Allow me to calmly explain:  neck to neck with Hugo Chavez’ subsidies Castro’s Stalinist regime lives off tourism. And Cuba’s Intelligence and Military sector owns 80 per cent of the Tourist Industry, as documented to Congress by retired Defense Intelligence Agency Cuba analyst, Lieut. Col. Chris Simmons.  Henceforth, yet another Travel Channel infomercial (Zimmern visited in 2009) for Cuba was a godsend to the Stalinist nomenklatura—especially right now with their Venezuelan Sugar- Daddy in perilous health.

Those charming, smiling hosts who escorted Bourdain around Castro’s fiefdom were all regime apparatchiks.  Immediately upon applying for his Cuban visa, well before Bourdain even set foot in Cuba, Castro’s intelligence had Bourdain completely sussed and his future escorts completely briefed. The procedure started the day he applied for Cuban visa, as also explained by Lieut. Col. Christopher Simmons. That your official “guides” while officially visiting a Communist nation were regime apparatchiks was common knowledge even to proto-imbeciles all during the Cold War.  Bourdain was born in 1956. 

“Big deal! So who’s this Simmons guy?! Some Birther- Bircher-Crackpot you rich Republican Cuban exiles pay off!”

Read the full piece at Big Peace.

Following in the footsteps of (among many other flower-children) Stephen Stills, Bonnie Raitt, Chrissie Hynde, Jimmy Buffet, and Carole King (who in 2002 serenaded Fidel Castro with a personal “You’ve Got a Friend”) guitar legend Jimmy Page made the pilgrimage to Fidel Castro’s fiefdom this week.

To Led Zeppelin’s former guitarist the visit probably seemed, not only fitting, but long overdue. Cuba was, after all, the first nation ruled by bearded long-hairs. Jean Paul Sartre, after all, hailed Cuba’s Stalinist rulers as “les Enfants au Pouvoir” (the children in power). Fidel Castro, after all, spoke at Harvard in 1959 on the same bill as pioneer beatnik Allen Ginsberg.

Remove the wispy beard and beret from the (late, thanks to Fidel Castro) revolutionary icon on those posters and t-shirts and you’ve got Jim Morrison of The Doors. Remove the cowboy hat from the (late, thanks to Fidel Castro) Revolutionary icon Camilo Cienfuegos and you’ve got Grateful Dead’s Gerry Garcia. Circa 1959, Raul Castro with his blond shoulder-length locks was a ringer for Joe Walsh circa Hotel California. These Cuban Stalinists were on the cutting edge of fashion. They pre-empted the Haight Ashbury look by a decade.

Castro’s captive (literally!) media, reports that Jimmy Page’s visit: “included tours of historic sites, and purchases of souvenirs such as the famous photograph of Che Guevara.”

In an interview with the BBC last year, Oscar and Cannes-winner Benicio del Toro explained the painstaking intellectual exertion that inspired his Che-mania: “I hear of this guy, and he’s got a cool name, Che Guevara! Groovy name, groovy man, groovy politics! So I came across a picture of Che, smiling, in fatigues, I thought, ‘Dammit, this guy is cool-looking!’”

In all likelihood, similar intellectual toil inspired Jimmy Page’s recent souvenir shopping spree in Havana.

For his role as Che Guevara in Steven Soderbergh’s movie Che, Benicio del Toro was recently honored by the peace-loving crowd in Hollywood and Cannes. For headlining their Concert for Peace. Jimmy Page was recently honored with the “Global Peace Award from the United Nations’ Pathway to Peace organization.

“We reject any peaceful approach! “declared the souvenir icon of the Concert for Peace’s honoree “Violence is inevitable! To establish Socialism rivers of blood must flow! If the nuclear missiles had remained (in Cuba) we would have fired them against the heart of the U.S. including New York City. The victory of socialism is well worth millions of atomic victims!”

“Hatred is the central element of our struggle!” raved this icon of flower-children. “Hatred that is intransigent….Hatred so violent that it propels a human being beyond his natural limitations, making him violent and cold- blooded killing machine… My nostrils dilate while savoring the acrid odor of gunpowder and blood. Crazy with fury I will stain my rifle red while slaughtering any surrendered enemy that falls in my hands! We must keep our hatred alive and fan it to paroxysm!”

In fact, Jimmy Page should know that many Cuban youths “tuned-in and turned-on” to (smuggled) Led Zeppelin music in the 60’s and 70’s. But rather than meet with his Cuban fans, Jimmy was hosted by apparatchiks of the Stalinist regime that jailed and brutalized them en masse.

In a famous speech in 1961 Che Guevara denounced the very “spirit of rebellion” as “reprehensible.” “Youth must refrain from ungrateful questioning of governmental mandates” commanded the KGB –mentored Guevara. “Instead they must dedicate themselves to study, work and military service.”

Cuban “roquero” of the time Charlie Bravo recalls the process: “When Castro’s goons caught me with a Led Zeppelin record, they led me to a Stairway alright—but at bayonet-point and this stairway hardly led to Heaven, instead it led down into a dark jail cell.”

On the orders of Jimmy Page’s smiling hosts, Charlie was joined by tens of thousands of Cuban youths. A few years earlier the hundreds of Soviet KGB and East German STASI “consultants” who flooded Cuba in the early 60’s, found an extremely eager acolyte in Che Guevara. By the mid 60’s the crime of a “rocker” lifestyle—long hair, blue jeans, etc.–or effeminate behavior got thousands of youths yanked off Cuba’s streets and parks by secret police and dumped in prison camps with “Work Will Make Men Out of You” in bold letters above the gate and with machine gunners posted on the watchtowers. The initials for these camps were UMAP, not GULAG, but the conditions were quite similar.

Today the world’s largest image of Jimmy Page’s souvenir icon adorns Cuba’s headquarters for Cuba’s KGB-trained secret police, a gang of Communist sadists who jailed and tortured at a rate higher than Stalin’s own KGB and GRU—and many of their victims were guilty of nothing worse than listening to music by Jimmy Page.

“At Woodstock nearly half a million youth gathered to be drugged and brainwashed on a farm. The victims were isolated, immersed in filth, pumped with psychedelic drugs…all with the full and secret complicity of the FBI and CIA.” 

Alas, when in 1979 Fidel Castro (whose regime murdered more political prisoners than pre-war Hitler’s and jailed political prisoners at a higher rate than Stalin’s) invited Stephen Stills to perform in Cuba, the famous Woodstocker could hardly contain his elation. The fervent champion of human-rights, civil rights and free-speech (indeed CSNY’s last tour was titled “The Free-Speech Tour”) not only took up the offer to perform at this “Havana-Jam,” but also composed a song in Castro’s honor, titled “Cuba al Fin!” 

Jazz-master Paquito‘d Rivera, in Cuba at the time, recalls watching Stills on stage at Havana’s Karl Marx theatre lovingly crooning the song to the families of Castro’s Stalinist nomenklatura as if Havana-Jam were a personal performance for the mass-murderer himself. Within blocks of this cheeky “Havana-Jam,” (which also included Human-Rights activist Kris Kristofferson along with Billy Joel) Cuban youths, black and white, languished in dungeons suffering longer prison sentences than Nelson Mandela’s. The Cubans’ crimes were attempting free speech. 

“They (Castro’s Stalinist regime) invited me because they knew I was politically astute,” gloated Stephen Stills regarding the acumen and good taste of his Cuban hosts, who to this day jail and torture youths for the crime of saying “Down with Fidel!”   

“There’s a man with a gun over there, ’tellin me I gotta beware.” 

Cuban youths have much to teach regarding that scenario, Mr Stills. If only you’d deigned to part briefly from your Stalinist hosts (the gunmen) and asked around. 

“You have to give them (Cuba’s Stalinists) due respect because they have a unique form of socialism that’s very significant in the scheme of world history,” Stills further hailed his hosts. 

Oh, it’s unique alright, Mr. Stills. Few 20th Century regimes jailed and tortured youths en masse for the crime of growing long hair and craving rock music.

Famous Woodstocker Carlos Santana should also be notified of Castro’s latest “reflections,” as his Propaganda Ministry headlines his weekly articles. Who can forget Carlos Santana’s grand entrance at the 2005 Oscars? The famed guitarist, on hand to perform the theme song for Motorcycle Diaries, stopped for the photographers, smiled deliriously and swung his jacket open.

 TA-DA! There it was: Carlos’ elegantly embroidered Che Guevara t-shirt. Carlos’ face as the flashbulbs popped said it all. “I’m so cool!” he beamed. “I’m so hip! I’m so sharp! I’m so politically-astute like my buddy Stephen Stills!”

Indeed, if hipness, sharpness and political astuteness denotes Carlos Santana proudly advertising the emblem of a regime that criminalized Carlos Santana music.

Judy Collins, though not physically present at Yasgur’s farm on August 15, 1969, certainly merits mention here. You know that Spanish gibberish that closes out Stills’ “Judy Blue Eyes? Well, that’s Stills, employing a faux Cuban accent, singing:  “How beautiful it would be to bring me to Cuba, the queen of the Caribbean I only want to visit you there, how sad that I can’t go Oh va, oh va, va!”

Well, exactly ten years later Stills fulfilled his wish, and as a personal guest of the beautiful island’s owner and warden.

Upon Che Guevara’s death, the bereaved “Sweet Judy Blue Eyes” herself sought solace in songwriting, composing a lovely ballad title “Che.” “You have it in your hand to own your life–to own your land” goes the chorus which represents Che himself consoling Bolivian campesinos who mourn their savior’ death.   

Attempting to own their own lives and land is precisely what got thousands of Cuban campesinos massacred by Che Guevara’s firing squads.  American songstress millionaires certainly mourned Che’s death.  But check out this last picture for a clue as to how Bolivian campesinos reacted. 

“Only through the total eradication of private property will we create the new man,” instructed Che Guevara. “Individualism must disappear. Youth must refrain from ungrateful questioning of governmental mandates. Instead they must dedicate themselves to study, work and military service. The very spirit of rebellion is reprehensible!” thundered this idol of ” do-your-own-thing” Bohemians.

Cuban campesino Carlos Machado was 15 years old in 1963 when the bullets shattered his body. His twin brother and father collapsed beside Carlos from the same volley. All had resisted Castro and Che’s theft of their humble family farm. All refused blindfolds and all died sneering at their Communist murderers, as did thousands of their valiant countrymen.

Not that the victims of this Stalinist bloodbath were exclusively men and boys. In fact, the Castroites were well ahead of the Taliban. On Christmas Eve 1961 a young Cuban woman named Juana Figueredo Diaz spat in the face of the executioners who were binding and gagging her. They’d found her guilty of feeding and hiding “bandits” (Che’s term for Cuban rednecks who took up their meager arms to fight Che’s Soviet-backed theft of their land to create Stalinist kolkhozes.) When the blast from that firing squad demolished her face and torso Juana was six months pregnant.

Not to be outdone by Judy Collins, famous Rhodes Scholar Kris Kristofferson composed song titled Mal Sacate wherein he laments:  “You have stolen all the land that you can steal, and you killed so many heroes.” 

A perfect tribute to his Havana-Jam hosts, you might think? 

Hah!  It’s obvious you’re no Rhodes Scholar! Kristofferson is instead lambasting Stalinism’s enemies!

The very next stanza mentions the “murdered heroes,” among whom we find none other than:  Che Guevara! 

Judy Collins and Kris Kristofferson obviously share the same “political astuteness” with their friend and soulmate Stephen Stills. So let’s excuse for confusing Fidel Castro with Country Joe Mc Donald and Che Guevara with Wavy Gravy.

The quote was carried by many papers including the Wall Street Journal  and was included in this writer’s articles and books. Upon their publication, the Hollywood agent who arranged Spielberg’s trip to the Caribbean police-state notified me that Spielberg had uttered nothing of the sort. Therefore I should retract that statement from my writings.

Castro’s own media, explained Mr. Stephen Rivers (formerly with Creative Artists Agency), had concocted the Spielberg quote from thin air. So there was absolutely no truth to it.

Well, that actually makes my point better than the quote genuinely issuing from Spielberg, I replied to the high-rolling Stephen Rivers, who also represented Michael Ovitz.  My writings document that Fidel Castro is a master propagandist and that his KGB/STASI- trained secret services specialize in obtaining many such statements from many such luminaries via a variety of methods.

So the proper — and especially, the logical — course of action (if Mr. Spielberg had indeed been  thusly swindled) was for Mr. Spielberg or his agent, to make Fidel Castro’s treachery known publicly.  After all, Mr. Spielberg (supposedly) was the aggrieved party here and the damage (from what Mr. Rivers was telling me) had been inflicted maliciously by the secret services of a Stalinist regime.

There is no record that Mr. Rivers, Mr. Spielberg or any of their spokespersons ever clarified this issue publicly, which didn’t surprise me then, and is even clearer now.

Mr. Stephen Rivers, who once worked as Tom Hayden’s press secretary and Jane Fonda’s agent, also arranged Cuban trips for Oliver Stone, Michael Moore, Benicio del Toro, Robert Redford’s Sundance Institute, Stephen Soderbergh among many others who sought the invaluable collaboration of Castro’s propaganda ministry for their films.  Essentially Rivers was Hollywood’s go-to guy when planning a visit to Fidel Castro’s fiefdom, a meeting with his communist functionaries, or even a coveted audience (‘NO?! REALLY!”) with the mass-murderer himself, as generously bequeathed to Spielberg. Despite this “embargo” we keep hearing and reading about in the MSM, Rivers managed to visit Castro’s island fiefdom over two dozen times over the course of a few years.

Mr. Stephen Rivers passed away earlier this month and his friends and clients have been effusive with eulogies:

“Stephen Rivers was a man committed to the truth,” wrote Oliver Stone, “wanting the best for the United States, and digging away at the hypocrisy of so much of our political and media leadership.…I will miss him deeply.”

But the most effusive eulogy was published in the Huffington Post by Margarita Alarcon. 

“Stephen had been for the better part of the last years of his life an exemplary Bridge between Cuba and the United States,” writes Ms Alarcon.  “But he didn’t just bridge Cuba and the US culturally, he also was very aware of the need for sovereignty and independence from imperial powers…. When he gave a gift it wasn’t just a gesture of friendship it was always a gesture of solidarity with a cause.” (italics mine.)

“Fine, Ms Alarcon,” asks this writer. “Now, can you elaborate on Mr. Stephen Rivers’ favorite causes?”

“May he rest in peace, “concludes Ms Alarcon’s eulogy, “And may he know that I feel safe because I know he is on my side.” (italics mine)

“Margarita Alarcon is a Havana–based media analyst,” innocuously informs the Huffington Post about one of their feature writers.

Margarita Alarcon is also a “Havana-based” columnist for Castro’s government-run press, an official of Cuba’s “Casa de las America’s,” and the daughter of one of Fidel Castro’s longest-serving and most faithful ministers. Margarita’s father, Ricardo Alarcon, has functioned as Castro’s Foreign Minister, ambassador to the UN and today functions as the president of Cuba’s “Parliament.” 

In 1983 a high ranking Cuban Intelligence officer named Jesus Perez Mendez defected to the U.S. and revealed to the FBI that the Cuban DGI (Directorio General de Intelligencia, Castro’s KGB/STASI trained Secret service) controls the Casa de las America’s.”   

“Our good friend Stephen Rivers made his final journey home this week,” chimed in an outfit called, Center for the Democracy in the America’s, on whose board appears a Dr. Julia Sweig.  “We couldn’t close… without mentioning his (Stephen Rivers) name, acknowledging our debt to him, and saying how much we loved and miss him.”

Two years ago the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency’s top Cuba spycatcher, Army Reserve officer Christopher Simmons, outed Julia Sweig as a Castro regime “Agent of Influence.”

Stephen Rivers’ family is no doubt grieving over their recent loss and my “insensitivity” to them might offend some. I simply ask where was Stephen Rivers’s sensitivity to the tens of thousands jailed, tortured and murdered by the Stalinist regime, that by their own admission, he “sided with” and served?

You’d never know it from Hollywood or the MSM but Castro’s tens of thousands of murder victims have families too.

INTERVIEWER: For that ailment [altitude sickness], you appear onscreen chewing coca leaves. Is that high much different than having caffeine?

STONE: No, it’s a mild, mild stimulus. You’re at 12,000 feet, so you’re nauseous and it’s really hard to breathe. This opens the cells, you get better oxygen and you feel more relaxed. I was nauseous, and then I ended up playing soccer, that was sort of the point. They’ve been doing it for centuries down there. It’s a normal thing to do. By the way, I brought coca leaves back. It’s illegal in this country to have a coca leaf, but put it in a cup of tea and it’s better for your health than coffee. But of course, there’s more money for us in coffee as well as tobacco, so we’d rather do that for stimulation.

As a narco-journalist and documentary filmmaker myself, I too have been given the opportunity to smuggle contraband in and out of the United States. I’ve even been offered large sums of money to do it and can’t think of a single reason as to what would motivate me to agree. Putting coca leaves in your tea is like putting Crystal Meth in your orange juice — not a real smart move.

I guess Stone will get a pass on that. But I would hope that if anyone ever publicly bragged about smuggling illegal substances into the United States for whatever reason, that they would at least earn a cursory investigation by ICE or the DEA.

And naturally the American media Stone accuses of being so horribly biased isn’t interested in this story, either.

The Hollywood director is about to release a documentary entitled “South of the Border” that stars the leaders of South American countries such as Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, and the island of Cuba. Let me be clear, I have not seen this film and therefore this is not criticism aimed at the actual production. But in the aforementioned article Stone says he was given high level access to the likes of Chavez and Castro because he agreed to “tell the truth” from their perspective.

Hey, Ollie—you found out they were human beings. Congratulations.

In my work, I’ve interviewed some of the most wanted drug lords in the Western Hemisphere and had unprecedented access to a couple of them. I’ve been to their homes, met their families and attended their children’s weddings and baptisms. I’ve seen the “human” side of a drug lord and I can tell you without hesitation that doesn’t make these men “misunderstood good guys.”

They are still pedaling death and destruction to my countrymen as well as their own and hardly a day goes by that they don’t send someone to their grave. Yes, they are husbands, sons and brothers, but that’s only one aspect of their persona—they’re also ruthless, cold-blooded killers with little or no regard for human life outside that inner circle.

Hugo Chavez wishes nothing but ill-will for the United States of America. He is out for the destruction of our nation and will aid anyone with similar motives in doing the same. He sponsors terrorists from Middle Eastern nations to come to Venezuela to learn the Spanish language and Latino customs so they can then be issued Venezuelan passports and enter into the U.S. from Mexico.

With all due respect, my advice to you Mr. Stone is to stick to what you know. Scripting your films allows you flexibility to make the outcome the way you want it and as you say in the article, “It’s more important to tell a story that people can enjoy.”

However, “based on a true story” does not mean it’s the truth.

Oh and one more thing: Stop smuggling!

This is our sixth month of Obama Nation strips. Huzzah!

Steven Soderbergh made certain his new movie, “Che,” about the life of revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevara, couldn’t be attacked — at least on a factual level. (CNN Entertainment, January 1, 2009)

“I didn’t mind someone saying, ‘Well, your take on him, I don’t really like,’ or ‘You’ve left these things out and included these things.’ That’s fine,” Soderbergh said. “What I didn’t want was for somebody to be able to look at a scene and say, ‘That never happened.’ “(CNN Entertainment, January 1, 2009)

Well, Mr Soderbergh (and CNN), pull up a chair.

Soderbergh’s movie shows Che Guevara steely-eyed and snarling with defiance during his capture. Why, only seconds before, Che’s very M-2 carbine had been blasted from his hands and rendered useless by a fascist machine gun burst!

Then the bravely grimacing Guevara jerks out his pistol and blasts his very last bullets at the approaching hordes of CIA-lackey soldiers!

The (typical) viewer gapes at the spectacle. His eyes mist and lips tremble at Soderbergh and del Toro’s impeccable depiction of such undaunted pluck and valor.

OK, but just where did Soderbergh and del Toro—utterly obsessed with historical accuracy–obtain this version of Che’s capture?

Why the notoriously shrewd and canny, the immensely suspicious and cagey, the infamously clever and perspicacious, Steven Soderbergh transcribed this sterling and utterly indisputable account of Che’s capture exactly as penned by: Fidel Castro!

And you yokels who think that the testimony of a Communist dictator should merit the same skepticism as that of, say, a U.S. industrialist, have obviously never been subject to Soderbergh’s multiple-Oscar-nominated Erin Brockovich.

Why the man who mentored Soderbergh’s film for impeccable historical honesty is also on record for the following testaments:

“Again I STRESS! I am NOT A COMMUNIST!  And Communists have absolutely no influence in my nation!” (Fidel Castro, April 1959)

“Political power does interest me in the least! And I will NEVER assume such power!” (Fidel Castro, April 1959)

But as evidenced by Steven Soderbergh’s films, the author of these proclamations merits his version of Che’s capture transcribed on the silver screen as gospel. As for any skeptics…? Hah! Only those insufferable Tea-Partiers could conceivably swallow the laughable propaganda questioning Che’s heroism and Fidel Castro’s integrity and honesty!

Fidel Castro, you see, wrote the forward to Che‘s Diaries wherein this Davy Crocket-esque-at-the-Alamo version of events appears. These diaries were published in Castro’s Cuban fiefdom by the Stalinist dictator’s very own propaganda ministry. So lest they unwittingly fudge their film’s historical accuracy, Soderbergh and co-producer Benicio Del Toro were scrupulous in repeatedly visiting Castro’s Stalinist fiefdom to get the unvarnished truth straight from Castro’s own propaganda ministry!

On the other hand, a mental defect, diagnosed by my physician as “not believing Communist dictators, especially after living under them,” led your humble servant here, while researching my book, to dig-up and study the actual records of the men actually on the scene of Che Guevara’s capture, and who today live in places where they need not fear Castro’s firing squads and torture chambers for the crime of telling the truth.

As might be expected, (but mostly by Tea-Partiers and other such yokels,) this mental defect led to the discovery of major “discrepancies” between Soderbergh and del Toro’s Fidel Castro-mentored film and the historical truth.

In fact, on his second to last day alive, Che Guevara ordered his guerrilla charges to give no quarter, to fight to the last breath and to the last bullet. With his men doing exactly that, Che, with a trifling flesh leg-wound (though Soderbergh’s movie depicts Che’s leg wound ghastlier than Burt Reynolds’ in “Deliverance”) snuck away from the firefight, crawled towards the Bolivian soldiers doing the firing, then as soon as his he spotted two of them at a distance, stood and yelled: “Don’t Shoot! I’m Che! I’m worth more to you alive than dead!”

His captor’s official Bolivian army records that they took from Ernesto “Che” Guevara:  a fully-loaded PPK 9mm pistol. And the damaged carbine was an M-1—NOT the M-2 wrote he was carrying in his own diaries. The damaged M-1 carbine probably belonged to the hapless guerrilla charge, Willi, who Che dragged along—also to his doom.

But it was only after his (obviously voluntary) capture that Che segued into full Eddie-Hasquell-greeting-June-Cleaver-mode. “What’s your name, young man?!” Che quickly asked one of his captors. “Why, what a lovely name for a Bolivian soldier!”

“So what will they do with me?” Che, desperate to ingratiate himself, asked Bolivian Captain Gary Prado. “I don’t suppose you will kill me. I’m surely more valuable alive…. And you Captain Prado!” Che commended his captor. “You are a very special person!… I have been talking to some of your men. They think very highly of you, captain!.. Now, could you please find out what they plan to do with me?”

From that stage on, Che Guevara’s fully-documented Eddie Haskell-isms only get more uproarious (or nauseating). But somehow none of these found their way into Soderbergh’s film.

And oh!  Didn’t Che Guevara mount his steed and grab his lance as the (self-appointed) liberator of South America’s indigenous peoples fro  exploitation by the continents’ Europeans descendants?

Well, based on this picture, taken by the men who captured and killed him—Che’s message seemed woefully under-appreciated by his intended “beneficiaries.” I only note one obviously European-descendent person in the picture.

Fidel Castro, 2010. Mixed Media Silkscreen with Lipstick.

 

Fidel Castro Mug Shot, 1953. Santiago, Cuba.

Castro undoubtedly knew plenty about Mss’ Campbell and Moss–but probably not from reading Vogue, Elle or Cosmo.  

“My job was to bug their hotel rooms,” disclosed high-ranking Cuban intelligence defector Delfin Fernandez, “with both cameras and listening devices.

“When word came down that models Naomi Campbell and Kate Moss were coming to Cuba the order was a routine one: 24-hour-a-day vigilance. Then we got a PRIORITY alert, recalls Fernandez, “because there was a rumor that they would be sharing a room with Leonardo DiCaprio. The rumor set off a flurry of activity and we set up the most sophisticated devices we had.” 

“Delfin Fernandez has not only met some of the most famous men in the world,” says a story in the London Daily Mirror about the Cuban intelligence defector, “he’s also spied on them and been witness to some of their most innermost secrets.”

“Fidel Castro is a source of inspiration for me!” gushed Campbell while concluding her “press conference.”It is a great pleasure to be in Cuba. I’ve really enjoyed myself, and I plan to come back!” 

“Fidel Castro is a genius!” said Jack Nicholson after a visit with El Lider Maximo that same year. “We spoke about everything,” the actor rhapsodized. “Castro is a humanist. Cuba is simply a paradise!” 

“The American actor Jack Nicholson was another celebrity who was bugged and taped thoroughly during his stay in Havana’s Hotel Meliá Cohiba,” revealed Fernandez, the man in charge of the bugging. “We bugged his room thoroughly. Most people have no idea they are being watched while they are in Cuba. But their personal activities are filmed under orders from Castro himself.” 

Interestingly (and tragically) The ECPAT Network – (End Child Prostitution in Asian Tourism) in a study titled Child Prostitution and Sex Tourism in Cuba,” reports that:  ”In Cuba, the link between tourism and prostitution is perhaps more direct than in any other country that hosts sex tourists.”  Such is the desperation of the brutalized and impoverished residents of a nation that prior to the glorious Castro/Che revolution enjoyed a higher per capita income than Japan and half the nations of Europe and who welcomed more immigrants (primarily from Europe) per-capita than the U.S. Prior to the glorious Communist liberation people were as desperate to enter Cuba as they are now to escape. 

“Famous Americans are the priority objectives of Castro’s intelligence,” reports Fernandez. “When the celebrity visitors arrived at the Hotels Nacional, Meliá Habana and Meliá Cohiba, we already had their rooms completely bugged with sophisticated taping equipment. But not just the rooms, we’d also follow the visitors around, sometimes we covered them 24 hours a day. They had no idea we were tailing them.” 

“Socialism works. I think Cuba might prove that” (Chevy Chase). 

“Castro is very selfless and moral, one of the world’s wisest men” (Oliver Stone). 

“If you believe in freedom, if you believe in justice, if you believe in democracy, you have no choice but to support Fidel Castro!” (Harry Belafonte). 

“It was an experience of a lifetime to sit only a few feet away from him (Castro)” Kevin Costner. 

“The eight most important hours of my life,” (Stephen Spielberg describing his dinner with Castro, as reported in the Wall Street Journal.) 

Famous Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodovar was a special target for this bugging but nothing of value came of it for Castro. “Everybody already knows I’m a maricon!” Almodovar laughed at Castro’s blackmailers. “So go right ahead! Knock yourselves out!” 

“Fidel Castro is a special connoisseur of these tapings and videos,” says Fernandez, “especially of the really famous.” And not even his closest “friends” are safe from this bugging. The best example is his longtime Castro “friend” Nobel Prize novelist Gabriel Garcia Marquez. In what appeared as a touching act of generosity and friendship, Castro gave his friend “Gabo” his very own (stolen) mansion in Havana. 

“We had remodeled it right before,” recalls Fernandez, “and we installed more cables for bugging devices than for the normal electrical appliances. We taped everything. Fidel doesn’t trust anyone.” 

Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Castro’s top intelligence people would gather for the screenings of these tapes almost like Hollywood types for an upcoming movie, reports Fernandez. “Hummmm, these scenes are more scandalous than anything in any of her movies!” Fernandez recalls a top intelligence officer chortling while watching the nighttime cavortings of a famous Spanish actress. “Now, it really seems to me, compañeros,” the Castro intimate snickered as he looked around the room, “that this señorita should be making more respectful comments about our regime, right?” 

Turns out, however, that at least one visiting dignitary foiled Castro’s intelligence. On his visit to Cuba in 1998, Pope John Paul’s assistants discovered and removed several bugging devices from his Holiness’ hotel room. Perhaps Castro had a grudge against the Papacy?

Most don’t recall, but on January 3rd, 1962, Pope John XXIII ex-communicated Fidel Castro from the Catholic Church. 

An estimated 65,000 Castroite Cubans infest Venezuela. Essentially they run that nation’s entire Ministry of the Interior (secret police/intelligence, etc.) along with many top military commands along with Chavez’ entire retinue of bodyguards (Hugo trusts Castro’s “specialists” more than he trusts his own countrymen for such a vital function.) So overbearing has become the Castroite occupation of Venezuela that Chavez’ longtime crony, Ramón Carrizalez, who served as Venezuelan Vice president and Minister of Defense, resigned in protest two weeks ago.   

Just last year, by the way, GQ magazine commissioned their new ace reporter, Naomi Campbell, to interview Hugo Chavez, probably Fidel Castro’s closest foreign “friend” nowadays. According to some sources the interview escalated to matters not purely professional.

Makes you wonder what film screenings Fidel and his Stalinist cronies might be chortling and snickering over lately.