This event. Tonight we are very pleased to welcome to the smithsonian tony, australian born perpetual explorer, travel, writer and author of six books including napoleons privates 21 years of history unzipped, the centers grand tour, a journey through the underbelly of europe, and most recently the improbable revolution that changed world history. As a College Student tony regularly disappeared to hitchhike through the outback and travel through rural india 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, beijing, tasmania to name a few. Tonys travel stories have been published in magazines like the New York Times and Smithsonian Magazine and have been translated into a dozen languages having been selected 7 times for the best American Travel writing series. Hes also a regular television guest on the History Channel where he has spoken about everything from the crusades to the birth of disco. The book is available for sale and signing after the program. Please join me in welcoming tony perrottet. Hi, everybody. 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 in new york and writing about cuba . Many have wondered, and the reason i used to live in argentina and reported a lot all around south america. And if you live in latin america and deal with latin america everyone there in some way is thinking about cuba, what happened in cuba and whats going to happen in cuba. 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 sort of an economic disaster. I got down there from new york because you couldnt fly direct in those days. I went via nassau. And i did get to the airport and went into this disused terminal and lionel did appear and i gave him the money and he gave me a little hand written thing and pointed out to a russian prop plane. So six people squeezed onto this plane and it was a fascinating experience. The next time i went was under the obama years and i got invited on the first private jet to fly from miami to havana. Also six passengers, slightly different experience. Champagne flowing, and picked up in these beautiful american cars, being taken to a luxury hotel with a rooftop pool and even had wifi. It was kind of like science fiction. Yeah, after that going on that trip i asked a friend, i wanted to find out a little bit about the revolution. 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 heard about the sights still around the island, still around cuba including for example the hide outs in the mountains where fidel used to lurk and other extraordinary places. So i proposed to the smithsonian i go back and follow this trail and follow the history of the revolution, which is how that story thats in the precipitate out came out. It was a 3,000, 4,000 story of going to these places and finding all these things that was going on. Look, i should have had that out to give you an idea of the classic image of havana. So after i did that i realized there was much more to be discovered. That really was just the tip of the iceberg. I suggested a book about it and i started the way i was trying to get into it, the thing that inspired me was this idea i discovered how popular the revolution was amongst americans back in those days, 1959, which seemed, you know, extraordinary given what it happened since and how difficult it is to actually find out about the revolution here and to go into cuba can be quite difficult as well. I tried to investigate here the image that sort of most intrigued me was just after the dictator fled ed sullivan flew down to cuba to interview fidel just as he was about to come into havana and the interview is still around, actually seen on youtube. And ed is absolutely star struck and is all over fidel comparing him to george washington, talking about guerillas a fine young group of men. And fidel says what do you think of america, and he says a very positive feeling. It was sort of a love fest, anyway. So this was the sort of point where i started the book and sort of go back to find out how it all unfolded because it was incredibly unlikely this bunch of youngsters, they were in their 20s, some are teenagers that crash land on the coast of cuba and how they ended up defeating an army of 40,000 professional soldiers in the space of just over 2 years. It really seemed like an extraordinary story. So and the thing i like about the story as well is that its broken up into very specific little chapters in a way. Its like a little operetta, a five part operetta. There are five parts to the story, so youll know more or less where we are as we drift along. The first part, the sort of prelude in a way is heres the young fidel playing basketball, and he was a very athletic character and charming student as well as his nickname was el loco, the crazy one. He would do things like he would bet his friends he wouldnt drive his bicycle into a wall at full tilt, and theyre like ill bet you that. So he went down a hill, smashed into a wall and was out for like three days and that was just to prove a point. This gives insight into his character, by the way. In basketball and baseball were his favorites, all the american sports. And you can actually go and visit his family house which is on the eastern side of cuba. He was from quite a rich family strangely enough. But he grew windup with this sense of injustice because he would go to the local school there and all the other kids did want have shoes. He was the only one with shoes, and he realized his dad a rich landholder was paying the workers very badly. He would organize a strike of his father workers at one stage. And if you go to this place its called you can actually go into the family bedroom. And him and his younger brother raul shared the bedroom there and you can see his outfits there. 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 century, the thing i love about this one is he didnt have a beard. He wants to have a beard. He was this young lawyer, quite conservative. He went to havana, went to the university there studying war and became more radicalized, though, as he went there. And there were all the things brewing including in 1953 a coup by the former president. He was trying to become a senator. Had the coup not occurred he probably would have run and then 8 years later might have run for the presidency himself. Instead bu tista comes in, takes over and everyone is suddenly cut out of the process. Batista basically milking the state in a blatant way and extremely violent as well. All the secret police were going around beating up and murdering opponents. It was this thuggish environment. Fidel came to the conclusion, and many cubans came to the conclusion this american backed dictator could not be defeated by peaceful means, that they had to do something kind of extreme. So they decided to incite an insurrection. In the east the major city is call called santiago, very dreamy place, but also has a barracks there. And he and another 100 of his friends basically students got together and sort of 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 to attack this place that had 500 soldiers in it, and they thought theyd surprise themal while they were asleep. They came to the conclusion theyd all be so hung over they wouldnt fight. This was not the case it turned out. They completely blew it. Fidel accidently ran over a couple of patrolman that led off the alert and a fire fight started and many were killed, many were captured and tortured to death. It was kind of a disaster. And yet one of those disasters like the battle of little big horn in the United States thats celebrated in its own weird way. So jouk still go and see the bullet holes they provided as part of a shrine. But fidel was eventually c captured as was his brother and they were all sent to an island and they were all throne into this model prison which is modeled on one in chicago. Its an example of the pinoptican. For whatever reason the Political Prisoners were all put in their own room together which was a strange decision and they gave each other classes on revolutionary theory and they plotted what to do and sent message tuesday people outside. And fidel even managed to in a great publishing story, he wrote a book while he was in there, sort of a pamphlet really which he wrote on pieces of paper and smuggled out piece by piece to supporters in havana. Most of the time theyre also writing in lemon juice. So the guards never asked why. They sort of had this passion for citrus. So anyway eventually the pressure mounted to release fidel and his friends. Theyre youngsters and still basically unknown at this stage. So they flee to mexico city where they organize and they decide to invade cuba and theyre complete amateurs. The thing i love about the story its as if a bunch of phd grads were dumped together. They really had to teach themselves how to shoot, how to navigate, how to survive in the mountains. So they would put rocks in the backpacks and go hiking up and down the streets in mexico city, sometimes up in the mountains they found a veteran of 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 nuvara and he signed onto the expedition. He was also arrested and this is the first known photograph of them together in a mexico prison. So things were really tightening and squeezing down on them so they decided to get going as fast as they could. This is the second part where they staged the invasion. This was a demented plan really and they decided to buy from an american doctor, retired doctor in mexico city he was the one who organized in santiago going they were there going to arrive some time at the end of november. They planned it all out. Fidel was going to send a telegram. The book you ordered was out of print, this was the code they were going to leave mexico city, the coast and head over. The plan was going to take like five days. And so they all piled into the boat, the grandma, which is kind of like the ss minnow. It was leaky. It barely worked. It had been waterlogged and they managed to squeeze on 82 and they were all in there like sardines. And they setoff at night in a storm ignoring the fact 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 the seasickness tablets so they all started with the exception of raul and the professional sailors they all started to get seasick, and it was a spectacular disaster. Worst the water was coming into the boat, and they realized it was starting to flood, so they grabbed whatever they could and started throwing things overboard because they thought they were going to sink until someone realized the tap was on in the toilet and it was flooding. This set the tone really for the revolution, the early days of the revolution. They were heading over to this amazing coastline but its had some of the worst roads in cuba which is saying something. But it was very remote, very isolated and fidel had decided on this, and they could hike into one of the mountains in the east, probably the poorest and mosteseilated part of cuba and indeed in the caribbean. They were two days late and they come along and they sort of crash land. Theyre going along the coast and suddenly the boat stops, and its kind of like they hit a sandbag. This is the only known photograph of them actually getting in there. They get in there and the 82 of them go across, and they realize to their horror they havent landed on one of the beautiful beaches for which cuba is reknowned, theyve landed in a swamp and one of the most sinister swamps in the east. Today you can visit the swamp. Theyve done this beautiful walkway so you can see where they crash land. Thathey had to climb over the vines, dropped their stuff, sort of panicked, lost their shoes. It was a complete fiasco, and they were already dehydrated and desperate. So they turn up and meet a farmer. And fidel says have no fear weve come to save the cuban people. The guy apparently resisted the urge to burst out laughing, but anyway the farmer was actually very helpful. He catches a chicken and hes going to cook it for them as well as a small piglet and suddenly they hear shooting back at the boat and they realize their boat has been spotted by the coast guard, and soon the air force is coming. So they decided to schlep off towards the 30 mile walk. Unfortunately on the third day theyre surrounded and theyre ambushed. The armys found them. And bullets start appearing out of nowhere. And its a massacre. Its like 20 of them are killed there, the rest are captured. Everyone else just scatters in wild directions. Chay is there and he thinks hes shot in the neck, he gets knicked and hes a very poetic soul. And he leans up against a tree and remembers a jack london story until someone grabs him youre getting out of here, and they make a run for it and they end up in the bushes. People are scattered everywhere. Fidel is by himself and hes sitting in a sugar cane field. And as it gets dusk he notices two of his friends also there but the armys going back and forth. So they get together and hang out in the sugar cane field for five days waiting for army to go away. Theyre drinking dew in the morning and knockignawing on su cane to keep themselves sustained. The other two are looking alt each other saying fidel has lost it, hes gone mad. But as it turns out they get it together and they walk basically, it takes them like ten days walking just a few hours aday and mostly at night and they manage to get to the Meeting Point up in the mountains and this is the sierra and it turns out fidels brother raul manages to make it out with a couple of people, and chey navara, its sort of like a buddy, sort of like pal or in australian like mate. And eventually 20 of them gather there, and they end up camping out in a coffee field and recovering from their wounds. Many others were caught and butchered by the army, you know, machine guns. And it was a kind of miraculous thing. And those who survived by default became the great leaders of the revolution. The one who was meant to be leading the army unfortunately was caught and they found out two years later he was beaten to death and shoveled. To these guys later someone would write a book called the 12 about the 12 people survivors. It was actually like 20 but they like the religious connotations of 12. Theyre up in the mountains trying to stay low, trying to survive. And the only reason they do survive at all is through the efforts of cilia sanchez, a doctors daughter woo lives down in the low lands and sort of the major organizer of the revolution. If you go to the havana archives you can find her notes, you know, her accounts. She was very meticulous, and she would do things day by day. She found them new boots, found them food. She would organize mule trains to go up and take them stuff. And over the coming months it would turn out thereat if it wasnt for her the whole revolution would have been snuffed out. Boys, chicos were filled with enthusiasm but they couldnt organize their way out of paper bag. They couldnt clean their guns. Ammunition guns were going off left, right and center. But she was able to organize reinforcements going up there and kept the revolution going through these crucial early months. Now at this stage batista had sent out the word fidel and all his friends were dead and this was going on for some months. So eventually word went back to havana fidel wanted to get an interview going, so they decided to contact the New York Times. There was a representative in havana. She didnt want to go up there, up to the mountains but she contacted another guy by the name of Herbert Matthews who was a great latinamerican of his day. He knew cuba very well, flew down to havana and the agent said well send someone from the times up there. And the agent looked at him and hes kinds of frail in his late 50s and matthew said im going myself. And the other guy couldnt quite believe him, but matthews didnt decide to do it. They were driven by agents out out to the east and americans on holiday at different times, and he hikes up into the mountains and fidel meet him. And its an extraordinary thing. Fidel meet him, hes still only got like 20 guys and most of them are in really bagged uniforms. And he tells his brother to get the men to walk back and forth around and around and change outfits so it looks like hes got a lot more people than he does. Theyve also had to walk sideways sometimes so you wouldnt see the back of their shirts had been torn open. So hes got a ragtag army. And fidel tells matthews hes got sales all over the mountains, 200, 300 soldiers which matthews buys. He has this extraordinary thing where fidel ends up on the front page of the New York Times where and its a growing report, and its a very romantic revolution. Matthew had been in the spanishamerican war himself and he thought it was a resistance, a youth rebellion and against all odds robin hood sort of thing. And this is sort of the image that sort of continues throughout the revolution. And in many ways its right. These guys, they didnt really have any terrible political agenda other than getting rid of batista. That was a goal they could get behind. A lot of political stuff we associate like communism for example came much letter. Fidel what he basically wanted was power. Someone later said he tried to make midel communist and fidel laughed and said id be communist if i was stalin and refused to discuss it any further. In any case on the same day Herbert Matthews meet him, cilia comes up cilia is the one in the middle there, and cilia sanchez hikes in as well to meet midel for the first time, and this extraordinary moment here hes showing off his favorite rifle, and turns out she loves shooting, she loves fishing, she loves the great outdoors. Totally devoted today the revolution and its a sort of romantic connection that begins. One of the great romances of the revolution really. Theres been a lot written and really this union between cilia and fidel. Thats what becomes the motor of it revolution because he laz all these amazing ideas and he spouts them out, and she puts them into action. She translates them into something thats pract