cover image And the Russians Stayed: The Sovietization of Cuba: A Personal Portrait

And the Russians Stayed: The Sovietization of Cuba: A Personal Portrait

Nestor T. Carbonell. William Morrow & Company, $22.95 (0pp) ISBN 978-0-688-07213-1

The author went into exile soon after the Castro takeover and joined the Miami-based Cuban Democratic Revolutionary Front, an organization that played a vital role in CIA operations against the Castro regime. Carbonell addresses one of the most puzzling questions of recent history: why Washington launched the 1961 Bay of Pigs operation, then withdrew support. His answer emerges in his account of a 1962 meeting between John F. Kennedy and the leaders of the Cuban Brigade in which the President revealed that the Soviets had threatened to attack West Berlin if the U.S. continued to back the invasion. In a controversial hindsighted view of the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, Carbonell argues persuasively that ``Washington flinched and the Russians stayed'' and that the latter subsequently transformed the island into a virtually impregnable base for Communist agitation and subversion in Latin America and Africa. The author, now a Connecticut lawyer, also discusses what he considers the Stalinization of Cuba, the impact of Cuban emigres in America and the future of U.S.-Cuban relations. Photos. (May)