The Last Soldiers of the Cold War: The Story of the Cuban Five
Language: English
Pages: 288
ISBN: 1781688761
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
Here is the story of political prisoners finally freed in December 2014, after being held captive by the United States since the late 1990s.
Through the 1980s and 1990s, violent anti-Castro groups based in Florida carried out hundreds of military attacks on Cuba, bombing hotels and shooting up Cuban beaches with machine guns. The Cuban government struck back with the Wasp Network—a dozen men and two women—sent to infiltrate those organizations.
The Last Soldiers of the Cold War tells the story of those unlikely Cuban spies and their eventual unmasking and prosecution by US authorities. Five of the Cubans received long or life prison terms on charges of espionage and murder. Global best-selling Brazilian author Fernando Morais narrates the riveting tale of the Cuban Five in vivid, page-turning detail, delving into the decades-long conflict between Cuba and the US, the growth of the powerful Cuban exile community in Florida, and a trial that eight Nobel Prize winners condemned as a travesty of justice.
The Last Soldiers of the Cold War is both a real-life spy thriller and a searching examination of the Cold War’s legacy.
sides. This thaw would provisionally operate within the limits of the economic, commercial and financial embargo, whose suspension would require congressional approval. That same day, as a powerfully symbolic token of the new goodwill, a prisoner swap had taken place: the American subcontractor Alan Gross was released from Cuba, along with the US spy Rolando Sarraff Trujillo. The last three incarcerated Cubans made the opposite journey. Raúl Castro told the nation: “Gerardo, Ramón and Antonio
reported Houlihan, “but there were express orders that no plane should take off.” If Havana’s patience had come to an end, the American government didn’t seem interested in saving Basulto’s skin. 8 THE CUBAN CONTROL TOWER AUTHORIZES THE MIG FIGHTERS TO SHOOT: SECONDS LATER, TWO CESSNAS ARE REDUCED TO DUST OVER THE FLORIDA STRAITS The flames spat out by the supersonic fighter’s two engines left a trail of fire in the air, as if a comet had cut through the blue of the sky in broad daylight.
Ochoa. Condemned to death and shot by firing squad three years earlier in Havana, Ochoa had been accused of leading a smuggling and cocaine-trafficking network. He tied to his waist the serrated knife he used in his underwater hunts and slipped silently into the water, careful not to attract the attention of the coast guards. The roughly nine-kilometer swim took almost seven hours. Every time he came up and saw the lights of the Coast Guard boats sweeping the surface of the water, he dived down,
aware of the existence of the message and the identity of its sender, but not of its contents, Gaviria had also invited Clinton’s best friend, Thomas “Mack” McLarty, who had just left the post of presidential advisor for Latin America, but continued to work as a counselor to the president in the West Wing, a few steps from the Oval Office. Before the American arrived at his house, and without disclosing how he had become acquainted with the matter, Gaviria helped García Márquez to “get things
ninja-type face masks—ran into the couple’s bedroom, yanked René out of bed and threw him face down on the floor, cuffing his hands behind his back. In the sights of the others’ weapons, agent Mark D’Amico—whom René later referred to as “a courteous and respectful man”—bent down, took a piece of paper from his pocket and, just like in the movies, read the first lines from the Miranda rights, also known as the “Right to remain silent”: “You are under arrest for espionage against the United