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boast fishing grounds every bit as unspoiled as those surrounding the Castro brothers’ fiefdom. On June 20, 2012, for instance, the Stalinist regime held a huge and public bonfire; not of illegal books like Animal Farm —as in the bonfire of 2005 that prompted Ray Bradbury to denounce the Castro regime’s book-burning—but of illegal floating devices. These floating devices (mostly one-man contraptions fashioned from styrofoam and wood) belonged to what the regime deplores as “illegal fishermen,” Cubans who paddle out at night in desperate hope of supplementing their slave-era government rations with some of the delicious fish that swarm off Cuba’s coast.
    These Cubans’ paddling and fishing is often hampered by huge wakes thrown by magnificent yachts captained by fat foreign millionaires who roar past them in quest of marlin and wahoo for the walls of their trophy-rooms. But the foreign magnates usually roar by with a friendly wave, perhaps even lifting their mojitos in salutation. Given their docking fees and other expenses at the regime-run Hemingway Marina, the “nationalist” regime which hosts and pampers them would never think to admonish any discourtesy they might show to the gnarled, dusky, hungry natives in their path.

    Castro’s nationalist regime burned the pathetic little Cuban craft almost within sight of the hundreds of foreign millionaire-owned yachts tethered at Hemingway Marina just east of Havana.
    Such a surefire tourism-booster (outlawing fishing by their own countrymen) never seems to have occurred to any of those dreaded right-wing dictators, so vilified in the media. Under Batista, for instance, boat ownership for coastal Cubans was regarded as almost a birthright. During the 50’s foreign fishermen clamored for a chance to fish with Cubans aboard their often spacious and luxurious boats. If you’re ever in Miami, ask around.
    As a five-, six- and seven-year-old I well remember the weekend ritual of fishing with my grandfather. He’d rent a boat much like the one in The Old Man and the Sea and not far from where Hemingway’s old man set off every morning. He’d row us out a few hundred yards to hand-line for ronquito (yellow grunt), rabi-rubia (yellowtail snapper) and cabrilla (grouper).
    I also remember the morning the grimacing fisherman told us the trip was off. He motioned us over to his boat which was overturned in the sand and riddled with bullet-holes. Too many people were going fishing and winding up in Key West, Castro’s guards had explained to him as they reloaded their Czech machine-guns with fresh clips.
    In brief, Discovery Channel personnel have no trouble obtaining Cuban visas, which in turn drop much tourist currency in regime coffers. Would this continue if their ultra-popular programs “Teeth of Death” or “Blood in the Water” featured the death and blood of men, women and children driven to near-suicidal desperation by the Stalinist regime with which they partner for videos and infomercials of mutual benefit? Would the gracious host and president, who paid the Discovery Channel producers a surprise visit, be cool with those types of shows? The question answers itself.

CHAPTER 5
    The Discovery Channel Spins the Missile Crisis
    T o its partnership with Castro’s ministry of tourism, in October 2008 the Discovery Channel added Castro’s ministry of history. The program was entitled “Defcon-2” and covered the Cuban Missile Crisis. “DEFCON-2, the official term for the highest level of U.S. military readiness short of nuclear war, goes back to the tension-filled days of the Cuban Missile Crisis,” reads the trailer. “Author Tom Clancy hosts an analysis of key participants on both sides of the confrontation.”
    The tension-filled program, complete with a Jaws- type soundtrack, features interviews with some of Cuba’s highest-ranking apparatchiks, though not