Cuba Confidential: Love and Vengeance in Miami and Havana | 
| Author: Ann Louise Bardach
Publisher: Vintage
Category: Book
List Price: $15.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  47 reviews
Sales Rank: 450285
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 464
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 8.1 x 5.2 x 0.9
ISBN: 0385720521
Dewey Decimal Number: 320
EAN: 9780385720526
ASIN: 0385720521
Publication Date: October 14, 2003
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Product Description
From America’s number one Cuba reporter, PEN award–winning investigative journalist Ann Louise Bardach, comes the big book on Cuba we’ve all been waiting for. An incisive and spirited portrait of the twentieth century’s wiliest political survivor and his fiefdom, Cuba Confidential is the gripping story of the shattered families and warring personalities that lie at the heart of the forty-three-year standoff between Miami and Havana.
Famous to many Americans for her cover stories and media appearances, Ann Louise Bardach has been covering Cuba for a decade. She’s talked to the crooks, spooks and politicians who have made history, and to their hired assassins and confidants. Based on exclusive interviews with Fidel Castro, his sister Juanita, his former brother-in-law Rafael Diaz-Balart, the family of Elian Gonzalez, the friends and family of the legendary American fugitive Robert Vesco, the intrepid terrorist Luis Posada Carriles, and the inner circles of Jeb Bush and the late exile leader Jorge Mas Canosa, Cuba Confidential exposes the hardball take-no-prisoners tactics of the Cuban exile leadership, and its manipulation and exploitation by ten American presidents.
Bardach homes in on Fidel Castro and his cronies, taking us closer than we’ve ever been—and on the militant exiles who have devoted their lives, with CIA connivance, to trying to eliminate him. From Calle Ocho to Juan Miguel Gonzalez’s kitchen table in Cardenas, from Guantanamo Bay to Union City to Washington, D.C., Ann Louise Bardach serves up an unforgettable portrait of Cuba and its exiles.
From the Hardcover edition.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 42 more reviews...
 Cuba Confidential - great book! February 12, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This book is about relationships -- the tangled web of family, business and political ties that make Cuba and South Florida's Cuban exile community (which is to say, Miami-Dade County) such a horrific, dysfunctional mess. From Castro's "love" children (it's hard to say that Castro really "loves" anyone but himself) to the obsessive intrigues of his estranged cousins in the U.S. House of Representatives, this is a must read for anyone who wants the real low-down on how and why things like the Elian Gonzalez affair become . . . well, affairs. I found especially interesting the insights into Castro's childhood and family. What a monster! And how stupid of the United States to have given him so much legitimacy in the eyes of the rest of the world!
Intelligent, thoroughly researched, engrossing reading October 17, 2006
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
I ordered this book from amazon.co.UK, where there are no posted reviews and so I didn't know what to expect. Having read the book - and having spent time in both Cuba and Miami, but coming from (and living in) a totally neutral country halfway around the globe - I am stunned at the reviews I see here. Ms. Bardach writes superbly - she is eloquent, intelligent, keenly perceptive and thorough, and I found it hard to put the book down. Anyone accusing her of being a communist or a fidelista clearly didn't read the book, or is so blinded by their own prejudice that what they read didn't register. One of the sides on this debate took Ms. Bardach to court (the Cuban-American side), the other took away her journalist's visa - so much for her taking sides. Her sources are so thoroughly referenced at the end of the book, I can't believe anyone would have the nerve to call her unprofessional.
All that said, Ms. Bardach is addressing a mainly American audience, and so I find it natural that she spends more time trying to disprove the myths that audience has been trained to believe as truths, rather than re-iterating ad nauseam the undisputable truths everyone is already familiar with. And I can certainly testify, based on my very own first-hand experiences, that the American media and government sites are rife with shockingly blatant lies about Cuba, which is no more honest or commendable than Fidel Castro's blaming the US embargo for everything.
I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in Cuba or Cuban-American relations, as well as anyone looking for some hard truths about the way modern politics work.
 The Unvarnished Truth Of The Matter December 5, 2005
4 out of 7 found this review helpful
I had the unique experience of living in the Cuban exile community for six years of my life. My ex-wife, daughter of Cuban exiles, provided me with a good introduction of Cuban morays and mindsets. I have just finished reading Ms. Bardach's book. I find it an unbiased and accurate account of the ongoing "Cubiche" drama played out in Puerto Rico, Miami, New Jersey, and anywhere else "those crazy Cubans" live and breathe.
A Great Read! July 5, 2005
5 out of 7 found this review helpful
Bardach confirms, in this highly readable fast moving book, what I already knew about the rabid, Fidel-obsessed Miami Cuban immigrant community. There were some things I was not aware of that stunned me; the puppet courts of Dade County, the spinless Miami Herald, corruption of civil government etc... If she wasn't describing a city in my own country I don't think I would feel as repulsed as I do. Her scathing criticism of this community is relentless and does beg the question if she does have an axe to grind. Even so, if half of her allegations are correct, then this community is more insane than I gave them credit for.
I've visited Havana but never Miami and after reading Cuba Confidential, I think I'll keep it that way!
 A lop-sided Account of the Elian Story and the Cuban Exiles May 31, 2005
5 out of 13 found this review helpful
Whereas I find myself conflicted concerning the Elian Gonzalez affair, seeing both sides of the issue, the author of this book clearly does not. Her bias is overwhelming and present at every turn. Her effort to discredit any and all who believe that Elian should have remained in the U.S.A. is relentless. DUI's, infidelities, narcotics arrests, domestic violence, ulterior motives, are all drudged up if someone should believe Elian was better in the US than in Cuba. On the other hand, in treating the negative accounts of those who sought to reunite Elian with his father, it was all explained away as irrelevant or part of a conspiracy. Ms. Bardach has an absolute hatred for the Cuban exiles in Miami and it comes through in her book. Its too bad, as some of the information in the book was good, but the book is hard to get through with all the bias.
Having had the opportunity to travel to Cuba on a US authorized humanitarian mission, I can tell you that in my experience, 80% plus of the people I came into contact with would leave tomorrow if they could. If Castro disagrees with this assessment, there is one sure fire way to find out; open the borders. Castro is a failed socialist dictator who has destroyed the heart and soul of a beautiful island nation. Unfortunately, because of Fidel, Cuba has been left behind.
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