pigs. Of course, the pro-Rubio television pundits will insist that is ridiculous, totally out of the question because we have other ways to recapture Cuba. Regardless, the recapture of Cuba is an underlying {and understated} toxic and volatile current coursing through the bowels of America's 2016 presidential election. Josefina Vidal says Rubio will be the winner and there is no television pundit in the United States that knows as much about American politics as Vidal. If that were not the case, the recapture of Cuba would have happened back during the 8 years {2001-2009} of the George W. Bush presidency. Cuba survived that threat only because of Vidal's acute wisdom. She got a reprieve in the fast-fading two-term presidency of Barack Obama, but she anticipates another Republican -- most likely Rubio -- in the White House following Obama. It remains to be seen, after that, if Cuba, as a sovereign nation, can survive. If it does, Vidal again will be the reason.

         This photo shows Dr. Yoandra Muro {upper right} checking out a Family Health Clinic in Cuba this week. Dr. Muro is Cuba's Minister of Public Health. She says, "It is well known that we have far more Family Health Clinics, per capita, than any nation in the world. My job is to make them the best in the world."

Dr. Yoandra Muro, Cuba's Minster of Public Health.

Luis Posada Carriles this week at Miami's famed Versailles Restaurant.

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