Synopses & Reviews
This is a compelling and dramatic account of Cuban policy in Africa from 1959 to 1976 and of its escalating clash with U.S. policy toward the continent. Piero Gleijeses's fast-paced narrative takes the reader from Cuba's first steps to assist Algerian rebels fighting France in 1961, to the secret war between Havana and Washington in Zaire in 1964-65--where 100 Cubans led by Che Guevara clashed with 1,000 mercenaries controlled by the CIA--and, finally, to the dramatic dispatch of 30,000 Cubans to Angola in 1975-76, which stopped the South African advance on Luanda and doomed Henry Kissinger's major covert operation there.
Based on unprecedented archival research and firsthand interviews in virtually all of the countries involved--Gleijeses was even able to gain extensive access to closed Cuban archives--this comprehensive and balanced work sheds new light on U.S. foreign policy and CIA covert operations. It revolutionizes our view of Cuba's international role, challenges conventional U.S. beliefs about the influence of the Soviet Union in directing Cuba's actions in Africa, and provides, for the first time ever, a look from the inside at Cuba's foreign policy during the Cold War.
Review
Rich and provocative.
(Washington Post Book World)
Review
After reviewing Dr. Gleijeses's work, several former senior United States diplomats who were involved in making policy toward Angola broadly endorsed its conclusions.
(New York Times)
Review
A necessary corrective to past misinterpretations of how and why the Cubans intervened in Africa.
(Los Angeles Times)
Review
Gleijeses gained remarkable access to Cuban documents, and his major contribution lies in what he has discovered there.
(Foreign Affairs)
Review
Admirable.
(The Economist)
Synopsis
This sweeping history of Cuban policy in Africa from 1959 to 1976 is based on unprecedented research in African, Cuban, and American archives. (Among Gleijeses's many sources are Cuban archival materials to which he is the only non-Cuban to ever have access.) Setting his story within the context of U.S. policy toward both Africa and Cuba during the Cold War, Gleijeses challenges the notion that Cuban policy in Africa was directed by the Soviet Union.
Synopsis
Based on unprecedented research in Cuban, American, and European archives, this is the compelling story of Cuban policy in Africa from 1959 to 1976 and of its escalating clash with U.S. policy toward the continent. Piero Gleijeses sheds new light on U.S. foreign policy and CIA covert operations, revolutionizes our view of Cuba's international role, and provides the first look from the inside at Cuba's foreign policy during the Cold War.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Note on Citations
Abbreviations
Prologue
Chapter 1. Castro's Cuba, 1959-1964
Chapter 2. Cuba's First Venture in Africa: Algeria
Chapter 3. Flee! The White Giants Are Coming!
Chapter 4. Castro Turns to Central Africa
Chapter 5. Che in Zaire
Chapter 6. A Successful Covert Operation
Chapter 7. American Victory
Chapter 8. Cubans in the Congo
Chapter 9. Guerrillas in Guinea-Bissau
Chapter 10. Castro's Cuba, 1965-1975
Chapter 11. The Collapse of the Portuguese Empire
Chapter 12. The Gathering Storm: Angola, January-October 1975
Chapter 13. South Africa's Friends
Chapter 14. Pretoria Meets Havana
Chapter 15. Cuban Victory
Chapter 16. Repercussions
Chapter 17. Looking Back
Appendix
Notes
Bibliography
Index