Sure he was a good catholic boy, he went to a Jesuit high school in Habana ... had to lie about his birthplace and birthdate to get in, though -g- ... [for this reason his birthdate is now quoted variously three days apart].
And brilliant, for sure ... he's dealt with more US presidents than most are aware of, btw - in this letter of Nov 1940 he hits up FDR for ten bucks - wilpaterson.edu
... no dummy this, he specifies 'green' and 'american', doesn't want one of those purple canadian funnymoney ones.
.. and the way he ends this [first] page - 'but I am not American' ... something firm about that -g-
Apparently in the rest of the letter he offers to show FDR the iron mines of Oriente province ... quid pro quo, or doing his bit for the war effort, hard to say ... got the above from here, which takes forever to load - wilpaterson.edu
Look at the attitude here - wilpaterson.edu
"Office of Foreign Assets Control"
The Cuban Assets Control regulations, 31 C.F.R. Part 515 (the Regulations) prohibit U.S. persons from ..."
Not the way to talk about the neighbors if you want good relations, huh.
And the irony - The Cradle of Liberty - Control - Prohibit ... lol
The compensation question for what was nationalised in the '50s - not all the claims are justified imho ... some are, but a good part of the 'US assets' had been acquired by bribing Batista ... in any case, <shrug>Cuba doesn't have the money to pay anyway</shrug>, so now what, Uncle Sam?
Haven't read proceso this week - proceso.com.mx ... a great magazine, they share the credit for this progress toward democracy imho ... i met one of their people once ... Yes, Fox is talking a good game ... but then, don't they all, lol ... he may have a chance though, we'll see ... time for a little praise of Zedillo, imho, who let this happen ... as Colosio would have.
One thing i miss a lot - the revistas de caricaturas in the street ... they must have been great over the last months ... you don't get the same in Canada ... some good political cartoons in the newspaper, but it's not the same ... |
