Covert City: The Cold War and the Making of Miami

In this vigorous chronicle, historian Houghton (Nuking the Moon) and Driggs, a former Cuba analyst at the University of Miami, recap the duel between communist Cuba and the anticommunist Cuban exiles who fled to Miami following the country’s 1959 revolution. The exiles played a key part in the U.S. government’s efforts to oust Castro—furnishing the doomed foot soldiers of the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion, conducting raids against Cuban infrastructure, and staging provocations like taking a shot at the UN headquarters in Manhattan with a bazooka while Che Guevara was speaking there in 1964. Meanwhile Castro used the diaspora as cover for spies—by some measures, according to the authors, the Cuban intelligence service is now the world’s most formidable, having infiltrated the U.S. government to an extreme degree; Cuba makes use of the intelligence gathered as a tradeable commodity. Later chapters explore Miami’s role as a hothouse of misadventure, including a bumbling 2020 coup attempt that tried to overthrow the Venezuelan government with 58 men and 10 rifles. The authors maintain a sympathetic attitude toward Cuban exile militants, treating them more as genuine pro-democracy patriots than pawns of American imperialism. Miami itself features mainly as a backdrop to their exploits, which unfold in colorful scenes of paramilitary operations. Lucid and entertaining, this adventuresome account covers well-trod ground with panache. (Apr.)