The Cuban Connection

Set in New York and Havana during 1960, The Cuban Connection introduces ace reporter Katherine O'Connor, who has a nose for news and an inclination to use it in very dangerous places. Working undercover in Castro's Cuba, she gets a little too up-close-and-personal with Castro's thugs, a priest who may be working for the CIA, and a little boy whose survival is mysteriously linked to the welfare of Katherine's own mother-not to mention falling for a man who may be a Soviet spy. The Cuban Connection incorporates actual historical events into a page-turning tale that is by turns riveting, poignant, and hilarious-not unlike Katherine O'Connor herself. M.L. Malcolm is the author of two previous novels, Heart of Lies and Heart of Deception, both published by Harper Collins.

A comprehensive history of crime and corruption in Cuba, The Cuban Connection challenges the common view that widespread poverty and geographic proximity to the United States were the prime reasons for soaring rates of drug trafficking, smuggling, gambling, and prostitution in the tumultuous decades preceding the Cuban revolution. Eduardo Saenz Rovner argues that Cuba's historically well-established integration into international migration, commerce, and transportation networks combined with political instability and rampant official corruption to help lay the foundation for the development of organized crime structures powerful enough to affect Cuba's domestic and foreign politics and its very identity as a nation. Saenz traces the routes taken around the world by traffickers and smugglers. After Cuba, the most important player in this story is the United States. The involvement of gangsters and corrupt U.S. officials and businessmen enabled prohibited substances to reach a strong market in the United States, from rum running during Prohibition to increased demand for narcotics during the Cold War. Originally published in Colombia in 2005, this first English-language edition has been revised and updated by the author.

It's New Year's Eve 1958, and Fidel Castro has mobilized his forces for the long-awaited overthrow of the Cuban government, precipitating a chain of events that will alter an eight-year-old boy's life forever. Being the son of one of the richest men in Cuba, young Miguel Fuentes has lived a life of unrivaled luxury. Shortly after midnight, his ideal world is shattered and he is eventually taken off the island to the perceived safety of the United States. Twenty years later, the young boy resurfaces as a deadly assassin for hire, known only as "El Niño," whose mercenary services are doled out to the highest bidder. Lance Almond, a loner, is a deep-cover CIA agent who prefers to work solo, and has "eliminated" more targets than he cares to remember. When recruited for his next assignment by the director himself, he suddenly realizes that it will be one of the deadliest challenges of his career. Not only that, he is informed that he will not be doing the job alone. Kate Beckett is an up-and-coming star in the New York field office of the FBI, determined to break the glass ceiling imposed on her by a male-dominated law enforcement agency. She doesn't care who she has to work with, as long as she gets promoted to a field office of her own. Or does she? Find out if the two agents will be able to work together to foil one of the most sinister assassination plots ever conceived in this fast-paced storyline filled with intriguing plot twists that keeps the reader guessing to the very end.

First published in 1988, Terrorism: The Cuban Connection examines Cuba’s involvement in terrorism. With a focus on Havana, the book begins by looking at Cuba’s history and the origins of terrorism. As it progresses, the book traces the development of terrorism and explores Cuba’s connections with other parts of the world, including America, Russia, the Caribbean, South America, the Middle East, and Sub-Saharan Africa. Terrorism: The Cuban Connection is a detailed study, equipped with a wealth of key documents and photographs.

In April 1959, Fidel Castro toured the United States at the invitation of the American Society of Newspaper Editors. Though he was wary, Castro entertained some hope of establishing a rapprochement with Washington. But after being snubbed by President Eisenhower and receiving a less-than-cordial reception from Vice President Richard Nixon, Castro got the strong impression that US intentions toward his new Cuban government were hostile. In The Cuban Connection, former FBI agent and investigative journalist William Turner examines the fateful meeting between Castro and Nixon and the murky connections that existed between official Washington, the CIA, and organized crime in Cuba. Based on firsthand interviews with many of the key players involved in Cuban-American relations of that era, plus thorough background research, Turner raises a host of disturbing questions: Before the ouster of the Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista by Castro, why did Vice President Nixon often socialize at Havana casinos with his Cuban friend Bebe Rebozo? How was the rabid anticommunism of the Eisenhower administration, especially its instant dislike of Castro, connected to its cozy relationship with the former mob-controlled dictatorship? How did all of this set the stage for the Bay of Pigs fiasco and ultimately the Cuban Missile Crisis and the JFK assassination? In a vivid narrative The Cuban Connection provides insider information that rarely reaches the public and that many in power never wanted the public to know.

THE MAN: Has Juan Martianos taken the phrase, "What can you do for your country?" to the extreme? How does a patriotic, Cuban sugar cane plantation owner end up in America as a high-ranking comrade in the A.C.P., and just how far will he go for the love of his country? THE COUNTRY: Beginning with marauding pirates, fierce Spanish conquistadors, greedy American capitalists, corrupt tyrants and Communists--at what price does the "Jewel of the Antilles," a beautiful, vibrant, but hostile country, whose motto is "Homeland or Death," get robbed time, after time, of its freedom? THE OPERATION: Masterminded by a man who is himself an orphan, how does an American-based orphanage, housing Cuban refugee boys, perform acts of treason against the powerful U.S.? THE CHILDREN: In a country whose advertised slogan is "Nada de muy importante de nino," - why must children pay for their fathers' sins? Meet Sara Martin, the beautiful daughter who is about to become entangled in the tumultuous, parallel relationship between Cuba and the United States.

Details the connections between the CIA and organized crime in Cuba in the late 1950s, exploring the root of the U.S.'s hostility toward the nation and how that set the stage for the Cuban missile crisis and JFK's assassination.