I OWE A SPECIAL DEBT OF GRATITUDE TO FLORENTINO ASPILLAGA Lombard, the most valuable defector ever to flee the Castro brothers’ secret services. Other former Cuban intelligence and security officers also shared astonishing secrets with me. Among them, José Maragon, Francisco Compostela, Lazaro Betancourt, Miguel Mir, Roberto Hernández del Llano, and Juan Sanchez Crespo deserve special thanks.
I am grateful to the many CIA operations officers—nearly all of them anonymous—who shared valuable recollections and insights. Archivists and librarians at the National Archives in College Park, Maryland, the Cuban Heritage Collection at the University of Miami, and the Hoover Archives at Stanford University provided valuable assistance. I want to especially thank Jorge Machado and Bill Ratliff at Stanford and Steve Tilley, Mary Kay Schmidt, and Amy de Long at the National Archives.
All of my colleagues at the Institute for Cuban and Cuban American Studies at the University of Miami helped in important ways, especially Jaime Suchlicki and Pedro Roig, the latter when he was director of Radio and TV Marti. Clarisa Arguello at Miami’s Richter Library and Karina Gutierrez helped me find obscure published works.
Intelligence historians Keith Melton and Hayden Peake were always available to provide counsel. Don Bohning, Dan Flores, Albert Hernández, Howard Jones, David Laux, Octavio Ramos, I. C. Smith, Sally Swenson Cascio, Juan Tamayo, and Joe Urban all helped in significant ways. My old colleagues Pat Maher and Marty Roeber commented helpfully on early draft language. Axel Gylden and Jean Daniel in Paris helped me, with grace and friendship, to shape portions of the story. And others who agreed to be interviewed and who helped in so many other critical ways know how much I appreciate their assistance and respect their wishes to remain anonymous.
My editor, Luba Ostashevsky, provided needed encouragement and counsel. My agent Sterling Lord, founder and chairman of Sterling Lord Literistics, and the best in the business for decades, has been my most intrepid ally. But no one has helped me more than my wife Jill, who patiently read every sentence in all of their versions along the way. As always, she has been my refuge and my fortress.