The Longest Romance (31 page)

Che Guevara's worldwide diplomatic tour in 1960 included North Korea, which stole his heart. “North Korea is a model to which revolutionary Cuba should aspire,” he proclaimed upon returning to Havana. Then he promptly put his aspiration into action by setting up a huge prison-camp at Guanahacabibes in westernmost Cuba. This barbed-wire enclosure, with machine-gun towers at the corners and forced labor in the broiling sun beneath Soviet bayonets, was set up specifically to house “lazy youths” and “delinquents,” with whom it was quickly crammed to the point of suffocation.

After surfacing from their scuba-dive at the “Gardens of the Queen” reef off southern Cuba, Cooper and Guggenheim rhapsodized for the CBS cameras.

Guggenheim: “The corals are healthy. The fish are healthy and abundant. There are predators here, large sharks. It's the way these ecosystems really should look.”

Anderson Cooper: “You're saying this is like a time capsule, almost?”

Guggenheim: “It's a living time-machine. And it's a really incredible opportunity to learn from.”

Cooper: “So something here holds the key to figuring out how to save other reefs and bring them back.”

Guggenheim: “It's because this ecosystem is being protected. It's got a leg up on other ecosystems around the world that are being heavily fished.”
⁴
Yes, amazing how that works when you convert free citizens of a nation with a higher per-capita income and car ownership than half of Europe, who enjoyed the third-highest protein consumption in Latin America, into penurious half-starved serfs. In pre-Castro Cuba the abundant lobster, grouper and snapper that so enchanted Cooper and Guggenheim on their scuba-dive served as dietary mainstays of the humblest Cubans, who owned boats and fishing-gear and were perfectly free to use them at every whim and consume their catch. For Cuban landlubbers, pre-Castro groceries stocked seafood in abundance. Now these delicacies are reserved mostly for tourists, regime apparatchiks and valued foreign propagandists. Catching and eating a lobster can land a Castro subject in jail. And owning even a dinghy is the stuff of dreams, of escape.

“In 1996 the government of Fidel Castro, a diver himself, made this area one of the largest marine preserves in the Caribbean. Almost all commercial fishing was banned,” explained a smug Cooper to his “60 Minutes” audience.

Yes, amazing how that works in Stalinist Cuba: “Ah! Think I'll decree my favorite diving and fishing site a preserve that prohibits my subjects from doing there what I do,” brainstorms the Maximum Leader (translates into German almost precisely as Fuhrer). One fine afternoon, he presents it to his parliament. “Now, do I hear any objections? No? OK, going once, going twice—the motion passes!”

There's just something about running a KGB-tutored Stalinist regime that encourages this type of instant and gung-ho team-playing by legislators. Many among the tens of thousands of Castro's prison, torture and firing-squad victims were his former
comrades, onetime regime officials. Unlike food, clothing, shelter, feminine napkins and toilet paper, one thing there's never any shortage of in Stalinist Cuba is the rubber-stamp.

Apartheid South Africa, by the way, did a bang-up job of wildlife conservation. The segregationist governments set up many national parks and nature-preserves where vigilant police kept poaching to a minimum. When apartheid ended and South Africa's black population was enfranchised, poaching grew rampant, with the populations of many endangered species (rhinos in particular) plummeting.

But extolling apartheid South Africa's conservation consciousness was not much done by the global mainstream media. Apparently, in the view of enlightened opinion worldwide, the vileness of that government's segregationist policies negated the virtue of its conservation policies. If only Stalinist policies were regarded similarly by enlightened opinion worldwide. If only a totalitarian Cuban regime that jailed and murdered political prisoners, at ten times the rate of an authoritarian South African regime, provoked a tiny fraction of the revulsion that the latter regime produced among the enlightened of the globe.

On his website, Dr. Guggenheim hails Cuba's protection of sea turtles: “The project also includes a comprehensive sea-turtle research and conservation component focused at Cuba's westernmost point, Guanahacabibes. Through
strong community involvement and education,
it has dramatically reduced turtle-poaching.” (my emphasis)

And how! Just ask the former inmates of Che Guevara's forced-labor camp nearby. That sort of incentive-program will easily engender community involvement.

1
Georgie Ann Geyer,
Guerrilla Prince,
Little Brown, 1991, p. 171

2
Antonio Rafael De la Cova,
The Moncada Attack: Birth of the Cuban Revolution,
University of South Carolina Press, p. 239

3
Castro Speech Data Base, Latin American Network Information Center, University of Texas at Austin

4
Ibid.

5
Humberto Fontova,
Exposing the Real Che Guevara,
Sentinel, 2007, p. 70

6
Carlos Alberto Montaner, “Castro and the JFK Assassination,”
The Miami Herald,
May 28, 2012

7
Kenneth Timmerman, “More Cuban Spies Lurking In U.S.,”
Newsmax,
May 19, 2007

8
Yuri Bezmenov, interview with Edward Griffin,
American Media
, 1984

9
Nicholas Horrock, “FBI Asserts Cuba Aided Weathermen,”
The New York Times,
October 9, 1977

10
Chris Simmons, “The Communist Roots of a ‘Cuba Expert,'” Cuba Confidential weblog, May 24, 2012

11
Dinita Smith, “No Regrets for a Love Of Explosives: In a Memoir of Sorts, a War Protester Talks of Life With the Weathermen,”
The New York Times,
September 11, 2001

12
Larry Grathwohl, interview with the author

13
Ibid..

14
Ibid.

1
Trevor Armbrister, “Fawning Over Fidel,”
Reader's Digest,
May 1996

2
Andrew Malcom, “Fidel Castro to Congressional Black Caucus members: ‘How can we help President Obama?'”
Los Angeles Times,
April 7, 2009

3
Humberto Fontova, “Jimmy Carter Does Havana,”
The Washington Times,
April 6, 2011

4
Rana Foroohar, “How We Ranked the World,”
Newsweek,
August 10, 2010

5
Frances Robles, “Castro's Victims,”
The Miami Herald,
December 31, 2007

1
“Historians Have Absolved Fidel Castro,”
Newsmax.com
, August 15, 2006

2
Eusebio Penalver, interview with the author

3
Irvine, “Mandela Mania,” Accuracy in Media, July 1990

4
Juan Tamayo, “Suicide Epidemic Exists Under Castro,”
The Miami Herald,
June 18, 1998

5
Ninoska Perez Castellon, “Serenading a Wicked Friend,”
The Miami Herald,
February 21, 2002

6
Andres Suarez,
Cuba, Castroism and Communism, 1959-1966,
MIT Press, 1967

7
Yosvani Anzardo Hernandez, “Una haitiana en Cuba,”
http://www.cubanet.org/CNews/y09/agosto09/06_C_3.html

8
Alberto Bustamante, “Notas y Estadisticas Sobre Los Grupos Etnicos en Cuba,”
Revista Herencia,
Volume 10, 2004

9
Mario Lazo,
Dagger in the Heart; American Policy Failures in Cuba,
Funk &Wagnalls, 1968

10
Andres Suarez,
Cuba, Castroism and Communism, 1959-1966,
MIT Press, 1967

11
Jeffrey Goldberg, “America's Absurd and Self-Defeating Cuba Policy,”
The Atlantic,
September 16, 2010

12
Pablo Neruda, “Saludo a Batista,”
El Siglo,
November 27, 1944

13
Lorraine Lees,
Keeping Tito Afloat: The United States, Yugoslavia, and the Cold War,
Pennsylvania State University Press, 1997

14
Julio Alvarado,
La Aventura Cubana,
Artes Graficas y Ediciones, 1977

15
Ibid.

1
Javier Barroso, “Un Joven Muere en el Tren de Aterrizaje de un Vuelo de Cuba,”
El Pais
(Madrid), July 14, 2011

2
Wilfredo Cancio Isla, “Solo Dos Cubanos Han Logrado Sobrevivir a Fugas Clandestinas en Aviones Desde la Isla,”
cafefuerte.com
, July 13, 2011

3
Christopher Marquis and David Hancock, “U.S. Rips Extreme Cruelty, Protests 3 Killings Near Base,”
The Miami Herald,
July 7, 1993

4
Juan Tamayo, “Suicide Epidemic Exists Under Castro,”
The Miami Herald,
June 18, 1998

5
Mario Lazo,
Dagger in the Heart; American Policy Failures in Cuba,
Funk & Wagnalls, 1968, p. 397

6
Arturo Cobo, interview with the author

7
Granma,
July 6, 1989; see also Enrique Encinosa,
Unvanquished: Cuba's Resistance to Fidel Castro,
Pureplay Press, 2004.

8
Maria Werlau & Armando Lago, Cuba Archive Truth and Memory Project

9
Ronald Bergan,
Francis Ford Coppola, Close Up: The Making of His Movies,
Thunder Mouth Press, 1993, p. 530

1
Matt Lawrence, interview with the author

2
Diana Nyad, “Sharks Need Our Help,” CNN, July 28, 2011

3
Diana Nyad, “Cuba on Independence Day,”
The Huffington Post,
July 5, 2012

4
Timothy Smith, “Cuban Aims for Big Escapes in Ring,”
The New York Times,
May 28, 1998

5
G. Fernandez and M.A. Menendez, “Castro Graba Intimidades deVisitantes,” March 12, 2001,
http://www.autentico.org/oa09669.php

1
Sergei Khrushchev, “How My Father and President Kennedy Saved The World: The Cuban Missile Crisis as Seen From the Kremlin,”
American Heritage,
October 2002

2
Che Guevara to Sam Russell,
London Daily Worker,
November 1962

3
Khrushchev, Op. cit.

4
Elliott Abrams to Antonio De la Cova, May 27, 1993

1
Anthony DePalma,
The Man Who Invented Fidel,
Perseus Book Group. 2006, pp 74-75

2
Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, Eighty Sixth Congress, Second Session, Part 9, August 27, 30, 1960

3
Manuel Marquez-Sterling, interview with the author

4
Bohemia
magazine, Havana, February 27, 1957

5
Ibid.

6
Oscar Yanes,
Pura Pantalla,
Planeta, 2000

7
Anthony DePalma, Op. cit. p. 158

8
Julio Lobo, Commencement Speech to graduating class, Louisiana State University, 1963

9
Javier Arzuaga, Op. cit.

1
Carlos Bringuier, interview with the author

2
Enrique Ros,
Che: Mito y Realidad,
Ediciones Universal, 2002, p. 189

3
Rufo Lopez Fresquet,
My Fourteen Months With Castro,
World Publishing Company, 1966

4
Harry Truman,
The Washington Post,
July 31, 1959

5
Dwight Eisenhower, presidential press conference, July 15, 1959

6
Anthony DePalma,
The Man Who Invented Fidel,
Perseus Book Group, 2006, p. 178

7
U.S. Department of State,
Bulletin,
Volume XLVII, No. 1213, September 24, 1962

8
Roger Hilsman,
The Cuban Missile Crisis: The Struggle Over Policy.
Praeger, 1996, p. 39

9
Michael Beschloss,
The
Crisis
Years: Kennedy and Khrushchev, 1960-63,
Harper Collins, 1991, p. 27

10
Anthony DePalma, Op. cit. p. 175

1
Anthony DePalma,
The Man Who Invented Fidel,
Perseus Book Group, 2006, p. 198

2
Humberto Fontova,
Exposing the Real Che Guevara,
Sentinel, 2007, p. 31

3
James Scott Linville,
Shooting Script,
Standpoint Magazine, January 2009

1
Anthony DePalma,
The Man Who Invented Fidel,
Perseus Book Group, 2006, p. 201

2
Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.,
A Thousand Days,
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2002, p. 220

3
Daniel James,
Che Guevara: A Biography,
Stein & Day, 1969, p. 276

4
Jon Lee Anderson,
Che: A Revolutionary Life,
Grove Press, 1997, p. 617

5
Bay of Pigs Veterans Association, interviews with the author

6
Association of ex-Cuban Political Prisoners, interviews with the author