Cuba's Nuclear Pinata: Castro's Attempt to Blackmail America with a Stolen Nuclear Warhead, (Paperback)

At the end of "the Missiles of October Crisis," the US had demanded that Russia remove all of their missiles that were 90 miles offshore from the United States. However, Fidel Castro had secretly removed six nuclear warheads before the entire thirty-two missiles were sent back to Russia. It was always Fidel's thinking that these warheads might one day be the savior of his nation. While he aligned himself with other communist countries, his inner sense always told him that he and Cuba were geographically an island of political ideology. He always knew Cuba was never more than a pawn for Russia as a threat to the United States during the Cold War. Russia. Fast forward now to 1992, Russia has fallen. Cuba is left in a bankrupt state with its benefactors no longer able to financially support its communist regime. His island country could no longer feed its people or manage its economy with its limited agricultural exports to acquire enough foreign currency to import the Island nation's food stocks, energy, or durable goods. However ineffective the US Government blockade may have been during Russia's time, it would now bring Cuba's economy to a standstill. The US and Western Europe were offering financial aid to former Soviet confederated satellite countries in exchange for denuclearization and free elections turning towards Democracy. Castro had no intent on following the paths of these former Soviet countries and relinquish his regime. Given his financial dilemma, Castro decides his hidden nuclear warheads may just be the leverage he can use with the United States without losing power. His plan was to use his weapons in a ploy to compromise the US. Castro conceives a clandestine plan to move one of his six nuclear warheads and plant it in Miami. His journey begins with shipping a large crate on an old transport ship used since the 1950s going back and forth over the 90 mile stretch between Havana and Miami. A safe ship without suspicion as a nondescript old freighter with whom the US customs agents well knew her captain who was believed to be anti-Castro and usually only assisted ex-pat Cubans seeking to repatriate their property from Havana or help those to escape from Cuba where possible. Upon planting the disguised wooden in a crate in US customs deep storage in Miami, Castros' intermediaries seek through the Cuban UN Mission in NYC to present the situation through American diplomats. As the information moves up the diplomatic bureaucracy, the US Government refuses to commit to blackmail. However, the offers a plan for advanced Agricultural Biotechnology to Cuba in exchange for the warheads in Havana and the one secreted to the US mainland. The US offers Genetically altered agriculture, such as flavor-saving tomatoes and Strawberries, which take on a 20-day hibernation from the ripening process when pulled from their stem. This not only permitted less bruising in transit but also had a shorter growth cycle, allowing annual crop production to increase fourfold. Such improvements could greatly accelerate agricultural production, translating to increased export revenues to solve Castro's financial dilemma. The US Government plan is nothing more than a guise to buy time to allow a covert incursion into Cuba to find the remaining five warheads while simultaneously US-trained bomb personnel pursues finding the warhead planted in Miami.