Storm Clouds Over Havana by Mike Marino (novel24 .txt) 📕

The Batista regime keeps the populous in poverty with cruel methods including torture and death if they voice any opposition to the dictatorship. The regime is a disease. The rebels are viewed as the magic bullet.

We were shown to our various quarters that I can best describe as purely existential, Pilar and I were given the “honeymoon hut” that meant mosquito netting, a soft bed on the ground with clean sheets  and a bottle of wine. Castro thought, and rightly so it would make a good first impression. One thing about Latins. They know romance and passion.

We will freshen up first skinning dipping in the small stream out back and after a few hours of getting acclimated will dine with our host and his staff. I couldn’t wait to be thrilled by the Che Guevara Dancers! We were now playing Broadway, center stage in the revolution, standing room only. I told Pilar….”It’s showtime!!!”

Personal Journal Entry May 3, 1958

While we were getting our revolutionary compass bearings in the Sierra Maestra rebel compound, I began my series of interviews with the highly enigmatic Castro. Fortunately I had plenty of notebooks to record my notes as he could talk for verbose filled hours, and often did. His philosophies  were those of modified Karl Marx politics punctuated with baseball terminology...hitting Havana is hitting a home run...and all dramatically explained with a Mickey Mantle at bat flourish to emphasis this point and that detail.

I was transported mentally into  a Hollywood Errol Flynn film.   “Pancho Villa meets Groucho Marx” directed by John Huston.   Castro’s rapid fire delivery and flowing cascade of words regarding his revolution was pure fast paced Bogart banter straight out of “The Maltese Falcon” bam bam bam bam... He was excited to tell the story he wanted to reach the outside world, and we would get the message across, complete with black and white photos I am taking that may or not make Life Magazine. By gaining his trust I felt I could get to the truth of Santiago’s death, my real task. The revolution could wait...I wanted justice...truth...was this man a man of the people as he claims or merely a cold blooded killer of a journalist who fought for truth and justice with words?

I must admit, Castro and Che, who we also met are fascinating. Pilar is mesmerized by Castro’s philosophy as well as the military strategy being developed by one of his top aides, Che Guevara. An interesting sort, not a Cuban and by no means a peasant. I like him, but as Pilar said earlier today after meeting him last night, “He needs a bath!”

Excerpt from the 1975 autobiography of Sean Donovan  CIA - Retired

Unknown to Mickey, “Victoria” and “Pilar”   is that we were secretly recording conversations at the Tropicana through wire recording technology. One night we almost got what could best be described as an admission of what we already knew, but couldn’t prove …. until that night.

Buster Scalisi, our main agent in Havana, went rogue at some point and had been working secretly, without our knowledge,  as an independent agent for the Cuban government on Batista’s payroll. In addition he was also collecting income from the Mafia, coordinating mob influence on the political affairs  of Cuba aimed at castrating Castro’s revolt.   Batista and Meyer Lansky, were a marriage made in espionage hell. Buster also knew first hand the secrets of our CIA involvement in the country and could forward any negative information to Batista that may affect US involvement, and more important, any shift in US state department policy that might hold back the CIA efforts to help him maintain his control on Cuba.

In one of the recorded conversations, Lansky inquired about a gun shipment. To which Buster replied “They arrived quietly, Batista doesn’t have a clue about them or our involvement. Why the hell would you even send weapons to Castro? I don’t get that at all? Seems like risky business that could get us all killed!”

Lansky, ever the businessman who knew how to turn a peso into dollars had an answer for everything. He never acted without looking at every angle of a venture that meant money. “The weapons we are supplying the rebels with are not the latest and greatest. Batista gets the good stuff, Castro gets the crap. A carbine is no match for artillery or machine guns. Besides Castro is also getting weapons from other sources in Tampa so it evens out. Batista gets the US made weapons, Castro gets Eastern Bloc and Chinese. In other words, Batista gets the Burgundy wine, Castro gets the Mogen David.  The main point is this. The rebels have 300 maybe 500 fighters...Batista has 10,000 American trained troops and police.  In the end the rebels will be eliminated easily, but in the meantime, why not make a profit..it’s business, plain and simple. Soon this will be over and we can go about our business...and you’re making money too...more than the CIA pays you. We pay better anyway. You made the right choice.”

Buster had reservations and by voicing them gave us insight to the more sinister aspects of the events they were coordinating. “What if Russo digs deep and finds out about our plan to kill Castro?”

Lansky had an answer for that too. “I like Mickey, always have but, business first and this is the perfect set-up...we kill Castro with a pistol, same model you gave to Russo.  We already have a man in the camp ready to act. Same pistol model too.  When the time comes, he goes in and takes him out and like magic disappears into the jungle, while Russo takes the fall. All you have to do is get him off the island from Santiago de Cuba to that radio ship of yours and get him back to Tampa. We have a small fishing boat ready to handle that leg of his journey. The CIA is clean, we’re clean and Castro’s out of the picture. It looks like revenge for the Santiago killing, pure and simple, and is how it will be portrayed by the Batista government. Mickey unfortunately is a victim of the times. Remember I gave the go ahead to have Bugsy Segal my oldest dearest friend killed for fucking up that Vegas project. Remember,  It’s BUSINESS..Nothing more nothing less!”

“What about the girl, that Pilar woman?” Buster asked. Lansky paused, then with a coldness in his tone declared, “She goes too. She’s a young  journalist, passionate one at that,  and if she learns anything from Mickey, it’s how to root out a story. We don’t need any of this mess to come back to haunt us. Then life can go on as it has, you can pretend you’re CIA again and will have made money and will continue to be paid by Batista and us for any information you have on the CIA and or FBI operations targeting our casino and prostitution operations or the regime.”

“And the rebel girl, Victoria?” Lansky laughed. “She’s nobody. Knows nothing. A peasant. Besides after this over she can work as a dancer in my clubs and you can rent her for the night...Viva La Revolucion!”  

It's now early July and we are on the move with Castro’s army. His brother Raul had opened a new front on the coast in May to meet an advance force sent by Fulgencio Batista to soften up the rebels, to tenderize them, to borrow a Good Housekeeping phrase, for the big push designed to weaken and eliminate the revolt once and for all. We had gone along to observe the fighting first hand, my first battle, so my “war” cherry was popped and I was no longer an innocent, nor unbiased observer, nor could I ever qualify as queen of the prom.

I have watched in growing amazement, and glowing admiration over the past few months as Pilar trained daily in weapons handling, hand to hand combat, and how to walk “invisibly” along the trails undetected. She has become quite the warrior princess and I now wonder who will actually be wearing the pants in our family should we emerge from this cauldron unscathed. If she comes to bed wearing a belt of bullets with camo panties and a bullet proof bra while brandishing a hand grenade I’ll have my answer.
I have filed three in a series of Castro profiles and interviews and so far have found nothing in way of proof he had Santiago killed in cold blood. If he did give the order no one was giving up that information.

The fact of the matter is when his rebel forces captured any of Batista’s army, they were taken to Santiago de Cuba and released to representatives of the Red Cross. If this was a man who didn’t kill an enemy that just hours before were hurling bullets in his direction, I couldn’t fathom how he could have ordered the death of a man for firing words at him as projectiles from a printing press. He did confiscate their weapons and ammo which in the Sierra Maestra is worth more than gold in them thar hills!

I also held back certain information regarding the rebels supply lines for two reasons. One, purely mercenary is that it will available in the book I fully intend to write about these day with my one foot in the fires of hell...but primarily I held back on it to protect the lives of the native Taino people, the Caribbean Indians who lived in villages throughout Cuba and other islands in this magnificent tropical garden patch of the world much as they had 500 years prior warding off the first invasion of Spanish seekers of gold and newly converted Catholic slaves for God and King.

They know these mountains as well as a New York cabbie knows the best route from anywhere in the burroughs to the Garden for the Friday night fights with time to spare. Cabbie wars are all verbal and he who can out race the