Free The Longest Romance by Humberto Fontova Page B

“Castro the Conservationst? By Default or Design, Cuba Largely Pristine.” Here we learn that “Cuba’s land-tenure system [identical to Stalin’s for the Ukraine] and relatively strong enforcement of laws [!] are all associated with its conservation achievements.”
    In March 2012 National Geographic finally dropped any pretense of objectivity and ran an unabashed tourist infomercial entitled “Falling for Cuba.” The commercial was timed to kick off the joint National Geographic-Castro-regime tours called “Cuba; Discovering Its People and Cuba.” In this joint venture, the magazine and the regime helpfully provide full-time tour-guides. Among these is The Washington Post’s Tom Miller, whose services to the regime began with his book Trading With the Enemy; A Yankee Travels Through Castro’s Cuba, published in 1996, just as the regime’s tourism campaign was kicking into high gear. The
Cuban red carpet—a visa for the asking—has been extended to Miller ever since.
    A Canadian company runs similar junkets called “Cuba Discovery Tours.” Some highlights from their brochure:
    â€œYour tour is fully escorted by Cuban experts from the minute you touch down in Havana until you return home! You’ll experience island history, social and ecological achievements first-hand from Cubans.”
    Among the testimonials from enchanted customers:
    â€œSo many museums and not enough time to see them all! My favorite visit was to the Fortress of San Carlos de la Cabana. We saw where Che Guevara set up his headquarters!” (Headquarters for what? No further details provided.)
    â€œAbove all, this tour was truly an education. If you go, your eyes and hearts will be opened, and you’ll come home with different outlooks on many issues.”
    â€œIn addition to expressing great pride in the country’s low crime rate, the Cubans that we met took great pride in their successful literacy campaign, and their high investment and emphasis on education and health-care. Cuba was declared the first Illiteracy-Free Country in the Americas after its revolutionary victory!”
    â€œThe elevated status of women and health-care for women and children were also areas that Cubans spoke of with pride.”
    â€œOur guide, Reynaldo, an enthusiastic and ebullient man in his forties, was with us throughout the stay in Cuba!”
    We know.

CHAPTER 6
    Castro’s Running-Dogs: Herbert Matthews and The New York Times
    T he New York Times’s Herbert Matthews, who repeatedly denounced Batista as “tyrant, torturer, murderer, thief,” etc., visited Cuba repeatedly during Batista’s reign. (Try that during Castro’s.) The interview and three-part fron page feature that resulted from his first trip in February 1957 “invented” Fidel Castro, according to fellow Times reporter Anthony DePalma. In 2006 DePalma authored a book about Herbert Matthews entitled, appropriately enough, The Man Who Invented Fidel.
    In his book, DePalma endeavors to offer a mea culpa of sorts on the Matthews-Castro saga but in a highly sympathetic manner, as befits their New York Times fellowship. DePalma starts with a nail-biting account of the perils Herbert Matthews faced while clandestinely setting up the interviews, then clandestinely making his perilous way to those ground-breaking interviews.
    â€œHe [Matthews] did not see anyone from the Batista Government because he feared that doing so might raise suspicion about his presence in Cuba,” DePalma states in his book. “Matthews had decided that that the best way of getting past the cordon of troops surrounding the Sierra [Maestra, mountains of eastern Cuba] was to bring along [his wife] Nancie and pretend to be a couple of middle-aged American tourists out with some young Cuban friends.”

    â€œMatthews confided to her that many young Cubans were risking their lives to smuggle him into the