Customer Reviews

Secret Missions to Cuba: Fidel Castro, Bernardo Benes, and Cuban Miami

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This well written, meticulously researched book reveals startling information about negotiations between Washington and Havana during the late 1970s and early 1980s. Many of these negotiations have never been mentioned, notably an effort during Reagan's presidency to steal Cuba away from the Soviet orbit. The book provides an honest and probing portrait of Miami's Cuban exile community, and its inability to cope with some of its members who believed that only through dialogue could meaningful relations be opened. The chilling story of how the dialogers were ostracised needs to be read by anyone concerned with issues of freedom of speech and expression. Highly recommended.

I was moved by the travails of Bernardo Benes,who put his life and family at risk because insensitive right-wingers in the Cuban exile community in Miami turned him into a paraih because he dared talk with Cuba's Castro in behalf of political prisoners and dialogue.

This book masterfully exposes the venality of the right-wing Cuban exile power brokers, especially the suffocating voices of Spanish-language radio in Miami. I can attest to the fact that the book is wholly on the mark. It reveals details about the exile experience that are astonishing, and also very sad. This is the best book I have ever read on the subject, and also on the precarious, often bad-faith relationship between Washington D.C. and Havana.

Secret Missions to Cuba: Bernardo Benes, Fidel Castro, and Cuban Miami is well researched, insightful, and vividly detailed work that examines the complicated and emotional dynamics of United States-Cuban relations through the unique lens of Bernardo Benes' honest account of secret negotiations with Fidel Castro and then provides analysis addressing the passionately charged sentiments of the exile Cuban-American community in Miami. Explicit naratives shall captivate the reader with the juicy detials of high-stakes negotiations. The firsthand account and historical information Dr. Levine has gathered shall serve as an invaluable resource for historians and academics in the years to come. The political dynamics that clearly come into play in the context of these delicate negotiations and emotional relationships is certainly insightful. Secret Missions to Cuba is most certainly a fascinating account of unwavering diplomatic negotiations in a highly emotional and passionate setting. There are certainly lessons from history to be learned by reading this book. Recommended without reservations!

This book masterfully exposes the venality of the right-wing Cuban exile power brokers, especially the suffocating voices of Spanish-language radio in Miami. I can attest to the fact that the book is wholly on the mark. It reveals details about the exile experience that are astonishing, and also very sad. This is the best book I have ever read on the subject, and also on the precarious, often bad-faith relationship between Washington D.C. and Havana.

Now that the agreement to allow Cuban Americans to visit their families in Cuba has been significantly scaled back by President George Bush, it is fascinating to consider how many Cuban Americans are correctly bewailing the loss of a right brokered for them by the very man they shunned for making the visits possible: Bernardo Benes.

This book tells the story of Bernardo Benes and the times and circumstances in which he operated. We learn of his boyhood in Cuba, his flight to Miami as a young man, his financial successes and humanitarian work in Miami and the deserved notoriety he received. We also learn about his secret missions to Cuba at the USA's behest, his frequent conversations and negotiations with Castro, and how his considerable accomplishments in these matters cost him dearly in the exile community, even endangering his life. Although the author often strikes an oddly detached tone in his descriptions of the violent and inquisitorial nature of some elements of the Cuban exile community, he provides all the salient details and history.

By book's end, readers are left wondering why Bernardo Benes isn't esteemed as a great hero in the Cuban-American community. It is here we realize that the real main character of this true tale is the Cuban exile community, not Bernardo Benes, and how their grievance long nurtured by hatred, violence, and dogmatic conformity distorts a hero's triumph into heartbreak.

I found Robert Levine's new book on Cuba to be insightful and stimulating. As a careful researcher, Professor Levine has found a story within the broader picture of the human drama that has shaped both the Cuban community in Miami and that on the island. The book is brave and thought provoking. It is an essential work for any serious student of Cuban history.

This story needs to be told. It shows how powerful Miami Cubans not only punished the man responsible for the process of dialogue that led to the release of prisoners from Castro's jails, but essentially elected George W. Bush president in the astonishing electoral race of that year in Florida.

Excellent delivery time, reasonably priced, and great book - had the opportunity in talking with the author. He is a very kind man who was very helpful