Cuba Confidential: Love and Vengeance in Miami and Havana

Well, you detractors of the book have called it disgusting and other things but the truth hurts doesn't it? I have spent time in Cuba as a US diplomat (1987-89)in the US Interests Section and know many of the people mentioned by Bardach. Her descriptions are right on the money, e.g. Elizardo Sanchez, a real hero in the Cuban human rights movement. That the Miami right wingers are against the Varela Plan is truth not fiction, and as for checking sources and reliability nothing in Havana or Miami is what it appears to be so what's the use trying to verify what's not on the record? Her book names names, dates, countries, files, memos, etc enough to satsfy me and the general reader. Of course, if you have an Anti-Castro agenda this book will infuriate you, and obviously has by the looks of some of the reviews. All I have to do is put the screwed up, angry, menacing looks we saw on TV in Miami during the Elian debacle and fit those faces to the irate reviewers. And so it goes. Perhaps one should just read Samuel Huntington's latest screed on Hispanics (Foreign Policy Magazine, March 2004) to know the Cubans want to turn South Florida into their own Banana Republic. Lord have mercy, and will the last American leaving Miami please bring the flag. Thanks Ms. Bardach for exposing this ugly under belly on both sides of the drink. Watch out for the bombers.


Honesty May Not be Popular   December 10, 2003
Debbie
8 out of 11 found this review helpful

Bardach's honesty about American foreign policy regarding Cuba and the power that the corrupt Miami Mafia have on Florida, and after the last presidential election, national, politics has not won her many friends in the Miami Cuban population. Elian was used and manipulated by Marisleysis and her father, two people who shouldn't be entrusted with the life of a roach, much less a little boy. But the Miami Mafia was willing to sacrifice him to these two pathological personalities in order to score one against Castro. Then there is Orlando Bosch, a convicted terrorist who was paroled into the United States by Bush the First against the orders of his acting assistant attorney general. In the Banana Republic regimes of Little Havana and the White House, it doesn't matter how many innocent civilians you kill nor how many children's lives you throw away as long as you do it in the name of fighting communism.
The book is particularly critical reading now that Luis Posada Carriles has been caught and decisions are being made about what to do with him. The interviews with him show the truly corrupt nature of the man. He brags about how many fake passports he has and that he can enter the United States whenever he wants to. This book is even more topical now than when it was first written.


Great Book!   November 14, 2003
a smart woman (Frankfurt Deutschland)
12 out of 17 found this review helpful

What a great book!! I used to live in Miami and can tell you that everything she writes about is TRUE. A large group of the exiled community (especially the older ones) dream of a renewed regime a la Batista, where they were able to take advantage of people. I experienced the Elian saga first hand, these people are a bunch of fakes, ungrateful and demanding and ard are portrat perfect in the book!
I would love to go to Cuba and see the REAL cubans.