CUBA – Fifty Years after the Missile Crisis

A slide presentation by Judy Chovan at the Mullis Senior Center, Wednesday, March 12 at 7:00 pm

Havana was the playground of the rich and famous in the early half of the 20th century – Hemingway, Churchill, Astaire, Lansky all came to enjoy its casinos, music, rum, cigars, and tropical lifestyle. But in 1958, Americans fled Cuba as the revolution unfolded against dictator Fulgencio Baptista and Fidel Castro rose to power. Two years later, the United States imposed an embargo against Cuba and four years later we were embroiled in a tense nuclear standoff with the USSR over its Cuban missile sites.

In the intervening fifty years, what has happened to the people and the place? Cuba is a mere 90 miles away from Key West but it has been one of more difficult countries for Americans to visit and until the 1990s it was isolated from most of the world as well. The United States has normalized relations with Russia, China, Vietnam, and many of the other former Communist countries and members of the Soviet block – but not Cuba.

The slide-illustrated talk from Judy’s recent trip will show life in Cuba today, reflect back at 50 years of American policy, and discuss the new players in the region.

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