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

The political and military fabric of the Batista regime began to unravel like a cheap suit off the rack at Montgomery Wards in 1958. Along with the loss of popular support and massive desertions in the military, Batista's government collapsed like a cancerous lung due to Castro's efforts.

On the early morning of January 1, 1959, Batista fled to the Dominican Republic, (what the hell..it was good enough for Trujillo!) , He boarded a plane at Camp Columbia taking  along with him a personal fortune of more than $300 million that he had amassed through graft and payoffs.

In April of 1959, Castro hopped a plane to the United States (later, planes were usually high-jacked to Cuba!) as guests of the National Press Club. President Dwight Eisenhower, the hero of Normandy, avid golfer and downhome yokel refused to meet with him which is typical of American conduct when her nose is out of joint and it's ass isn't kissed properly. So what's a feller to do? Screw You, Uncle Sam, and he began to establish relations with the Soviet Union and asked the Commie Princess if she'd go to the prom with him..she said "Si!"

The USSR sent more than 100 Spanish-speaking advisers to help organize Cuba's defense committee. In February 1960, Cuba signed a trade agreement to buy oil from the Soviet Union and established diplomatic relations. U.S.-owned refineries in Cuba refused to process the oil, so Castro expropriated the refineries. The United States retaliated by cutting Cuba's import quota on sugar. This began a decades-long contentious relationship between the two countries.


Then there was that Bay of Pigs fiasco where 1,400 US backed, badly trained and inept Cuban exiles invaded Cuba in an attempt to overthrow the Castro regime. The incursion ended in disaster with hundreds of the insurgents killed and nearly 1,000 captured. Though the United States denied any involvement, it was revealed that the Cuban exiles were trained by the Central Intelligence (Intelligence is a misnomer) Agency and armed with U.S. weapons. (but no air support! At this point Castro declared himself a Marxist-Leninist and on February 7, 1962, the United States imposed a full economic embargo on Cuba. .

On March 17  President Dwight Eisenhower approves an anti-Castro plan. The U.S. will place embargoes on sugar, oil and guns, and issue propaganda. In addition, the plan calls for Cuban exiles to attack Cuba and attempt to overthrow Castro. Then 7 days after May Day in Red Square,  Cuba and the Soviet Union establish formal diplomatic relations.

End of entry --------

Sienna and I were getting ready to take a flight that night to New York to meet the gang for a night out on the town damn the torpedoes full speed ahead evening with old friends. As we were taking an afternoon walk along the harbor we noticed three large Russian freighters being unloaded by Russian seamen and soldiers. They were using cranes to unload large cylindrical tubes that looked at first like huge grain silos but when I saw them on large tractors ready to be taken away I realized they were the missiles with nuclear warheads and a Red Star on them you generally see rolling through Red Square in the Kremlin during May Day Parades.

The area, including us were briskly and roughly cleared when they saw us walking. The Russian language lacks the panache and flair of Spanish so I guess it was a big Cossack nyet we stumbled onto. We hurried off and headed to Sloppy Joes.

“Sienna, this doesn’t look good. Maybe we should cancel New York. I have a gut feeling the Cold War is about to heat up!”

Sienna asked the inevitable. “Do you think this will be a big story?”

“Well, Castro, the Russians and an anti-Castro Kennedy in office. Yeah, could be a very big story...or the end of the world!”

We were packed and Sienna and I were ready to go the New York, this time aboard our own boat we kept docked at Havana Harbor. My book on the revolution sold pretty well, thanks to Norman Mailer’s agent who took me on as a client.  Good old Norman. Can always count on him.

Sienna and I had decided to start our own news agency, geared to items and features of interest from the Caribbean and Central America  to feed the news needs of the growing Latin population of the United States. We had set up a network of young budding bilingual journalists from the island nations, the countries of Central America and Mexico. We hoped that someday we would see as the next cadre of Kronkites and Murrows.

We did all this with Blake’s blessings. We could shop it around the States to any newspaper, magazine and even radio features I would produce from our studio in Santiago de Cuba, a holdover from the Buster Scalisi days...recording equipment, phones, and reel to reel tapes galore. Blake on the other hand was free to use whatever material for free he felt was valid for New York City with Puerto Rico being the “rich port” of information for the city’s PR population that was growing at a rapid pace. It was Westside Story in the flesh.

With my book royalties we were able to buy a boat from the same manufacturer who designed Hemingway’s ‘Pilar’ except I named ours ‘Sienna’ the woman, now my wife who changed my life.  

Che would eventually  die in Bolivia in 1967 by the Bolivian military after he was captured trying to overthrow the government there. There is information available that Nazi Klaus Barbie had aided the CIA and Bolivian government in locating his base camp where he was captured. CIA documents are still sealed. He is now a popular T-Shirt.

Meyer Lansky would die in Miami of lung cancer at the age of 80 never spending a day in prison.

Fulgencio Batista would die in 1973 in Spain of a heart attack two days after a hit squad of assassins sent some say from Castro’s Cuba to assassinate him.  Mother Nature and heart disease did the job instead.

Sean Donovan retired from the CIA in 1985 and died in his own bed in his sleep, no doubt dreaming of ending the Cold War all by himself.

“Victoria” retired from the CIA and is a grandmother to 6 grandchildren. They visit often at her small ranch in Central Wyoming riding horses and asking her if she ever did anything interesting. She always tells them her life was boring and never did anything to take chances. Once a CIA agent...always a CIA agent. Very hush hush.

Hemingway? He ate his shotgun for breakfast in Idaho in 1961. He had been under investigation by the FBI during his last years. We had seen him the year before in Cuba during the marlin fishing tournament named in his honor that he started. Sienna and I were on the Pilar with him and Castro that day smoking cigars and drinking beer and toasting the revolution. He’s probably a ghost now chasing Nazi U-Boats or bullfighting in Heaven or Hell. With writers you never know.

As for Buster Scalisi? No one knows whatever happened to him. He disappeared and was not heard from again. Perhaps he is working as a short order cook in Leavenworth or Sean has his body preserved in Area 51...we’ll never know for sure as everyone knows...there is nothing at Area 51 except space alien bodies and perhaps Citizen Kane’s snowglobe, Rosebud.

As for Sienna Santiago, she is Sienna Russo now. Our two children are fully grown,  one boy, one girl. Our daughter, who we named Pilar is a freelance journalist covering civil wars and revolts wherever they flare up as a freelance journalist for cable news networks.  She’s also a leftist and activist.

Like Mother...Like Daughter. God help us all!

As for Fidel Castro…….Kennedy is gone, shot in Dallas. Bobby Kennedy is gone, shot in Los Angeles. Eisenhower is gone and buried in Kansas. Khrushchev died of a heart attack in a hospital near his home in Moscow in 1971, he never made it to Disneyland. Pravda ran a one-sentence announcement of the former premier's death.

As for Fidel Castro….he is the last man standing!

Text: Mike Marino
Images: Mike Marino
Editing: Mike Marino
Translation: Mike Marino
Publication Date: 06-26-2016

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