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

This groundbreaking story is told through Bernardo Benes-a lawyer who joined the refugee exodus from Castro's Cuba in 1960. Benes quickly became one of the leading voices advocating the integration of Cubans into the city's Anglo, old-boy power structure. In 1978, Cuban Intelligence recruited him as an emissary between the Carter administration and Cuba. He did the same for the CIA under Reagan in the early 1980s. In all, Benes made seventy-five secret trips to meet with high-ranking Cuban officials, spending about 150 hours face-to-face with Fidel Castro. The 1978 dialogue resulted in the release of 3,600 Cuban political prisoners and the right for Cuban exiles to visit family members on the island.

Robert M. Levine, Director of the Center for Latin American Studies at the University of Miami, is the author of more than a dozen books on Latin America and Cuba including Tropical Diaspora and the forthcoming Cambridge Concise History of Cuba.