cubaninsider

14.12.15

U.S.-Cuba: Who Is To Blame?

Greed and Gutlessness Are Factors

This photo is courtesy of Jim Wyss/Miami Herald. It shows some of the 4,500 would-be Cuban migrants stuck for weeks at Costa Rica's border with Nicaragua because Nicaragua has blocked them from continuing on to the Mexican border where, once their front foot touches U. S. soil, they would instantly be legal residents complete with welfare. That is known as Wet Foot/Dry Foot and has been a part of the Cuban Adjustment Act since 1966, one of a litany of U. S. laws that provide special privileges to Cubans, and Cubans only. While other would-be migrants throughout the Caribbean and Latin America strongly resent such laws, the proselytized American people are supposed to be too ignorant, too intimidated, or to unpatriotic to even offer an opinion. And, since January of 1959, two generations of Americans have not, for sure, had either the guts, the intelligence or the patriotism to weigh in on this affront to democracy. Thus, we are primed to pass it along to the next two generations.

This graphic is also courtesy of Jim Wyss/Miami Herald. It shows the circuitous journey from Cuba all the way to the Costa Rica-Nicaragua border where the 4,500 Cubans are stuck. In recent months over 30,000 Cubans have used the Wet Foot/Dry Foot law to touch U. S. soil at the Mexican border. The sharp uptick is because of fear that, thanks to President Obama's efforts to normalize relations with Cuba, such laws that favor Cubans and discriminate against everyone else will be ended. That won't happen, of course, because a few Cuban-Americans in the U. S. Congress can easily continue old or dictate new laws designed supposedly to hurt or seek revenge against 89-year-old Fidel Castro but, in essence, such Cuban laws drastically hurt innocent Cubans on the island as well as discriminate against all others, including U. S. democracy lovers, U. S. taxpayers, and all other would-be migrants. It has been reported that the Cubans, at least some of them, stuck at the Costa Rica-Nicaragua border have paid human traffickers up to $15,000 each to follow the above route to the U. S. Meanwhile, it has also been reported that the U. S. recently has deported thousands of destitute migrant children back to Central American nations where their parents and other observers believe their lives are threatened daily not just by poverty but by murderous gangs that control entire towns, gangs known to murder 11-or-12-year-old girls who refuse to sell drugs for them or refuse to be prostitutes for them. That dichotomy between all Cuban migrants being home-free merely if they touch U. S. soil and non-Cuban children being deported back to horrendous situations does not register with Americans but, believe me, it does register with non-Americans. Such laws that encourage and favor only Cubans, of course, are also layered with vast financial advantages and other privileges made legal for Cubans but not for any non-Cubans. "U.S.-Cuba: Who Is To Blame?" The answer to that pertinent question, in my opinion, is: Two generations of gutless, stupid, and unpatriotic Americans are to blame. If that answer seems too harsh or too exaggerated, then I invite you to use the "comment" section at the end of this essay and justify such things as Wet Foot/Dry Foot, The Cuban Adjustment Act, The Torricelli Bill, The Helms-Burton Act, and all the other congressional laws that shame the U. S. democracy merely to sate the revenge and greed motives of a few Cuban-Americans and a few of their favorite sycophants. AND I ASSUME IF YOU CAN justify SUCH LAWS, YOU CAN ALSO justify SUCH THINGS AS THE TERRORIST BOMBING OF A CHILD-LADEN CUBAN CIVILIAN AIRPLANE AS WELL AS THE LUSH SANCTUARY IN MIAMI PROVIDED FOR THE WELL-KNOWN TERRORISTS, all anti-American abominations.

Cubana Flight 455. Yes, America, it happened.
So did this: "IT'S THE BIGGEST BLOW YET AGAINST CASTRO!"

Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The lush port was stolen from Cuba in 1903. Oh, yes!! I know you've been told it was "acquired" via a legal treaty in 1903 and then "sanctified" anew by another legal treaty in 1934. AND, OF COURSE, YOU BELIEVE IT. Let's say...an 80-pound fifth grader hands his lunch money each morning over to a 160-pound classmate. The little kid does it because the big bully beat him to a pulp the first day he stole the lunch money. As twin continuums, if you agree that Guantanamo Bay was "legally" acquired by the U. S., I assume you also agree that the bully is "legally" acquiring the little kid's lunch money each morning.

President Barack Obama is a very decent and extremely patriotic American. Now finishing the 7th year of his 8-year, two-term presidency, Mr. Obama has done more than any other American to normalize relations with Cuba. His motives are two-fold: {1} So the world doesn't forever view the U. S. as a big bully unfairly punishing innocent Cubans on the island; and {2} he believes in democracy and human decency.

Astutely using his Executive Authority, President Obama has made remarkable strides in slicing into the U. S. Congress-mandated U. S. policy that the whole world strongly opposes -- from Pope Francis to all 192 nations in the UN {except Congress-dependent Israel}. Mr. Obama has eased some of the undemocratic laws that have barred Americans from visiting the island, laws apparently designed so Americans can easily be propagandized about Cuba. He has also removed Cuba from the State Department's Sponsors of Terrorism list, a designation that allowed anti-Castro zealots in Miami to sue unrepresented Cuba in Miami courts. He paved the way for opening the U. S. and Cuban embassies for the first time since 1961. And now, for the first time in five decades, he has opened direct mail routes to Cuba.

President Obama is shown above applauding one of the positive inroads he has made regarding a bit of sanity added to America's maligned Cuban policy. But all along the way, for the past seven years, he has faced a dysfunctional, bought-and-pay-for U. S. Congress that, unfortunately, has the power to thwart much of the good he has done and is trying to do -- not only with Cuba but also global warming, gun control, attempting to correct costly Bush-era mistakes in foreign policy, etc. Mr. Obama has been criticized for not doing more, but constitutionally he is blocked by Congress from achieving more. For example, he would like to close the infamous prison at Guantanamo Bay and return the plush port to its rightful owner, Cuba. Yet, he can't do either of those things. In the U. S. Congress, incompetents or crooks can be elected from small areas of the country and then remain there for decades literally screwing the rest of the nation while pork-barreling enough tax dollars to enough supporters back home to keep them in Congress forever. Remember Jesse Helms of Helms-Burton fame? Remember Ted Stevens and his Bridge to Nowhere to benefit just one particular donor? Then, once in Congress, a dinosaur like Jesse Helms can easily, for example, reap rewards by participating in anti-Cuban legislation and solicit converts with just one line, "Support my Cuban bill and I'll support your Bridge to Nowhere." That's how, for example, literally billions of tax dollars have flowed and continue to flow from Washington to Miami to lushly finance the anti-Castro propaganda machine Radio-TV Marti, which ABC-TV News many years ago correctly and famously labeled "The Newscast to Nowhere." Another severe defect of the U. S. Congress is the process whereby a congressman can attach his own personal bill to a must-pass piece of legislation and that bill becomes as "legal" as the original intent of the bill, which might be a must-pass $700 billion defense bill or a multi-billion-dollar transportation bill. The intimidated or incompetent U. S. media didn't report it but recently such an anti-Cuban bill was attached to one of those must-pass laws. The cowardly add-on stipulated that the prison at Guantanamo Bay could not be closed and the port could not be returned to Cuba. Mr. Obama and other democracy lovers cringed when they read that add-on to the huge bill that President Obama signed into law. But let it be known that he was informed that IN A DYSFUNCTIONAL AND EASILY BOUGHT-AND-PAID-FOR CONGRESS there were enough votes to over-ride his veto. In that manner, with Americans neither smart enough nor patriotic to care, anti-Cuba laws that shame America and democracy have remained U. S. laws for decades with more added recently, such as the cowardly add-ons about Guantanamo. with nary a peep from Americans who should care enough to defend their democracy. Mr. Obama, a man who does care, has done all he can in the face of such apathy and a deeply flawed United States Congress -- a combination that is made-to-order for self-serving, greedy, self-proclaimed "patriots."

On January 1, 1959, the U.S.-backed Batista-Mafia dictatorship in Cuba was overthrown by the Cuban Revolution, shocking the world. It was an even bigger shock to the U. S. democracy. That's because much of the fleeing Batistiano-Mafiosi leadership quickly regrouped in nearby Miami, creating Little Havana USA and continuing to be supported and perpetuated by the U. S. government in the decades-old quest to reclaim the island. All along the way the two bywords were: DEMOCRACY BEDAMNED!! By the 1980s, the richest and most powerful anti-Castro zealots in Little Havana had aligned themselves with the Bush dynasty. In 1989, with Jeb Bush her Campaign Manager, Little Havana stalwart and Havana-born Ileana Ros-Lehtinen became the first Cuban-American elected to the U. S. Congress. She is still there. Closely behind came not one but TWO sons of Rafael Diaz-Balart, a former key Minister in the Batista dictatorship who soon became one of the richest and most virulent anti-Castro exiles. His sons, first Lincoln and now Mario, have had little problems fashioning anti-Castro laws in the U. S. Congress. More recently, Marco Rubio and Carlos Curbelo have joined the steady parade of Little Havana stalwarts as anti-Castro zealots from Miami elected to the U. S. Congress. As a democracy lover, I have a bit of a problem with that persistent, preposterous parade. THERE HAVE BEEN A SLEW OF RECENT POLLS THAT SHOW CONCLUSIVELY THAT MOST CITIZENS IN LITTLE HAVANA FAVOR AN END TO THE DASTARDLY U. S. EMBARGO OF CUBA, WHICH HAS SHAMED AMERICA AND DEMOCRACY SINCE 1962, A FACT VIVIDLY REVEALED EACH YEAR WITH A VOTE IN THE UNITED NATIONS. So, my question is this: Why is it that Miami and Little Havana only send anti-embargo zealots -- Ros-Lehtinen, the Diaz-Balarts, Rubio, Curbelo, etc. -- to the U. S. Congress? Is it because...Miami and Little Havana more resemble a Batista-like Banana Republic than a Jefferson-like democracy?

Two vicious anti-Castro Cuban-American first-term U. S. Senators -- Marco Rubio from Miami and Ted Cruz from Texas by way of Canada -- have emerged as the two leading "establishment politicians" seeking the red-hot Republican nomination to be President of the United States. They have a lot in common in addition to being anti-Castro Cuban-American zealots. Sure, Rubio got all the way to the U. S. Senate with his bio still making the obligatory claim that his parents escaped the Castro tyranny in Cuba when, in fact, they escaped Batista's Cuba in 1957. Rubio also got all the way to the U. S. Senate despite alarming financial deals involving credit cards, real estate, etc., back in Florida. And, of course, Rubio has shown an avowed disdain for the Senate where he and his huge staff are highly paid but he, more than any of the 100 Senators, often doesn't even bother to show up to vote. Much of the same, except for the credit cards and real estate, can be said for Senator Cruz. Both men latched on to the right-wing Tea Party to launch their political ascendancy. Both men early-on latched onto the Bush dynasty; Mario's mentor in Florida was Jeb Bush and Cruz in Texas worked for George W. Bush. Neither Rubio nor Cruz have accomplished anything of note in the Senate, except vowing to shut down the government if they didn't get their way and to block or erase any of the positive overtures made by President Obama regarding Cuba. Rubio's stump speech on the campaign trail and in the debates also includes his amazing rise from abject poverty in Miami where his dad was a bartender and his mom a maid. That goes over big with the choir and the cable news outfits but it omits one key fact: BEING CUBAN-AMERICAN IN MIAMI MEANS YOU HAVE ADVANTAGES NON-CUBANS DON'T HAVE. At one time there were 17 Republicans running in the ongoing presidential primary. Rubio and Cruz will be the last two standing. That relates to the fact that both hit the Senate running for President, which entailed something they have been extremely successful at -- begging every known conservative and Jewish billionaire for money. Rubio and Cruz each have enough such money, as three articles in USA Today confirmed last week, to purchase the White House for the next sixteen years!! With money from multi-billionaires such as Paul Singer, Art Pope, Ken Griffin, Norman Braman, Sheldon Adelson, etc., Rubio will have enough cash to buy just about anything he wants in the next 25 years, including the White House. The same goes for Cruz, whom a pair of billionaire brothers in Texas gifted with a $15 million check for starters. As for the current primary race, look for the smarter, better organized Cruz, a superb orator, to cruise past both Rubio and the front-running non-politician Donald Trump to secure the Republican nod.

I like photos and graphics and this one is courtesy of Carolyn Kaster/AP with the Broken Heart graphic courtesy of Cliport.co/Yahoo News. Till they both ended up atop the polls, Cruz and Trump had only good things to say about each other, even while the Cable News anchors were going ballistic and devouring hour-after-hour of valuable time solely in trying to destroy Trump. But as this photo-graphic illustrates, now Cruz and Trump realize they have to attack and insult each other, even if it breaks their ever-loving hearts!!

Nick Anderson, in a downward spiral for the U. S. media, is an example of why great Editorial Cartoonists are probably your best bet to get a real pulse on the news, including politics. Anderson won the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning in 2007 with the Louisville Courier-Journal. Now his Pulitzer-worthy work is at the Houston Chronicle and his gems are syndicated nationally by The Washington Post Writers Group. In the past two weeks the anchors on cable news networks -- especially Megyn Kelly, Sean Hannity, Joe Scarborough, Chris Cuomo, and Stephanie Sy -- have all gone ballistic -- hour after hour, day after day -- berating Donald Trump for his latest proposal, which is/was to keep Muslims out of the U. S. "till we find out what's going on." Judging the anti-Trump anchors is actually hilarious for this old former {small-time} television anchor. But I am a {big-time} newshound and I want sharp, precise, fair, balanced news coverage -- as opposed to biased rants. So, I'm mostly relegated to depending on Pulitzer prize-winning Editorial Cartoonists such as Nick Anderson. One Nick is worth all those anchors combined. A case in point is Nick's political cartoon below.

This is a Nick Anderson gem that appeared in USA Today and other newspapers. Yes, it's anti-Trump specifically regarding his Muslim comment, but it is also precise and to the point without wasting hour-after-hour, day-after-day ranting about it.

This Gary Varvel "Campaign Blizzard" gem is also a case in point regarding great Editorial Cartoonists. Using an economy of words, he is saying, I believe, that the poor American voters are being swamped, or literally buried, in an avalanche...more like a tsunami, really...month-after-month-after-month of furious and nauseating campaigning, even involving a host of candidates who have zero chances of winning the endless primaries that have...aghast!!...more than another whole year to go. Sure, in money-crazed America, the billion-dollar campaigns enrich candidates, television stations, networks, pundits, ad agencies, etc. BUT WHY IS THIS INSANITY ALLOWED ONLY IN AMERICA and in no other democracy? I believe Gary Varvel in the above cartoon was asking the same question, and using just five precise words to ask it.

Now back to Rubio-Cruz, Cruz-Rubio. I am not a pundit nor am I a political expert. That, I believe, qualifies me to be a prognosticator regarding the ongoing Republican primary. {I'm a lifelong conservative Republican not elated that my Party has been usurped by right-wingers. My passion for Cuba -- as opposed to, say, Jamaica -- relates to my belief that America's Cuban policy has and is doing more to hurt America and democracy than any other day-to-day thing}. I now hereby predict that one of the two gentlemen shown above will be the first Cuban-American to be President of the United States. AND...a drum roll might be in order here...I PREDICT THAT MAN WILL BE.......TED CRUZ!! But...hold on! I don't think that monumental event will happen in January of 2017. However...I think it will happen in January of 2021. I think Cruz, better than Rubio, will use Hillary Clinton's White House term to better consolidate and meld his cash and political forces. Both men can use their huge cash stashes to aid other politicians in a well-known ploy to buy political supporters.

But I believe the Castro brothers from Texas will have more political success in the next 25 years than Rubio or Cruz. They are identical twins; that's Julian on the left and Joaquin on the right. You can Google their astounding meteoric rise in politics, guided by a fantastic Mexican-Texas mother. Her sons have off-the-wall intelligence, political acumen, and a genuine concern for people less fortunate than themselves. {Also the Castro twins from Texas are simply not self-serving anti-Castro zealots}.

This montage is a reminder that Latinos from this time forward will play an increasingly powerful role in the fabric of America, including politics. ABC News recognized that fact recently when it named the three talented Latinos above to its prestigious 2016 Presidential Team. And that's a good thing. I look forward to the day when the twin Castro brothers -- Joaquin and Julian -- spend 16 years flip-flopping as President-Vice President of the United States!! {But we'll have to amend that silly old rule about the President and Vice President needing to be from different states}.

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12.12.15

Fidel: Still A Headliner

On December 13th, 2015

Yes, Fidel Castro is 89-years-old and still recovering from his near-fatal intestinal illness that struck him in July of 2006. But when he takes pencil in hand, as illustrated by this photo, he still makes headlines. This weekend -- Saturday and Sunday; December 12th & 13th, 2015 -- at least five international news organizations headlined excerpts from a letter the revolutionary legend wrote this week to his friend, Venezuela's harassed President Nicolas Maduro. The worldwide media focused mostly on Fidel's prickly comment that he believes Russia and China "know the world's problems much better than the United States." This sentence also made worldwide headlines: "Therefore it's up to Russia and China, given their historical traditions and revolutionary experience, to make the greatest effort to avoid war and contribute to the peaceful development of Venezuela, Latin America, Asia, and Africa."

Latin America presidents, such as Venezuela's Nicolas Maduro above, often visit Fidel Castro in his home. Fidel's letter to Maduro this week was to boost his friend's morale after a National Assembly election in Venezuela powerfully reflected dissatisfaction with the 17-year socialist rule of Maduro and the late Hugo Chavez. Maduro's presidential term runs until 2019 but the super-majority in the National Assembly means he can expect impeachment proceedings to commence and his efficacious economic deals with Cuba to cease. Like other notable democratically elected presidential visits to Fidel's home -- Rousseff of Brazil, Ortega of Nicaragua, Bachelet of Chile, Kirchner of Argentina, etc. -- Maduro is in deep trouble at home and so boosts from their Cuban mentor is in order. The harassed and term-limited Kirchner last month watched her hand-picked would-be successor lose in a presidential election to an anti-Cuba, pro-U. S. capitalist. The same type movements are underway in Chile, Brazil, and...Venezuela! The leftist, or pro-Castro, sands are shifting to the right in Latin America. But with the dawning of a new year, 2016, and his 90th birthday, Fidel Castro...and his legacy...will not be minuscule in the Americas.

This week CNN Money used the above image with this headline: "Cuba Ripe for U. S. Investments." The astute assessment highlighted the fact that Cuba has shifted from a stoic socialist economy to a Vietnam-style capitalist approach. So, coupled with the rapprochement being engineered by U. S. President Obama, CNN predicts "hundreds of U. S. companies" are eager to invest in Cuba. It cited the bloody, five-year Vietnam War in which the U. S. lost to the Communist North, which united North and South Vietnam under communist rule. After the 1975 defeat, CNN noted that the U. S. had no relations with Vietnam till 1996. After that, U. S. companies invested billions of dollars in Vietnam and President George W. Bush went to Hanoi, put on silk pajamas, and banged a big gong to herald Vietnam's economy. CNN predicted this week that the same thing could happen to Cuba, but the Batistiano-dominated U. S. Congress will certainly try to prevent it. Yet, pugnaciousness is in Cuba's DNA.

Meanwhile, the 89-year-old Fidel Castro is not as enthused as his 84-year-old brother, President Raul Castro, when it comes to normalizing relations with the United States. But even Fidel realizes that Cuba, to survive, must tolerate a northern neighbor that is the world's economic and military superpower. Also, Fidel realizes that his policies left Cuba vulnerable by depending too much on one supporter -- such as the Soviet Union till its collapse in 1991 and the near collapse of President Maduro's oil-rich but cash-poor government in Venezuela. But, as his headline-making letter to Maduro indicated this week, Fidel Castro is still...well, FIDEL CASTRO!!

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10.12.15

The U.S-Cuba-MAFIA Triangle

A Nexus From 1952 Till Today
Saturday, December 12th, 2015

President Luis Guillermo Solis of Costa Rica is the latest Latin American leader caught up in the tangled web of U. S. laws designed to hurt Cuba and to empower and enrich Cubans once they defect to the United States. President Solis right now is beside himself over 4,500 Cubans stranded in his country for weeks now. They are a product of Wet Foot/Dry Foot, a U. S. law dating back to 1966 that encourages Cubans to defect and if their front foot touches U. S. soil they immediately have instant legal residency and welfare. Of course, that law and many others pertain only to Cubans, acutely discriminating against non-Cubans. Fearing that President Obama's peaceful overtures to Cuba will end Wet Foot/Dry Foot, thousands of Cubans are trying to flock to the U. S. via the Mexican border, some reportedly paying traffickers up to $15,000 to make the journey through eight countries. Some 4,500 Cubans made it as far as Costa Rica but were stopped at the border with Nicaragua, with Guatemala and other countries supporting Nicaragua. At his wit's end, President Solis this week announced that Costa Rica would fly them to Belize and from there they could reach U. S. soil. But Belize refused that plan. So, President Solis is caught in a quandary.

Some of the 4,500 Wet Foot/Dry Foot Cubans stranded in Costa Rica.

President Solis of Costa Rica -- vexed by Wet Foot/Dry Foot -- will fly to Cuba tomorrow, December 13th, for an important 3-day visit. He will lead a huge contingent to Cuba -- 31 government officials and 50 business leaders. Only in 2009 after President Obama replaced anti-Cuban President Bush in the White House did Cuba and Costa Rica restore relations. President Obama has made other great strides in normalizing relations between the U. S. and Cuba but only the U. S. Congress can put an end to such laws as Wet Foot/Dry Foot that have, for decades, harmed Cuba and many other countries in the region while also sating the revenge, economic, and political appetites of Cuban-Americans. Presidents caught in the middle, like Mr. Solis in Costa Rica, are astounded that the American people meekly allow a handful of Cuban-Americans and their easily acquired sycophants to so easily dictate such laws in the U. S. Congress. President Solis said, "We have waited many decades for America to conduct a sane approach to Cuba."

This map shows the long, circuitous journey -- from Cuba to Ecuador to Colombia to Panama and to Costa Rica -- that the thousands of Cubans had taken before being stopped at the Nicaraguan border.

Anti-Cuba, yes; anti-world, si.

USA Today yesterday -- Friday, Dec. 11th, 2015 -- had a full-page update on the 4,500 Cubans stuck on the Costa Rican-Nicaraguan border. It shows the insightful graphic above by USA Today's Janet Loehrke. The article was written by USA Today's Cuban-American Miami-based journalist Alan Gomez, and it is fair and balanced. Gomez quotes Frank Mora, the Director of the Latin American and Caribbean Center at Florida International University in Miami. Mora said: "The question from Central Americans is, 'So why is it that Cubans have these privileges while Salvadorans and Mexicans have to go back to their country?' That creates tensions in the region." It surely does but most of the mainstream media in the U. S., especially the television networks, don't have the guts or the integrity to even discuss the anti-democratic issue that Mr. Mora in Miami just discussed in yesterday's USA Today.

This is the fair-minded Frank Mora -- born, reared, and educated in Miami. His comments in USA Today Friday are typical of his democracy-loving appraisals of U.S.-Cuban relations and how they relate to Latin America and the Caribbean. It is a shame, I believe, that Miami -- which has a wealth of fair-minded individuals -- sends only Cuban hardliners to the U. S. Congress, which keeps in place a litany of anti-Castro laws that don't hurt Castro but indeed hurt many, many other people.

Yesterday-- Dec. 11th, 2015 -- Cuba's media, including the popular Cubadebate blog, used the above photo to illustrate a note 89-year-old Fidel Castro wrote to Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. The photo shows President Maduro on a recent visit to Castro's home in Havana. The first sentence of Castro's "Dear Nicholas" note to Maduro was: "I join the unanimous opinion of those who have congratulated you on your brilliant and courageous speech on the night of December 6." That was a reference to the concession speech Maduro made after last Sunday's National Assembly election in Venezuela gave a super-majority to Maduro's bitter opponents. With that super majority, Venezuela's National Assembly can now {1} begin impeachment proceedings against Maduro, whose term as President runs till 2019; and {2} the National Assembly now has the power to end Venezuela's very vital oil shipments to Cuba. In his December 6th speech, Maduro surprised some by saying he would "accept" the National Assembly vote. Fidel, in his note, seems to agree with that calm acceptance...but what transpires in the National Assembly-vs.-Maduro tugs-of-war in the coming days will be worth watching -- by all Venezuelans, Cubans, and Americans.

Hotel Anton in Cienfuegos; Cuba is renovating its best hotels as fast as it can.

Hotel Nacional in Havana, Cuba; legendary when the Mafia ruled Cuba in the 1950s and still legendary to this day. Presidents, Kings, Queens, and celebrities stay here.

Another view of Hotel Nacional as a recent influx of tourism blankets the island.

The Riviera Hotel in Havana; it was built in 1957 by Mafia kingpin Meyer Lansky and it still glistens above the Malecon seawall today after a recent renovation.

Gary Rapoport, the 60-year-old grandson of Mafia kingpin Meyer Lansky, this week has shined the spotlight back on the Mafia-U.S.-Cuban nexus that began in 1952 and continues to this day. It all started in 1952 when the U. S. government teamed with the top echelons of the Mafia -- Lucky Luciano and Meyer Lansky -- to support the brutal, thieving Fulgencio Batista in Cuba. In 1957, unmindful of the Celia Sanchez/Fidel Castro-led revolution that was gaining traction far to the southeast in the foothills of the Sierra Maestra Mountains, Meyer Lansky spent $8 million {now about $32 million} of his considerable fortune to build the Riviera Hotel, complete with air conditioning and a plush casino that made Las Vegas casinos look second-rate. Gary Rapoport, a resident of Tampa, Florida, this week made headlines by announcing that he and other Lansky heirs are demanding that Cuba either return the hotel to them or pay them what it is worth. Gary told The Tampa Tribune Tuesday that Cuba took the Riviera Hotel "forcefully" from his grandfather after the Cuban Revolution on January 1, 1959 chased Batistiano-Mafiosi leaders off the island, mostly to nearby South Florida. And then on Wednesday, Gary told NBC-6 South Florida that he is aware that Cuba and the U. S. are now discussing financial claims the countries have against each other. He said: "We never filed a claim with the government or hired an attorney earlier because we didn't think the door for negotiating would ever actually open."

Gary Rapoport says he has very fond memories of his grandfather, Meyer Lansky. Gary is shown here with a photo of his high school graduation with his granddad Meyer Lansky in attendance. Gary's dad, Marvin Rapoport, owned lavish horse farms in New York and Pennsylvania. Gary Rapoport now works for a bank in Tampa.

This photo, courtesy of Gary Rapoport, shows Meyer Lansky's family in the 1940s. The two boys standing at the left are sons Paul and Buddy. Their mother Anne is sitting beside Meyer's only daughter, Sandra. She is Gary Rapoport's mother.

This montage shows Meyer Lansky and his only daughter Sandra {he called her Sandi} on a trip to Israel. Sandra is the mother of Gary Rapoport, the grandson trying to reclaim Lansky's Riviera Hotel from Cuba. In the upper right, Sandra is holding a photo of her beloved father. In the lower right, the image of famed entertainer Dean Martin is appropriate. Sandra wrote a best-selling book about growing up as Meyer Lansky's daughter. The most quoted passages from the book relate to the Mafia's "gangland" hold on Las Vegas. In the book Sandra intimately detailed her sexual relationship with Las Vegas star Dean Martin. The page depicting Martin's six-times-in-one-night prowess is dizzying, and she wasn't talking about him singing six songs.

This photo shows Lucky Luciano, on the left, and Meyer Lansky just as they were slugging their way...murdering, actually...to the top of New York-New Jersey's criminal empire known as the Mafia. Lucky was born in Italy in 1897 when his name was Salvadore Lucania. He was small, just 5-foot-8. Meyer was born in Belarus in 1902. He was smaller, just 5-feet tall. Lucky died of a heart attack at the airport in Naples in 1962 when he was to meet a Hollywood producer interested in a movie about Lucky's life. Lucky was flown back to New York City and buried there. Meyer died in Miami Beach in 1983 and is buried there. The two lifelong buddies are credited with expanding the Mafia into a national crime syndicate known as The Commission, which was run like a corporation -- but one that ruthlessly eliminated all competition.

This photo shows a part of the first Commission that Luciano and Lansky designed in 1931 at a Mafia meeting held in Atlanta City, New Jersey. They wanted the greater New York area to be divided into five Mafia families with Lucky and Meyer dictating the leaders, such as the five early friends depicted above. Note that second from the left is Ben "Bugsy" Siegel. Siegel was the famed builder of Las Vegas's gambling empire till Lucky and Meyer, at a famous meeting in Havana at the National Hotel, ordered his assassination. And Luciano-Lansky orders were carried out.

Bugsy is famed as the Mafia builder of Las Vegas.

Bugsy's famous death sentence was indeed handed down by Lucky Luciano and Meyer Lansky in Cuba although Bugsy, like Meyer, was Jewish. Lucky and Meyer believed Bugsy was skimming money from the Flamingo Hotel that Bugsy so doggedly had built in the Nevada desert, spawning the world-famed city of Las Vegas.

These are the three Mafia kingpins -- Santo Trafficante, Meyer Lansky, and Lucky Luciano -- that dominated the Havana Mob during the U.S.-backed Batista-Mafia dictatorship of Cuba from 1952-1959. Meyer and Lucky were the decision-makers and Santo ran several of the primary casinos. Santo and his father were the Mafia kingpins of Tampa for four decades before and after the Mafia's rule of Cuba in the 1950s.

Left to the U. S. government and the U. S. media, Americans would believe that the Batista dictatorship in Cuba in the 1950s was led by Mother Teresa-types. In that milieu, movies have done a far better job of depicting the Mafia in the U. S. and in Cuba even with its cinematic embellishments. In "Godfather II," for example, Meyer Lansky was played by the Hyman Roth character, on the left above. Meyer was also a key factor in the HBO series "Boardwalk Empire." All leading Mafia figures, most of whom never had any real problems with law enforcement, have been vividly depicted in movies. That's how, for example, we actually learn that Meyer Lansky did, in fact, tell Fulgencio Batista in Florida, "I've always wanted the Mob to own its own country." That dream was then realized in Cuba till the Cuban Revolution intervened. Also, as the Hyman Roth character in "Godfather II" reminded us, Meyer Lansky in Cuba did say, "We are bigger than U. S. Steel!" and, counting the Mafia holdings in Havana, New York, and Las Vegas at the time, they certainly were big. REAL BIG!!!!

According to the Batistaino-directed Cuban narrative in the United States since 1959, these are the three Mother Teresa-type men who treated the everyday Cubans so nice during the U.S.-backed Batista dictatorship from 1952 till sunrise on January 1, 1959. Left to right, the Big Three Mafiosi in Havana from 1952 till 1959 were Lucky Luciano, Meyer Lansky, and Fulgencio Batista. Uh, yeah, really! Mother Teresa-types!

To my mind, the photo above is an example of how the U. S. government and the U. S. media -- as opposed to movies and a few brave historians -- have, since the 1950s, steadfastly presented to Americans only the Batistiano version of the Cuban Revolution, which was primarily a unique female-orchestrated endeavor. Cuban females and children were the primary victims of the U.S.-backed Batista-Mafia dictatorship in the 1950s. And Cuban females, like the victorious ones above, were the rebels mostly responsible for chasing the Batistianos, the Mafiosi, and the U. S. executives off the island. If that fact is too much for the Batistianos to stomach to this day, so be it. This is one of Tete Puebla's favorite photos. That's her on the left with some of the other female guerrilla fighters that doomed Batista, Lansky, and Luciano in Cuba...although, unfortunately, their American sanctuary was awaiting them.

Today Tete Puebla is a General in the Cuban army. I met her in 2004 when the Bush administration gave me permission to visit Cuba for the purpose of researching my biography of Celia Sanchez, Cuba's greatest revolutionary heroine and a guerrilla fighter right beside Tete. So, I can testify that General Tete Puebla is a sweet lady and easy to talk to. I have been reminded of that this week when I have read a plethora of articles about Meyer Lansky's grandson in Tampa, Gary Rapoport, demanding that Cuba repay the Lansky family for Meyer's loss of his splendid Riviera Hotel to the victorious Cuban Revolution. My thought is this: Why doesn't Gary Rapoport travel to Cuba and ask General Puebla face-to-face if she thinks Cuba should return the Riviera Hotel to the Lansky family? I would love to see how Tete would answer that question.