Where he briefly enjoyed an inglorious career as a film extra. Based in the east village of manhattan, he makes it a point to continue exploring in iceland, del fuega beijing. Tonys travel stories have been published in magazines like the New York Times, and Smithsonian Magazine and have been translated into a dozen languages and widely an thol jiezed, having been selected seven times for the best American Travel writing series. He is also a regular television guest on the History Channel where he has spoken about everything from the crusades to the birth of disco. Gu guba libre is available after t for signing. Please join me in welcoming tony pe perrettet. Thank you for coming out on such a beautiful spring night. D. C. Is looking pretty good today. To celebrate the secrets of the cuban revolution. And you may be wondering from my funny accent what is an australian doing living in new york and writing about cuba . Many have wondered and the reason is i used to live in argentina and buenos aires and reported a lot all around south america. If you live in latin america, you deal with latin america, everyone there is in some way thinking about cuba. You know, what happened in cuba, and whats going to happen in cuba, and so in that sense, i felt like i really had to go. And i finally did in 1996, just after the soviet union had collapsed, and it was the nay deer of cubans fortunes. It was kind of an economic disaster. I got down there from new york because you couldnt fly direct in those days. I went via nasa. All i knew is i had to take a thousand dollars in cash and gif it to a guy named lionel at the airport and i would recognize him by his hat. I did get to the airport and i went to this disused terminal with wires hanging down everywhere. And lionel did appear and i gave him money and he gave me a handwritten thing and he pointed me to a russian prop plane. Six people squeezed onto this plane but then sort of zoomed over the caribbean and landed in cuba. You know, it was a fascinating experience. The next time i went was under the boobama years and i got invited on the first private jet to fly from miami to havana. Also six passengers, slightly different experience. Champagne flowing, picked up in these beautiful american cars being taken to a luxury hotel with a rooftop pool, and it even had wifi. It was kind of like science fiction. But, yeah, so after that before i went on that trip, i asked a friend cuba specialist, i just wanted to find a little bit about the revolution. That will tell me more or less what happened, and she said no, it doesnt exist. You should write it. And i was like, okay. That seems wildly difficult and extremely unlikely, but on this trip, the obama era trip, i sort of feeted out a little bit and heard there were sightes around the island, around cuba, including the hideouts in the mountains where fidel used to lurk, and these other extraordinary places, so i proposed to the smithsonian that i go back and follow this trail and follow the history of the revolution, which is how that story in the printout came up. It was sort of a rough, you know, like a 3,000, 4,000 word story of actually going to these places and actually going to the Sierra Maestra and finding all the things that were going on. Hey, look, okay, i should have had that up just to give you sort of an idea of the classic image of havana. But after i so after i did that, i realized that theres much more to be learned, theres much more to be discovered. That really was just the tip of the iceberg, so i suggested doing a book about it, and i started, the way i was trying to get into it in a way, the thing that sort of inspired me was this idea that i discovered how popular the revolution was amongst americans back in those days, back in like 1959, which seemed, you know, extraordinary given what had happened since. And how difficult it was to find out about the revolution here and going to cuba it can be difficult as well. I started to try and investigate, and here the image thats sort of most intrigued me was just after he, the dictator had fled, ed sullivan fru dolew to cuba to interview fidel. The interview is still around, you can actually see it on youtube. Eds absolutely star struck, hes all over fidel, comparing him to george washington, a fine young group of revolutionary youngsters. Again, this Twilight Zone feel to it. And he says like what do you think of america, you know, ed asked what do you think of america, and fidel says very positive feeling. And ed says we want you to like cuba and we like you, you know, so or the other way around, we want you to it was sort of a love fest anyway. So this was the sort of point where i started the book and then to sort of go back and to find out how it all unfolded because it was incredibly unlikely that this bunch of youngsters, these sort of like, theyre only in their 20s, some are teenagers to crash land on the coast of cuba, and at one state it dissipated down to like 12 people, how they ended up defeating an army of 40,000 professional soldiers in the space of just over two years. It really seemed like an extraordinary story. So the thing that i like about the story as well is that its broken up into very specific little chapters in a way. Its like a little opereta. I should have put this out on your printouts. There are five parts to the story so youll know more or less where we are as we drift along. And the first part, the sort of prelude in a way, heres the young fidel playing basketball, and he was a very athletic character, a very sort of cha charming students as well as his nickname was el loco, the crazy one. He would do things like bet his friends that he wouldnt drive his bicycle mainto a wall at fu tilt. He went down a hill, smashed it into a wall, knocked himself out. Was out for like three days, and that was just to prove a point. This sort of gives an insight into his character in a way. And he loved sport. He was you know, he in basketball and baseball were his favorites. All the american sports, and you can actually go and visit his family house, which is in the eastern side of cuba. And a place called the oriente, the east. He was from a quite rich family strange enough, but he grew up with this sense of this sense of indecisijustice because he wo to the local school there, and all the other kids didnt have shoes. He realized that his dad was paying the workers very badly. He would get into arguments. He organized a strike of his fathers workers at one stage, which didnt endear him to a his dad. If you go to this place, its called buran. You can actually go into his family bedroom, and he and recalraul, his younger brother shared the bedroom. You can see his baseball outfits there. The story is fidel was offered a contract with american baseball, professional baseball, is a nice one but its untrue. He had a great pitching arm but apparently not enough to get a scholarship to miami or to indianapolis. So anyway, fidel, this extraordinary character, one of the more extraordinary characters of the 20th surgery, the thing i love about this one is to see him without a beard. He once didnt have a beard. He was a young lawyer, quite conservative. He went to havana, went to the university there studying law, and you know, it became more and more radicalized as he went there. He sort of like less the studies and the politics that were going on. There were all the things brewing, including in 1953, a coup by a foreign president batista. Fidel was actually running for politics at that time. He was trying to become a senator. Had the coup not occurred, he probably would have won, and then maybe eight years later might have run for the presidency himself. Instead, batista comes in, takes over, and everyones sort of cut out of the process. Batista invites tons of american mobsters to run the casinos, basically running the state, milking the state in a very blatant way and extremely violent as well. The secret police were going around beating up and murdering opponents. It was this incredibly thuggish environment. Fidel came to the conclusion and many cubans came to the conclusion that this americanbacked dictator could not be defeated by peaceful means, that they had to do something kind of extreme, so they decided to start an insurrection, and this is way before the actual revolution begins, but its sort of the first volley. In the east the major city is called santiago. Its a very beautiful place, very dreamy, but it also has a barracks there. He and another 100 of his friends, basically students got together and taught themselves how to shoot guns, not very well, and they made themselves uniforms to make themselves look like soldiers, and they piled into this bunch of chevrolets and buicks and dodges and sort of like trundled off to attack this place that had like maybe 500 soldiers in it. And they thought if they surprised them while they were asleep, because it was the last night of carnival, they came to the conclusion that theyd all be so hung over that they wouldnt fight. This was not the case it turned out. They completely blew it. Fidel accidentally nearly ran over a couple of patrolmen who then let off the alert, and a firefight started. Many were killed, many were captured and tortured to death. So it was kind of a disaster, and yet its one of those disasters like the battle of little big horn in the United States thats celebrated in its own weird way. You can still see the bullet holes that they preserved as part of a shrine, but fidel was eventually captured as was his brother raul and a bunch of them, and they were all sent to the Devils Island of cuba. Its called the isle of pines off the south coast, and they were all thrown into this model prison, which is modeled on one in chicago. Its its an example of the pinopticon where a guard can be in the middle there and see everyone in the whole place. It was a very sinister place in those days, it was very violent but for whatever reason the Political Prisoners were all put in their own room together, which was a strange decision, and they all got together, and they gave each other classes on revolutionary theory, and they plotted what to do, and they sent messages to people outside and fidel even managed to in a great publishing story, he wrote a book while he was in there or sort of a pamphlet really on his defense speech, which he then on little pieces of paper and smuggled out piece by piece to supporters in havana. Most of the time they were also riding in lemon juice, so the guards never asked why. They had this sort of passion for citrus, so anyway, eventually the pressure mounted to release fidel and his friends. Theyre still youngsters and basically unknown at this stage. So they go to mexico city, they flee to mexico city where they organize and they decide to invade cuba, and theyre complete amateurs. Another thing i love about the story, its as if a bunch of ph. D. Grads from princeton were dumped in the Appalachian Mountains and told to get it together and hold a revolution and overthrow the government. They really had to teach themselves how to shoot, you know, how to navigate, how to survive in the mountains. And so they would put rocks in their backpacks and go hiking up and down the streets in mexico city, sometimes up in the mountains. They found a guy, a veteran of the spanish civil war to teach them how to shoot guns, and they tried to raise money, and they were often caught. The secret police were after them in mexico city, and at one stage they were all arrested. And by this stage theyve been joined by a young chap named ernesto guevarro. He was a medic, he was a doctor, and he signed on to the expedition. He was also arrested and this is the first known photograph of chay and fidel together in a mexico city prison. So things were really tightening for the sort of squeezing down on them, so they decided to get going as fast as they could, and this is the second part of the story really, where they actually staged the invasion, the sort of demented plan really. They decided to buy a boat from a doctor, an american doctor, retired doctor in mexico city, and it was called the grandma, which ill show you later, but they tried they organized with their locals, the local supporters. This guy is frank piese, sort of a Frank Sinatra type. He was sort of the poster boy of the revolution for a long time, and he was the one who organized in santiago knowing that they were all going to arrive sometime at the end of november. Theyd planned it all out. Fidel was going to send a telegram. The boom that you ordered is out of print. This was the code that they were going to leave mexico city, the coast, the caribbean coast and head over. They planned, it was going to take like five days, and so they all piled into the boat, the grandma, which is kind of like the s. S. Minnow. It was leaky, it barely worked. It had been water logged, and there were like 120 people who wanted to get on. They managed to squeeze on 82, and they were all in there like sardin sardines, and like they set off at night in a storm, ignoring the fact that it was one of the worst storm warnings in months. As soon as they got out of the harbor, it started to rock quite a lot, and they all started to get seasick, chay for whatever reason had forgotten to pack the tablets, the seasickness tablets. They all started with the exception of raul and the professional sailors, they all started to get seasick. Theyre all awash with vomit. It was a spectacular disaster. Worse, water was coming into the boat, and they realized it was starting to flood, so they grabbed one of the and started throwing things over, to lighten the thing. They thought they were going to sink until someone realized that the tap was on in the toilet and it was flooding it. This set the tone really for the revolution, the early days of the revolution. Though heading over to this amazing purse line, but for the story i was able to travel along, its had some of the worst roads in cuba which is saying something. But it was very remote, very isola isolated, and fidel had decided on this so he could get there and they could hike into the Sierra Maestra, which is the mountains in the east, probably the poorest and most isolated part of the cuban and indeed of the caribbean. So theyre heading there. It turns out that theyre two days late, so the ground people who are expecting them sort of gave up, and then they so they come along, and they sort of crash land. Theyre going along, theres the coast, suddenly the boat stops, and its kind of like what, theyve hit a sand bank. This is the only known photograph of them actually getting in there. They all get in there, and the 82 of them go across, and they realize to their horror that they havent landed on one of the beautiful beaches for which cuba is renowned. Theyve landed in a swamp and in fact, one of the worst, the most sinister swamps in the east and today you can go and visit the spot, theyve done this sort of beautiful walkway to go out there and see where they crash landed. But they had to climb over the vines. They dropped their stuff. They sort of panicked. They lost their shoes. It was a complete fiasco, and they were already dehydrated and desperate, and so they turn up and they meet a farmer, somebody wanders out of the bushes and sort of sees them. And fidel says have no fear, weve come to save the cuban people. The guy apparently resisted the urge to burst out laughing, but so anyway, theyre there, and the farmer is actually very helpful. He catches a chicken, and is going to cook it for them as well as a small piglet. Him and his family are there, and then suddenly they hear shooting back at the boat, and they realize that their boat has been spotted by the coast guard and soon the air force is coming. So they decide to schlepp off to the 30mile walk to the Sierra Maestra. Unfortunately on the third day theyre surrounded, and theyre ambushed the armys found them. Bullets start appearing out of nowhere. Its something of a massacre. Everyone else just scatters, you know, in wild directions. Cha rivera is there. He thinks hes shot in the neck. He gets nicked and bloods everywhere. He thinks hes dying. Hes a very poetic soul. He leans up against a tree and he remembers his favorite jack london story about a guy whos about to die in the wilderness until someone grabs him and says get out of here. And they make a run for it, and they end up in the bushes. People are scattered everywhere. No one knows if everyones been wiped out. Fidel is by himself, and hes sitting in a sugar cane field, and as it gets dusk he notices two of his friends, and the armys going back and forth, the soldiers, and they get together and hang out in the sugar cane field for five days waiting for the army to go away. Theyre drinking, you know, dew in the morning, theyre sort of like gnawing on sugar cane to keep themselves sustained, and much of the time fidel is walking back and forth saying victory will be ours. Dont worry, victory will be ours. And the other two are looking at each other going fidels lost it. Hes gone mad, but, as it turns out, they get it together, and they walk basically it takes ten days, like walking just a few hours a day and mostly at night. They manage to get to the Meeting Point up in the mountains. This is very rugged an very beautiful and very isolated. Others managed to survive as well. Turns out rauls i mean fidels brother, six years younger, made it out with a couple of people. And che guevara, they nicknamed him that, sort of like buddy, pal, in australian it would be like mate. So he ends up there as well. Eventually about 20 of them gather this and they are sort of camping out in the coffee field you know, recovering from the wounds. Many others were caught and butchered by the army. You know, machine gunned. So it was kind of a miraculous thing. Those that survived by spite of fault became the great leaders of the revolution. The one who was meant to be running the army unfortunately was caught and he was beaten to death with shovels. So the guys, these you know the few people, and later they would someone would write a book called the 12. It was more like 20, but they liked the religious connotations of 12. So theyre up there up in the mountains sort of like trying to stay low and trying to survive and the only reason they do survive is through a doctors daughter who lives in the low lands and who is sort of the major organizer of the revolution. You can find her notes, accounts. She was very meticulous. She would do things day by day. She found new boots and food and would organize mule trains to go up and take them stuff. And over the coming months it would turn out that if it wasnt for her, the whole revolution would have snuffed out. The boys were very inspired and full of enthusiasm but couldnt organize their way out of a paper bag. They were very disorganized. They couldnt clean their guns. They would lose ammunition, guns were going off left and right and center but she was aim to able to organize reinforcements a