Synopses & Reviews
From Americas number one Cuba reporter, PEN award-winning investigative journalist Ann Louise Bardach, comes the big book on Cuba weve all been waiting for. An incisive and spirited portrait of the twentieth centurys wiliest political survivor and his fiefdom,
Cuba Confidential is the gripping story of the shattered families and warring personalities that lie at the heart of the forty-three-year standoff between Miami and Havana.
Famous to many Americans for her cover stories and media appearances, Ann Louise Bardach has been covering Cuba for a decade. Shes talked to the crooks, spooks and politicians who have made history, and to their hired assassins and confidants. Based on exclusive interviews with Fidel Castro, his sister Juanita, his former brother-in-law Rafael Díaz-Balart, the family of Elián González, the friends and family of the legendary American fugitive Robert Vesco, the intrepid terrorist Luis Posada Carriles, and the inner circles of Jeb Bush and the late exile leader Jorge Mas Canosa, Cuba Confidential exposes the hardball take-no-prisoners tactics of the Cuban exile leadership, and its manipulation and exploitation by ten American presidents.
Bardach homes in on Fidel Castro and his cronies, taking us closer than weve ever been—and on the militant exiles who have devoted their lives, with CIA connivance, to trying to eliminate him. From Calle Ocho to Juan Miguel Gonzálezs kitchen table in Cárdenas, from Guantánamo Bay to Union City to Washington, D.C., Ann Louise Bardach serves up an unforgettable portrait of Cuba and its exiles.
From the Hardcover edition.
About the Author
Ann Louise Bardach is a PEN award-winning investigative journalist who has covered Cuba for more than a decade for the New York Times, Vanity Fair, where she was a Contributing Editor for many years, and many other national publications. She currently writes the Global Buzz column for Newsweek International and has appeared on 60 Minutes, Today, Dateline, CNN, The OReilly Factor, Hardball, Charlie Rose, and NPR, among others. She is also the editor of Cuba: A Travelers Literary Companion and is a Visiting Professor of International Journalism at the University of California at Santa Barbara.
Table of Contents
AcknowledgmentsFamily Tree of Fidel Castro Ruz
The Fifteen Passengers of the Boat of Elián González
Family Tree of the González Family
Preface
A Note on the Text
Chapter 1: The Shipwreck
Chapter 2: Castro Family Values
Chapter 3: Planet Elián
Chapter 4: Calle Ocho Politics
Chapter 5: The Man Who Would Be King
Chapter 6: The Litigator
Chapter 7: An Assassins Tale in Three Acts
Chapter 8: The Movie Star Dictator
Chapter 9: Dr. No and Uncle Sam
Chapter 10: The Raid
Chapter 11: The Third Rail
Chapter 12: The Old Man and the Little Boy
Appendix A: Chronology of the Elián González Affair
Appendix B: Cuba - United States Timeline
Notes
Bibliography
Index