The last soldiers of the Cold War
Subtitle: the story of the Cuban Five
By: Fernando Morais ; translated by Robert Ballantyne with Alex Olegnowicz
Publisher: Verso
Published: 2015
Language: eng
Number of pages: 275
ISBN-13: 9781781688762
Subjects: Cubans; Politics and government; Cold War; Political prisoners; Spies; Cuban Espionage; Red Avispa (Spy network); Biography; Terrorism; Right-wing extremists; Foreign relations; History
Work titles: Últimos soldados da Guerra Fria
Description: "Here is the story of political prisoners finally freed in December 2014, after being held captive by the United States since the late 1990s. Through the 1980s and 1990s, violent anti-Castro groups based in Florida carried out hundreds of military attacks on Cuba, bombing hotels and shooting up Cuban beaches with machine guns. The Cuban government struck back with the Wasp Network--a dozen men and two women--sent to infiltrate those organizations. The Last Soldiers of the Cold War tells the story of those unlikely Cuban spies and their eventual unmasking and prosecution by US authorities. Five of the Cubans received long or life prison terms on charges of espionage and murder. Global best-selling Brazilian author Fernando Morais narrates the riveting tale of the Cuban Five in vivid, page-turning detail, delving into the decades-long conflict between Cuba and the US, the growth of the powerful Cuban exile community in Florida, and a trial that eight Nobel Prize winners condemned as a travesty of justice. The Last Soldiers of the Cold War is both a real-life spy thriller and a searching examination of the Cold War's legacy"--
Notes: First published as Os Últimos Soldados da Guerra Fria, Companhia das Letras, 2011.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 271-275).
Table of contents: title: Veteran of the Angolan War, René Steals a Plane in Cuba, Lands in Miami and Receives a Hero's Welcome; title: A MiG Commander Swims Seven Hours Across the Shark-Infested Guantanamo Bay; Arriving at a US Naval Airbase, He Emerges From the Sea Shouting: "I'm a Cuban Officer, I'm Defecting!"; title: Overnight, 130,000 People Flee Cuba for the United States and Defeat Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton; title: The Cuban Gerardo Hernandez Abandons His Diplomatic Career, Changes Identity and Lands in Miami as the Puerto Rican Manuel Viramontez; title: By the Middle of 1995 the Wasp Network has Thirteen Cuban Secret Agents in Anti-Castroist Organizations; But the FBI is Already Watching Them; title: Love Attacks the Secret Agents : Tony Marries Maggie and René Manages to Bring Olga and His Daughter to Miami; title: Jose Basulto Defies the White House and the Cuban MiGs and Decides to Fly Once More over Havana; title: The Cuban Control Tower Authorizes the MiG Fighters to Shoot : Seconds Later, Two Cessnas Are Reduced to Dust over the Florida Straits; title: The Mercenary Cruz Leon Didn't Want to Kill Anyone; His Dream Was to Be Just Like Sylvester Stallone; title: For $7,500, the Salvadoran Returns to Cuba to Plant Another Five Bombs in Hotels and Restaurants; title: The Cuban Intelligence Services Set Two Traps, but Fail to Catch Big Paunch, the Recruiter of Mercenaries Hired by Miami; title: Fidel Castro Sends Bill Clinton a Letter with Accusations Against the Extreme Right-Wing Florida Organizations; The Carrier Pigeon is Nobel Prize Winner Gabriel Garcia Marquez; title: Six FBI Agents Arrive Secretly in Havana and Return to the United States with a Crate Full of Reports on the Florida Organizations Produced by Order of Fidel Castro; title: A Portrait of Cuban Miami : The Militant Anti-Castroist Rodolfo Frometa, the Pro-Cuban Journalist Max Lesnik and the Marxist Writer Norberto Fuentes; title: Leonard Weinglass, Attorney to Jane Fonda, Angela Davis and the Black Panthers Joins the Defense of the Cuban Five, but for Them the Die Had Already Been Cast; title: Afterword: This Story Will Only Be Finished When all Five of Us Are Free / by René Gonzalez; title: Epilogue; title: List of Interviewees.