Download or read book The Americano written by Aran Shetterly and published by Algonquin Books. This book was released on 2007-08-10 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Why do I fight here in this land so foreign to my own? Why did I come here far from my home and family?...Is it because I seek adventure? No...I am here because I believe that the most important thing for free men to do is to protect the freedom of others." —William Morgan, in a letter to Herbert Matthews at the New York Times When William Morgan was twenty-two years old, he was working as a high school janitor in Toledo Ohio. Seven years later, in 1958, he walked into a Rebel camp in the Cuban Jungle to join the revolutionaries in their fight to overthrow the corrupt Cuban president, Fulgencio Batista. They were wary of the broad-shouldered, blond-haired, blue-eyed americano but Morgan's dedication and passion, his military skill and charisma, led him to become a chief comandante in Castro's army—he was the only foreigner to hold such a rank, with the exception of Che Guevera. Vicious battles in the jungles were followed by victorious revelry in the cities. Morgan married a Cuban beauty. He single-handedly thwarted the Dominican Republic's attempt to overthrow Castro. And he was chosen to work with Castro and other high ranking Rebels to improve the quality of life for all people. This man who had lived under the radar in America was now a Cuban hero on the watch lists of several governments, all of whom wondered whose side he was really on. It all ended in 1961, when, at age thirty-two, Morgan was executed by firing squad, at the hands of Fidel Castro. Journalist Aran Shetterly takes us back to an era when democracy could have flourished in Cuba. He interviewed Morgan's friends and family and former Cuban Rebels, and examined FBI and CIA documents in search of the truth. What emerged was the true story of a young man who had never fit in but finally found his place in the world by fighting another country's war.

Download or read book Fighting Castro written by Kay Abella and published by Kay Abella. This book was released on 2007 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Havana 1960. Lino Fernandez, a young Cuban doctor, and his wife Emy decide to fight Castro rather than flee into exile. They work together in the underground, traveling across Cuba to muster support for the guerilla movement. Then Lino continues alone as Emy waits for the birth of their third child. Now a major leader in the resistance group MRR (movement to Recuperate the Revolution), is able to see Emy only sporadically, sneaking back to Havana for a few hours for the birth of their daughter Lucia. Lino makes a number of trips into the Escambray Mountains where guerilla troops are training. He finally arranges a long-awaited arms drop by the CIA, but is captured by the militia and taken to Cuban Security Police (G-2) headquarters. It is February 1961. He is 26 years old. Both Emy and Lino believe he will be executed, but hope for a prison sentence instead. Whatever happens to Lino, Emy believes that their children, one month, one year, and two years old, cannot grow up in Cuba, indoctrinated in Communism and treated as pariahs, the children of a traitor. At the age of 22, she makes the agonizing decision to send her children away to Miami with her parents and stay in Cuba to help Lino survive in prison. If nothing else, she will be with him if he is executed.Lino is placed in several prisons until, after a hunger strike he organized, he is sent to the maximum security Ile of Pines prison on an island off the south coast of Cuba. Already known as a troublemaker, he is placed in solitary in a cage-cell, naked, humiliated, on starvation rations, and exposed to searing sun and hurricanes. He manages to keep his sanity by communicating with other prisoners through the wire ceilings of their cells. During this time he learns from a telegram that his children are safe in Miami and Emy has stayed in Cuba.After 100 days, he is put into a cell block with 1200 other prisoners.There he discovers a deep connection to others who fought Castro, many from a world he never knew before ; farmers, peasants, manual workers.Lino emerges as a leader not only in fact but in the respect shown him by other prisoners. At Linos trial he uses the one time he is permitted to speak to describe his reasons for opposing Castro, despite prejudicing his case. To Emys relief, he is sentenced not to death but to 30 years in prison. He is returned to Ile of Pines where he and the others are subjected to brutal random attacks, beatings, and killings by guards. Lino and other leaders are determined to keep up the morale and health of the political prisoners by creating as normal an existence as possible. They organize a clinic, a library, classes, sports - anything to maintain the feeling that the years are not being thrown away. They also manage to stay in contact via radio with the outside world and smuggle letters in and out of prison. Visits by families, and the supplies they bring, are sporadic, but become a lifeline for the prisoners.The years at Ile of Pines are a series of assaults on the prisoners morale and safety. At one point, Castro wires the prison with dynamite, in order to get rid of the Resistance fighters in case of another invasion like Bay of Pigs. Lino experiences the 1962 missile crisis via the prisoners clandestine radio. Later he helps prisoners survive the forced labor and random killings imposed by Castro. Eventually Ile of Pines is closed and Lino is transferred to La Cabana prison near Havana. In Havana Emy struggles to create a bearable life, spending much of her time searching for the food and supplies Lino needs in prison. Although she finds some support in working at the Egyptian embassy, Emy is twice arrested for minor infractions and tried for crimes against the revolution. She moves from one friends house to another, subject to harassment and discrimination, her only comfort coming from her friendships with other wives of dissidents and with foreigners. The couples relationship grows through the rare visits and through passionate love letters smuggled in and out of prison. Allowed no direct contact with her children, Emy can only imagine their lives through news from friends who visit Miami and rare letters from her parents. At La Cabana prison, conditions are even worse; men are crammed into dark stone galleras, with no space to move and no light or fresh air. Steadfastly refusing to accept, even symbolically, the legitimacy of Castros regime, Lino leads several attempts at revolt, ending in a hunger strike in which he comes close to death. After seventeen years in prison and work camps, Lino is released in the middle of the night, with no warning or explanation. He makes his way to Havana where he is reunited with Emy. However, they are still forbidden to leave Cuba. They settle down to create whatever existence they can in Havana, desperate to be with their children and subject to many limitations and harassments. One year later, during a short thaw in relations with the U.S, Castro unexpectedly allows former political prisoners to have exit visas, although there is no transport available.A group of ex-prisoners families in Miami send a charter plane and Lino and Emy are finally reunited with their children in Miami.

Download or read book Fighting Blind written by Ivan Castro and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2016-11-15 with total page 263 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fighting was a practiced routine for Lieutenant Ivan Castro. But when a mortar round struck the rooftop of his sniper’s post in Iraq, he found himself in a battle more difficult than even he could have imagined. The direct hit killed two other soldiers and nearly claimed Castro’s life as well. Mangled by shrapnel and badly burned, Castro was medevac’d to Germany more dead than alive. His lungs were collapsed. He couldn’t hear. One eye had been blown out, the nerve to the other severed. In the weeks and months that followed, Castro would find that physical darkness was nothing compared to the emotional darkness of loss and despair. Desperate for a reason to live, he eventually fought his way back to health through exercise and a single-minded goal: running a marathon. Once he set his course, there was no stopping him. Stubborn to a point that at times bordered on insanity, he managed not only to recover but to return to active duty. Since 2007, he has run over two dozen marathons, including the Boston Marathon in 2013, where he was one of the runners diverted when the bombs exploded. Today, Castro helps prepare soldiers for combat, working exactly as if he were “sighted.” Fighting Blind, this frankly told account of his struggle through adversity, the highs and lows and the always bumpy road in between, is a story of hope and perseverance against the odds: an Unbroken for the present generation.

Download or read book Fighting over Fidel written by Rafael Rojas and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2015-11-24 with total page 311 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How New York intellectuals interpreted and wrote about Castro's revolution in the 1960s New York in the 1960s was a hotbed for progressive causes of every stripe, including women's liberation, civil rights, opposition to the Vietnam War—and the Cuban Revolution. Fighting over Fidel brings this turbulent cultural moment to life by telling the story of the New York intellectuals who championed and opposed Castro’s revolution. Setting his narrative against the backdrop of the ideological confrontation of the Cold War and the breakdown of relations between Washington and Havana, Rafael Rojas examines the lives and writings of such figures as Waldo Frank, Carleton Beals, C. Wright Mills, Allen Ginsberg, Susan Sontag, Norman Mailer, Eldridge Cleaver, Stokely Carmichael, and Jose Yglesias. He describes how Castro’s Cuba was hotly debated in publications such as the New York Times, Village Voice, Monthly Review, and Dissent, and how Cuban socialism became a rallying cry for groups such as the Beats, the Black Panthers, and the Hispanic Left. Fighting over Fidel shows how intellectuals in New York interpreted and wrote about the Cuban experience, and how the Left’s enthusiastic embrace of Castro’s revolution ended in bitter disappointment by the close of the explosive decade of the 1960s.

Download or read book With Fidel written by Frank Mankiewicz and published by . This book was released on 1976 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Young Castro written by Jonathan M. Hansen and published by Simon & Schuster. This book was released on 2020-06-30 with total page 512 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This intimate, revisionist portrait of Fidel Castro, showing how an unlikely young Cuban led his country in revolution and transfixed the world, is “sure to become the standard on Castro’s early life” (Publishers Weekly). Until now, biographers have treated Castro’s life like prosecutors, scouring his past for evidence to convict a person they don’t like or don’t understand. Young Castro challenges us to put aside the caricature of a bearded, cigar-munching, anti-American hothead to discover how Castro became the dictator who acted as a thorn in the side of US presidents for nearly half a century. In this “gripping and edifying narrative…Hansen brings imposing research and notable erudition” (Booklist) to Castro’s early life, showing Castro getting his toughness from a father who survived Spain’s class system and colonial wars to become one of the most successful independent plantation owners in Cuba. We see a boy running around that plantation more comfortable playing with the children of his father’s laborers than his own classmates at elite boarding schools in Santiago de Cuba and Havana. We discover a young man who writes flowery love letters from prison and contemplates the meaning of life, a gregarious soul attentive to the needs of strangers but often indifferent to the needs of his own family. These pages show a liberal democrat who admires FDR’s New Deal policies and is skeptical of communism, but is also hostile to American imperialism. They show an audacious militant who stages a reckless attack on a military barracks but is canny about building an army of resisters. In short, Young Castro reveals a complex man. The first American historian in a generation to gain access to the Castro archives in Havana, Jonathan Hansen was able to secure cooperation from Castro’s family and closest confidants. He gained access to hundreds of never-before-seen letters and interviewed people he was the first to ask for their impressions of the man. The result is a nuanced and penetrating portrait of a man at once brilliant, arrogant, bold, vulnerable, and all too human: a man who, having grown up on an island that felt like a colonial cage, was compelled to lead his country to independence.

Download or read book The Prison Letters of Fidel Castro written by Fidel Castro and published by Bold Type Books. This book was released on 2009-04-29 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Early in Ann Louise Bardach's Cuban voyage she came across Cartas de Presidio or The Prison Letters of Fidel Castro. Edited by Luis Conte Aguero, who was the recipient of most of these letters, they are cited in every important work from Hugh Thomas' opus Cuba to Tad Szulc's Fidel biography, and everything in between and since. These twenty-one letters (nine to Conte Aguero, six to his late sister and close collaborator, Lidia, one to his wife Mirta, one to his comrade in combat, Melba Hernandez letters, one to the great scholar Jorge Manach) are regarded as the single most valuable and revelatory document regarding Fidel Castro and the Cuban Revolution. Never before published in English, these letters were written when Castro was imprisoned for his failed attack on the Moncada from 1953 to 1955 and reveal a man of spectacular ambition and steely determination. A man, who despite being incarcerated to serve a lengthy prison term, never wavers in his confidence that he will one day rule Cuba.

Download or read book The Yankee Comandante written by Michael Sallah and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2015-01-06 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: William Morgan, a tough-talking ex-paratrooper, stunned family and friends when in 1957 he left Ohio to join freedom fighters in the mountains of Cuba. He led one band of guerrillas, and Che Guevara another, and together they swept through the country, ultimately forcing corrupt dictator Fulgencio Batista from power. In just a year of fighting, the American revolutionary had altered the landscape of the Cold War. But Morgan believed they were fighting to liberate Cuba. Then Fidel Castro canceled elections, seized properties, and imprisoned Morgan’s fellow freedom fighters. Even Morgan’s own house mysteriously blew up. But The Comandante is about more than just the revolution. It’s the story of two people in love, pressured by government agents and mobsters vying to control a nation that soon brought the world to the brink of nuclear destruction. In the mountains, Morgan met Olga Rodriguez, a beautiful, fiery nurse, whom he soon married. Together, amid their firestorm romance, they decided to take a stand and take back the government from Castro and Guevara. The newlyweds began running arms to prepare for a counterrevolution, soon caught in a cloak-and-dagger web among Castro’s forces; the Mob, which controlled Havana; and the CIA’s preparations for the Bay of Pigs Invasion. But one of Morgan’s guards betrayed him to Castro, who threw the counterrevolutionary in prison, placing his wife and their two daughters under house arrest. The couple smuggled secret messages to each other until Olga ultimately escaped by drugging her captors. Before she could free her husband, though, a junta tribunal tried and sentenced him to death by firing squad. Drawing on declassified FBI, CIA, and Army intelligence records as well as Olga’s diaries, Pulitzer Prize–winning authors Michael Sallah and Mitch Weiss skillfully reveal the inner workings of the Cuban Revolution while detailing the incredible love story of a rebel nurse and an American street hero who left their mark on history.

Download or read book Inside the Cuban Revolution written by Julia Sweig and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2009-06-30 with total page 287 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sweig shatters the mythology surrounding the Cuban Revolution in a compelling revisionist history that reconsiders the revolutionary roles of Castro and Guevara and restores to a central position the leadership of the Llano. Granted unprecedented access to the classified records of Castro's 26th of July Movement's underground operatives--the only scholar inside or outside of Cuba allowed access to the complete collection in the Cuban Council of State's Office of Historic Affairs--she details the debates between Castro's mountain-based guerrilla movement and the urban revolutionaries in Havana, Santiago, and other cities.

Download or read book Cuba at the Crossroads written by Fidel Castro and published by Ocean Press (AU). This book was released on 1996 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: English texts of Castro's speeches given between Nov. 25, 1994 and April 30, 1996, which first appeared in the Cuban weekly Granma International.

Download or read book Cuba 1952 1959 written by Manuel Márquez-Sterling and published by Kleiopatria Digital Press. This book was released on 2009 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Author Manuel Márquez-Sterling writes about Fidel Castro and his revolution from direct personal experience, as a historian with broad and deep knowledge of 50s Cuba. The author knew and had contact with many of the historical figures in the book's pages. His penetrating analysis of the public and behind-the-scenes events clears the fog and shatters myths to reveal the real story of the Cuban Revolution. The book explains how Castro came to power through the convergence of rabid partisanship, radical student politics, media bias, and venal politicians who placed self interest ahead of preserving democracy. Facing a constitutional crisis, these parties espoused "the end justifies the means," embracing political gangsterism and eschewing negotiations with political opponents- resulting in a power vacuum Castro exploited to seize power. Masterful propaganda cast Castro as pro-democracy hero, avoiding scrutiny of his plans for a totalitarian state under his control.

Download or read book Executive Action written by Fabián Escalante Font and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cuba's former counterintelligence chief reviews more than 600 CIA plots to assassinate Fidel Castro - a project code-named Executive Action. Although melodramatic and at times almost comical, the plans were both drawn up in deadly earnest and entirely unconstitutional, as subsequent US government enquiries concluded, including the 1975 Commission headed by Senator Frank Church.

Download or read book My Life written by Ignacio Ramonet and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2009-06-09 with total page 755 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a series of interviews with a European journalist and scholar, the Cuban leader describes his early life, the Cuban Revolution, and his experiences ruling Cuba, and discusses his views on socialism, international affairs, and the future.

Download or read book Cuba on the Brink written by James G. Blight and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2002 with total page 580 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With the disintegration of the Soviet Union and international socialism, Cuba now finds itself isolated as the United States continues to press for its economic and political collapse. How Fidel Castro sees Cuba's plight and what he hopes to do about it emerge from this account of a unique conference held in Havana in 1992. The meeting brought together participants in the Cuban missile crisis from the former Soviet Union, Cuba, and the U.S. to discuss its causes and course. This account is now available for the first time in paperback, on the 40th anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis. This first meeting between Castro, his ex-Soviet allies, and his American foes produced startling revelations about his dealings with the Soviets, chilling details of the number and kind of Soviet nuclear arms that Cuba possessed in 1962, and an illuminating account of Castro's view of the American threat--then and now. The dramatic exchanges between Castro and such conference participants as Anatoly I. Gribkov, former head of the Warsaw Pact; former U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara; and Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., Special Assistant to John Kennedy, reveal misperceptions on all sides that led us to the brink of nuclear war. An extraordinary examination of an international crisis, Cuba on the Brink illustrates the ongoing "Cuba problem," and will help guide our actions toward other countries deemed hostile to our national interest.

Download or read book Mercenary s Tale written by William Heuisler and published by Booksurge Publishing. This book was released on 2008-11-11 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A short-timer Marine is recruited from Quantico Marine Base by the CIA into anti-Castro, "Operation Mongoose" to train Cuban refugees on raids into Cuba. The condensed, but true story explores political intrigue and often sinister characters in turbulent, bloody South Florida during the early sixties. Hints of betrayal complicate rescue missions and an unlikely love affair adds further tension. Readers are led through a bizarre world where ambush is only the dawn of misfortune, and where the horrors of combat, shipwreck, starvation and worse become commonplace. The saga of bravery, betrayal, personal heartache and bittersweet retribution is completed as friends give the ultimate sacrifice and the U.S. Government indicts its own mercenaries.

Download or read book To Speak the Truth written by Fidel Castro and published by Pathfinder Press (NY). This book was released on 1992 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Castro and Guevara explain why the U.S. government is determined to destroy the example set by the Cuban revolution and why their effort will fail.

Download or read book Inside Castro s Bunker written by Rafael del Pino and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2012-08-11 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the life story of a man who joined the rebel army of Fidel Castro fighting against Fulgencio Batista Cuba's dictator while he was a mere teenager. When the Cuban Revolution triumphed, he became a fighter pilot carrying out many military missions with dedication, valor and courage. This allowed him to earn the respect and confidence of Fidel Castro who awarded him with the medal "Hero of Playa Girón (Bay of Pigs). Rafael del Pino rose to the rank of General and was appointed Deputy Chief of the Cuban Air Force. Gradually he became disappointed with the failure of the communist system and Castro ́s refusal to implement political reforms. For those reasons, in May 1987, this man who had spent most of his life serving the Cuban Revolution decided to break away from the Castro ́s regime and flee with his family to the United States. Today, with this book he bring us the fascinating stories of his military adventures in Cuba and around the world.