Castro'S Final Hour - Softcover

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ANDRES OPPENHEIMER is the Latin American editor and foreign affairs columnist with "The Miami Herald," His syndicated column, The Oppenheimer Report, appears twice a week in "The Miami Herald "and in more than 40 U.S. and Latin American newspapers, including "La Nacion "of Argentina and "Reforma "of Mexico. He is a regular political
analyst with CNN en Espanol, and a frequent guest at PBS' Jim Lehrer News Hour. He also hosts his own television talk show in Spanish on current events, "Oppenheimer Presenta,"
His previous positions at "The Miami Herald "included Mexico City bureau chief, foreign correspondent, and business writer. He previously worked for five years with The Associated Press in New York, and has contributed on a free-lance basis to "The New York Times," "The Washington Post," "The New Republic," CBS News, and the BBC.
Oppenheimer is the co-winner of the 1987 Pulitzer Prize as a member of "The Miami Herald "team that uncovered the Iran-Contra scandal. He won the Inter-American Press Association Award twice (1989 and 1994); the 1997 award of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists; the 1993 Ortega y Gasset Award of Spain's daily El Pais; the 1998 Maria Moors Cabot Award of Columbia University; the 2001 King of Spain Award, given out by the Spanish news agency EFE and King Juan Carlos I of Spain; and an Overseas Press Club Award in 2002. The Ortega y Gasset and the King of Spain awards are the two most prestigious journalism awards in the Spanish-speaking world.
Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, he studied law for four years at the University of Buenos Aires' Law School, and moved to the United States in 1976 with a fellowshipfrom the World Press Institute. After a year at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota, he obtained a Master's degree in Journalism from Columbia University in New York in
1978.
Oppenheimer was selected by the Forbes Media Guide as one of the "500 most important journalists" of the United States in 1993, and by Poder magazine as one of the "100 most powerful people" in Latin America in 2002.
For more information on Andres Oppenheimer: www.AndresOppenheimer.com

Real-life thriller about Fidel Castro vs. perestroika and glasnost; by Oppenheimer, Pulitzer-winning foreign correspondent for The Miami Herald. According to the author, withdrawal of Soviet support in the late 80's soon impoverished Cuba, which depended on the Soviet bloc for 87% of its trade and 90% of its oil. Oppenheimer depicts a discouraged, bureaucratized populace, reduced to rationing, illegal transactions, and ox-carts and bicycles, champing to get back to prosperity, no longer convinced by Castro's thundering speeches. During this period, several ranking military officers were convicted of drug smuggling and shot. At the heart of Oppenheimer's study is an in-depth exploration of this case, and of the Machiavellian world of the Cuban military, intelligence, and criminal communities in which it transpired. He finds that the executions amounted to human sacrifices to political expediency: With Cuba falling apart, Castro apparently feared revolt, even from these officers so close to him. The most prominent victims form a dramatic study in Cuban culture: Colonel ``Tony'' De La Guardia- -arrogant, athletic, well connected, upper middle-class, a womanizer, educated in the US; and General Arnaldo Ochoa, the hero every Marxist revolution wants to produce--a man of the people with a fourth-grade education who came up through the ranks to become Castro's friend and to command the Cuban forces in Angola, but who still lived in a small house and was embarrassed to drive his Mercedes. What these two men shared, Oppenheimer says, was a critical view of Communism and a realistic entrepreneurial grasp unacceptable to Castro. Unfortunately, the author fails to explore fully how US foreign and trade policy, CIA activity, and historic relations with the dictator Batista are involved in Cuba's current plight. Still, Oppenheimer's familiarity with Cuban history, psychology, and culture--combined with extensive research and interviews--place his account well above standard left-bashing. (Eight pages of b&w photographs--not seen.) -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.