Ronald Reagan was preparing an invasion that was going to rescue the whole island next week. Fidel was about to be airlifted out to a new home in Miami, the guest of his secret patrons and supporters, the U.S. government. The soldiers were already lining up for Bay of Pigs II and a new constitution […]

The 9-year-old Cuban boy with the cataract in his eye showed me the condoms he had used as balloons at his birthday party. He pulled out the single stick of gum he’d been chewing for a week. He brought over the two tattered photo albums he’d stuffed with pieces of Carnation labels, stickers that said […]

“The minimizing of entry red tape reveals that you are expected and welcome to this land of gorgeous adventure and the limber elbow,” notes the 1938 Blue Guide to Cuba in summoning Americans to the nearby island. Nowadays, of course, the situation is different. For more than two decades, Cuba has been virtually off limits […]