What do you think?
Rate this book
The Longest Romance: The Mainstream Media and Fidel Castro
Among historical figures Fidel Castro wins, hands down, as the most persistently effective liar of modern times. Consider:
He jailed political prisoners at a higher rate than Stalin during the Great Terror, murdered more Cubans in his first three years in power than Hitler murdered Germans during his first six and came closest of anyone in history to starting a worldwide Nuclear war. In the above process he converted a nation with a higher per-capita income than half of Europe and a huge influx of immigrants into one that repels Haitians and boasts the highest suicide rate in the Hemisphere.
Who would guess any of this from reading the mainstream media? Instead we read almost exclusively about how he freed Cuba from the greedy clutches of U.S. robber barons and Mafiosi, and bestowed his formerly downtrodden countrymen with free healthcare and education. A scornful Uncle Sam then retaliated with a vindictive �embargo,” still in place. Topping it all, last year Newsweek hailed Cuba as among �the best countries in the world to live.”
�Propaganda is vital--the heart of our struggle,” (Fidel Castro wrote in a letter to revolutionary colleague Melba Hernandez in 1955.)
"Much more valuable to us than military recruits were recruiting American reporters to export our propaganda."(Che Guevara in his diaries.) And today the concept is as valid as ever.
History records few recruitment drives and propaganda campaigns as phenomenally successful or as enduring as Castro and Che’s. It’s high time to expose the scam.
�Castro’s use of propaganda assets--interviews with journalists, radio broadcasts--during his guerrilla war against Batista contributed in a major way to his victory and was a preview of the methods he would use so successfully after coming to power,” states a declassified CIA document from 1984 titled �Castro’s Propaganda Apparatus.” �Immediately after assuming power,” it continues, �Fidel Castro set out creating a propaganda empire that today is perhaps the most effective in the Western Hemisphere”
Sadly, the CIA itself is testimony to its effectiveness. In 1987 Cuban Intelligence officer Florentino Aspillaga defected in Prague and revealed that every Cuban agent (4 dozen of them) the CIA had recruited to spy on the Castro regime since 1962 was in a fact double agent controlled personally by Fidel Castro.
This book documents how a fawning U.S. media abets Castro’s propaganda campaign and its astounding worldwide success. Castro’s colorful cachet as worldwide icon of anti-Americanism and as pioneering beatnik allows his record as a warmonger, racist/Stalinist and the godfather of modern terrorism to be forgiven, ignored and/or falsified. This book highlights the record, the abettors and the falsifiers.
It’s high time to expose the magnitude of Castro’s lies and to identify his propaganda auxiliaries in the mainstream media. Nothing like this has been published to date.
For close to a decade, roughly 70 per cent of what Americans have read about Cuba in the mainstream media has been doctored by Castro-regime �agents-of-influence” working in concert with the Castro regime’s Intelligence service. Let’s hope the CIA finally caught on. �Useful-idiocy” is one thing; deliberate collaboration quite another. This book outs many big-names in both camps.
Most Cuba �scholarship” and �reporting,” relies on the totalitarian regime’s officials as sources. This author prefers eye-witnesses to Castroism free from fear of Castro’s firing squads and torture chambers for the crime of telling the truth.
He jailed political prisoners at a higher rate than Stalin during the Great Terror, murdered more Cubans in his first three years in power than Hitler murdered Germans during his first six and came closest of anyone in history to starting a worldwide Nuclear war. In the above process he converted a nation with a higher per-capita income than half of Europe and a huge influx of immigrants into one that repels Haitians and boasts the highest suicide rate in the Hemisphere.
Who would guess any of this from reading the mainstream media? Instead we read almost exclusively about how he freed Cuba from the greedy clutches of U.S. robber barons and Mafiosi, and bestowed his formerly downtrodden countrymen with free healthcare and education. A scornful Uncle Sam then retaliated with a vindictive �embargo,” still in place. Topping it all, last year Newsweek hailed Cuba as among �the best countries in the world to live.”
�Propaganda is vital--the heart of our struggle,” (Fidel Castro wrote in a letter to revolutionary colleague Melba Hernandez in 1955.)
"Much more valuable to us than military recruits were recruiting American reporters to export our propaganda."(Che Guevara in his diaries.) And today the concept is as valid as ever.
History records few recruitment drives and propaganda campaigns as phenomenally successful or as enduring as Castro and Che’s. It’s high time to expose the scam.
�Castro’s use of propaganda assets--interviews with journalists, radio broadcasts--during his guerrilla war against Batista contributed in a major way to his victory and was a preview of the methods he would use so successfully after coming to power,” states a declassified CIA document from 1984 titled �Castro’s Propaganda Apparatus.” �Immediately after assuming power,” it continues, �Fidel Castro set out creating a propaganda empire that today is perhaps the most effective in the Western Hemisphere”
Sadly, the CIA itself is testimony to its effectiveness. In 1987 Cuban Intelligence officer Florentino Aspillaga defected in Prague and revealed that every Cuban agent (4 dozen of them) the CIA had recruited to spy on the Castro regime since 1962 was in a fact double agent controlled personally by Fidel Castro.
This book documents how a fawning U.S. media abets Castro’s propaganda campaign and its astounding worldwide success. Castro’s colorful cachet as worldwide icon of anti-Americanism and as pioneering beatnik allows his record as a warmonger, racist/Stalinist and the godfather of modern terrorism to be forgiven, ignored and/or falsified. This book highlights the record, the abettors and the falsifiers.
It’s high time to expose the magnitude of Castro’s lies and to identify his propaganda auxiliaries in the mainstream media. Nothing like this has been published to date.
For close to a decade, roughly 70 per cent of what Americans have read about Cuba in the mainstream media has been doctored by Castro-regime �agents-of-influence” working in concert with the Castro regime’s Intelligence service. Let’s hope the CIA finally caught on. �Useful-idiocy” is one thing; deliberate collaboration quite another. This book outs many big-names in both camps.
Most Cuba �scholarship” and �reporting,” relies on the totalitarian regime’s officials as sources. This author prefers eye-witnesses to Castroism free from fear of Castro’s firing squads and torture chambers for the crime of telling the truth.
184 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2013
5 people are currently reading
96 people want to read
About the author
Humberto Fontova
10 books17 followersHumberto Fontova was born in Havana, Cuba. He and his family of 5 attempted to leave in 1961, but only 4 of them were successful. Humberto Fontova Sr. (author's father) was grabbed by the milicianos. He yelled to Esther (mother) and the 3 kids (Humberto age 7, Patricia age 8, and Enrique age 5) to "Go ahead!....Whatever happens to me, I don't want ya'll growing up here!" The next day, from a cousin's house in Miami, Esther called Cuba and found out that Humberto Sr. was in La Cabana, firing squad central where 2100 men and boys were murdered. Humberto Sr. stayed there for 3 months and then was released and returned to his family in New Orleans.
Humberto grew up in New Orleans. He graduated from the University of New Orleans with a degree in Political Science. He received his Masters Degree from Tulane University in Latin American Studies. He is married to Shirley Fontova and has three children, Monica, Michael and Robert. He is an avid hunter, fisherman and scuba diver. He has been writing for the hunting and fishing magazine: Louisiana Sportsman for almost thirty years. He has also written for other magazines such as Sierra, Scuba Times and Bowhunter. In 2001 he wrote his first book, The Helldivers' Rodeo; an extreme scuba diving and spear fishing adventure. Shortly after it's release, Humberto appeared on 3 episodes of Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher which included other panel guests such as Tom Green, Florence Henderson and James Coburn. In 2003 he released his second book, The Hellpig Hunt; a hunting adventure in the wild wetlands at the mouth of the Mississippi River.
In 2005, he released his 3rd book which is a departure from his earlier writings into a more political genre, Fidel: Hollywood's Favorite Tyrant. A political and emotional expose' about Fidel Castro and the only totalitarian dictatorship in the Western Hemisphere. This book has been published in english and spanish. In early 2007, his 4th book was released. Exposing the Real Che Guevara and the Useful Idiots who Idolize Him; which has now been published in four languages, english, spanish, portuguese and czech.
Humberto has appeared on such shows as The O'Reilly Factor with Bill O'Reilly, Hannity and Colmes, Fox and Friends, Glenn Beck, The Dennis Miller Show and various shows for Telemundo. He is constantly traveling across the country speaking at different events and universities. Humberto continuously writes articles for many news websites such as www.humaneventsonline.com, townhall.com, www.americanthinker.com, www.newsmax.com and frontpagemag.com.
Humberto grew up in New Orleans. He graduated from the University of New Orleans with a degree in Political Science. He received his Masters Degree from Tulane University in Latin American Studies. He is married to Shirley Fontova and has three children, Monica, Michael and Robert. He is an avid hunter, fisherman and scuba diver. He has been writing for the hunting and fishing magazine: Louisiana Sportsman for almost thirty years. He has also written for other magazines such as Sierra, Scuba Times and Bowhunter. In 2001 he wrote his first book, The Helldivers' Rodeo; an extreme scuba diving and spear fishing adventure. Shortly after it's release, Humberto appeared on 3 episodes of Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher which included other panel guests such as Tom Green, Florence Henderson and James Coburn. In 2003 he released his second book, The Hellpig Hunt; a hunting adventure in the wild wetlands at the mouth of the Mississippi River.
In 2005, he released his 3rd book which is a departure from his earlier writings into a more political genre, Fidel: Hollywood's Favorite Tyrant. A political and emotional expose' about Fidel Castro and the only totalitarian dictatorship in the Western Hemisphere. This book has been published in english and spanish. In early 2007, his 4th book was released. Exposing the Real Che Guevara and the Useful Idiots who Idolize Him; which has now been published in four languages, english, spanish, portuguese and czech.
Humberto has appeared on such shows as The O'Reilly Factor with Bill O'Reilly, Hannity and Colmes, Fox and Friends, Glenn Beck, The Dennis Miller Show and various shows for Telemundo. He is constantly traveling across the country speaking at different events and universities. Humberto continuously writes articles for many news websites such as www.humaneventsonline.com, townhall.com, www.americanthinker.com, www.newsmax.com and frontpagemag.com.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
March 8, 2017
I've often wondered how Castro's political prisoners felt when American celebrities, journalists, activists, etc. showed up in Cuba not to call attention to their plight, but to praise and fawn over their tormentor!
October 19, 2016
I thought it was excellent. Its refreshing to read truthful information on one of the worst dictators of the 20th century.
May 23, 2021
One of the best nonfiction authors that I've encountered. I can't wait to read his hunting and fishing books.
January 23, 2017
This is the kind of book that makes me sick, not because it is filled with lies, but because it tells the truth. It is the kind of book that I wish did not have to be written but alas must be. It is the kind of book that disillusions and saddens, but also opens eyes to the harsh reality beyond our wishful thinking.
The hardest part of all is the constant “Castro is awesome” mantra repeated incessantly by the American media in the face of evidence to the contrary. For example, when Elian Gonzalez’s mother fled Cuba with her son, an NBC reporter was mystified by her action, since according to him, “by all accounts” she had a really good life back there in Cuba (p. 38). Here was a Cuban who might have a better idea of what was going on in Cuba than he did. Here was one account that contradicted the accepted liberal story, but he simply refused to consider it. Clearly the mother was nuts, right? I mean, what else could account for her behaviour? Other than her own account, of course? “By all accounts” indeed, except for the one that mattered.
I was prompted to read the book after Castro died, and the Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, issued a statement which amounted to a gushing eulogy, calling Castro a larger than life personality whose people loved him, conceding only that he was a “controversial” figure, which is no more critical than calling him “revolutionary.” However, Justin’s brother Alexandre, had years earlier set the bar of out-of-touch-with-reality comments impossibly high in his slavish praise of the Cuban dictator, calling him “something of a superman.”
Where does this bizarre reasoning come from? Author Humberto Fontova documents how very early on Castro decided that propaganda would be the primary weapon he would yield. He was able to skillfully exercise the power of his charisma upon a leftist media and cultural elite already predisposed to judge him favourably. This is because many were dying to see the communist experiment succeed SOMEWHERE in the world – indeed, Cuba was the last, best hope for their utopian dreams. The words to John Lennon’s “Imagine” no doubt forming the background of their critical apparatus, they bought the lie – hook, line, and sinker.
Fontova documents case after case all which indict Castro, but it only takes one if both sides can accept the source. So, for example, Harvard University Press can hardly be dismissed as being, in Fontova’s words, “an outpost of the vast right-wing conspiracy, much less of Cuban exiles.” Therefore when we see that it has published “The Black Book of Communism,” written by French scholars, it is not so easy to disregard what it claims. Well what does it claim? It “estimates that Castro’s regime murdered 16,000 Cubans by firing squad, mostly during the 60’s. Again, Cuba was a nation of 6.5 million in those years. Given the U.S. population, a proportionate bloodbath would approach one million firing-squad murders.” (p. 9)
He continues: “I write murders because the term execution implies some form of judicial process. Che Guevara [Castro’s chief lieutenant] laid down this process one week after entering Havana. ‘Judicial evidence is an archaic bourgeois detail,’ he sneered. ‘We execute from revolutionary conviction.’”
“His boss Fidel Castro (a lawyer who abolished habeas corpus [due process] immediately upon assuming power) followed up: ‘Legal proof is impossible to obtain against war criminals. So we sentence them based on moral conviction.’” (p. 9)
This fact alone (Castro’s 16,000 murders of his own people) disqualifies any of Castro’s achievements, real or embellished, because it makes him guilty of crimes against humanity. All the white-washing and adoration in the world cannot undo this statistic. The Castro supporter either has to simply deny the truthfulness of the charge, or try to somehow justify it as the unavoidable cost of achieving a “socialist paradise,” in which case he has either lapsed into irrationality or immorality, because to dismiss evidence simply because you don’t like it is irrational, and to claim that the ends justify the means is to deny a foundational moral principle which opens the door to any kind of barbarism.
And even the achievement of a “socialist paradise” is a fiction. For the year 2015 alone the Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation reported 8,616 cases of individuals arbitrarily arrested for political reasons and detained for periods of hours or days. This is the present day, not the distant past. From the beginning of the “revolution” to the present, tens of thousands have been sent to forced-labour camps, and a fifth of the Cuban population was driven into the sea or fled the country.
Are we really going to say that all those who fled, were in fact criminals and are responsible for the high crime rate in Miami? How do you argue against that kind of thinking?
I think you argue against that by making this, in the last analysis, not about numbers or abstractions, but about individual human beings. We all know the name Nelson Mandela. But we should also know the names of Mandela’s Cuban counterparts, who were sentenced to Castro’s gulags for no other crime than opposition to Castro and to communism.
Fontova dignifies the memory of these people by listing a dozen Cuban political prisoners by name. I will not be able to remember them all, but I will try to remember at least one: Armando Valledares. Mr. Valledares, according to Fontova, was a political prisoner who spent 22 torture-filled years in Cuba’s gulag. This is how he described his trial: “Not one witness to accuse me, not one to identify me, not one single piece of evidence against me” (p. 190).
Of course, the Cuban government says that he was arrested on charges of terrorism, but Amnesty International and other international human rights organizations believed that he had been imprisoned solely for his anti-Castro stance. (I wonder which source the Castro supporter will believe.) He subsequently came to America and documented his horrific treatment in a book entitled “Against All Hope.” I intend to read his book and remember his name. I hope you will too.
The hardest part of all is the constant “Castro is awesome” mantra repeated incessantly by the American media in the face of evidence to the contrary. For example, when Elian Gonzalez’s mother fled Cuba with her son, an NBC reporter was mystified by her action, since according to him, “by all accounts” she had a really good life back there in Cuba (p. 38). Here was a Cuban who might have a better idea of what was going on in Cuba than he did. Here was one account that contradicted the accepted liberal story, but he simply refused to consider it. Clearly the mother was nuts, right? I mean, what else could account for her behaviour? Other than her own account, of course? “By all accounts” indeed, except for the one that mattered.
I was prompted to read the book after Castro died, and the Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, issued a statement which amounted to a gushing eulogy, calling Castro a larger than life personality whose people loved him, conceding only that he was a “controversial” figure, which is no more critical than calling him “revolutionary.” However, Justin’s brother Alexandre, had years earlier set the bar of out-of-touch-with-reality comments impossibly high in his slavish praise of the Cuban dictator, calling him “something of a superman.”
Where does this bizarre reasoning come from? Author Humberto Fontova documents how very early on Castro decided that propaganda would be the primary weapon he would yield. He was able to skillfully exercise the power of his charisma upon a leftist media and cultural elite already predisposed to judge him favourably. This is because many were dying to see the communist experiment succeed SOMEWHERE in the world – indeed, Cuba was the last, best hope for their utopian dreams. The words to John Lennon’s “Imagine” no doubt forming the background of their critical apparatus, they bought the lie – hook, line, and sinker.
Fontova documents case after case all which indict Castro, but it only takes one if both sides can accept the source. So, for example, Harvard University Press can hardly be dismissed as being, in Fontova’s words, “an outpost of the vast right-wing conspiracy, much less of Cuban exiles.” Therefore when we see that it has published “The Black Book of Communism,” written by French scholars, it is not so easy to disregard what it claims. Well what does it claim? It “estimates that Castro’s regime murdered 16,000 Cubans by firing squad, mostly during the 60’s. Again, Cuba was a nation of 6.5 million in those years. Given the U.S. population, a proportionate bloodbath would approach one million firing-squad murders.” (p. 9)
He continues: “I write murders because the term execution implies some form of judicial process. Che Guevara [Castro’s chief lieutenant] laid down this process one week after entering Havana. ‘Judicial evidence is an archaic bourgeois detail,’ he sneered. ‘We execute from revolutionary conviction.’”
“His boss Fidel Castro (a lawyer who abolished habeas corpus [due process] immediately upon assuming power) followed up: ‘Legal proof is impossible to obtain against war criminals. So we sentence them based on moral conviction.’” (p. 9)
This fact alone (Castro’s 16,000 murders of his own people) disqualifies any of Castro’s achievements, real or embellished, because it makes him guilty of crimes against humanity. All the white-washing and adoration in the world cannot undo this statistic. The Castro supporter either has to simply deny the truthfulness of the charge, or try to somehow justify it as the unavoidable cost of achieving a “socialist paradise,” in which case he has either lapsed into irrationality or immorality, because to dismiss evidence simply because you don’t like it is irrational, and to claim that the ends justify the means is to deny a foundational moral principle which opens the door to any kind of barbarism.
And even the achievement of a “socialist paradise” is a fiction. For the year 2015 alone the Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation reported 8,616 cases of individuals arbitrarily arrested for political reasons and detained for periods of hours or days. This is the present day, not the distant past. From the beginning of the “revolution” to the present, tens of thousands have been sent to forced-labour camps, and a fifth of the Cuban population was driven into the sea or fled the country.
Are we really going to say that all those who fled, were in fact criminals and are responsible for the high crime rate in Miami? How do you argue against that kind of thinking?
I think you argue against that by making this, in the last analysis, not about numbers or abstractions, but about individual human beings. We all know the name Nelson Mandela. But we should also know the names of Mandela’s Cuban counterparts, who were sentenced to Castro’s gulags for no other crime than opposition to Castro and to communism.
Fontova dignifies the memory of these people by listing a dozen Cuban political prisoners by name. I will not be able to remember them all, but I will try to remember at least one: Armando Valledares. Mr. Valledares, according to Fontova, was a political prisoner who spent 22 torture-filled years in Cuba’s gulag. This is how he described his trial: “Not one witness to accuse me, not one to identify me, not one single piece of evidence against me” (p. 190).
Of course, the Cuban government says that he was arrested on charges of terrorism, but Amnesty International and other international human rights organizations believed that he had been imprisoned solely for his anti-Castro stance. (I wonder which source the Castro supporter will believe.) He subsequently came to America and documented his horrific treatment in a book entitled “Against All Hope.” I intend to read his book and remember his name. I hope you will too.
December 30, 2014
To get a handle on Cuba you have to read books from both sides. Most books on Fidel Castro tend to be hagiographies. To understand Cuba and Castro you have to read books like this to compensate for the flaws in other sources. This book has its flaws as well so it must be read critically.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews