December 20, 2014 President Barack Obama announced this week that the United States will reopen diplomatic relations with Cuba, thawing half a century of cold – and sometimes hot – war. The first time I visited Cuba was in the almost unbelievably remote years before “el Maximo Leader,” Fidel Castro. […]


January 5, 2013 Venezuela’s 29 million people are praying for their ailing Commandante Hugo Chavez – half that he will survive his latest bout of cancer, and the other half that he won’t. The flamboyant Chavez is reporting to be failing rapidly with “severe” respiratory complications after his fourth cancer […]


October 20, 2012 HAVANA –  The black, sinister-looking Soviet SS-4 intermediate-ranged missile on display at  Havana’s La Cabana fortress looks old, roughly finished, and rather primitive.   But this missile, and 41 others (including some longer-ranged SS-5’s) terrified the United States during the October 1962 missile crisis – 13 days […]