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The Fish Is Red: The Story of the Secret War Against Castro
A documented account of a secret paramilitary war waged against Cuba in the early 1960s reveals bizarre plots involving the Mafia, the CIA, and the television networks
373 pages, Hardcover
First published August 1, 1981
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
January 17, 2019
A great book! 'Deadly Secrets' published in 1992 is the update from Warren & Hinckle of their 'The Fish is Red' that first appeared in 1981.
With the subtitle 'The CIA-Mafia War Against Castro and the Assassination of JFK' this book is a must read for anyone with an interest in not just the Kennedy case, but far wider disturbing topics covering secret machinations of U.S. government, intelligence agencies and Cuban exiles.
Official silence, lack of main stream media coverage or outright mendacity prevents the general public from awareness of these accounts. The authors have crammed a wealth of information in just over four hundred pages, covering a time span from post WWII through to the 1980's.
There are more names listed here than in the average phone book and it does make me wonder just which country is being served by the Central Intelligence Agency.
I was intrigued to learn that one Jose Perdomo was head of Operation 40 in Miami. I seem to recall that a Jose Perdomo was beside Mark David Chapman at the Dakota in New York when John Lennon was murdered.
With the subtitle 'The CIA-Mafia War Against Castro and the Assassination of JFK' this book is a must read for anyone with an interest in not just the Kennedy case, but far wider disturbing topics covering secret machinations of U.S. government, intelligence agencies and Cuban exiles.
Official silence, lack of main stream media coverage or outright mendacity prevents the general public from awareness of these accounts. The authors have crammed a wealth of information in just over four hundred pages, covering a time span from post WWII through to the 1980's.
There are more names listed here than in the average phone book and it does make me wonder just which country is being served by the Central Intelligence Agency.
I was intrigued to learn that one Jose Perdomo was head of Operation 40 in Miami. I seem to recall that a Jose Perdomo was beside Mark David Chapman at the Dakota in New York when John Lennon was murdered.
May 28, 2013
This is the best book I've encountered about CIA nastiness, not so much in terms of its breadth of coverage as in terms of its readability. Hinkle's aproach is through Cuba, its popular revolution, our government's involvements both in that and in attempted counter-revolutions, and those reactionary Cubans who became involved in black operations as a result of these events. Hinkle shows this Cuban connection as running through events from the Kennedy administration through Nixon's Watergate and all the way to Reagan's illegal Contra Wars.
November 6, 2022
"You know the Bay of Pigs thing? That was my idea".---Peter Falk in THE IN-LAWS
I knew the late Warren Hinckle, slightly. A one-time editor of the ultimate counterculture political magazine RAMPARTS, Hinckle once wrote a column I found useful in exposing a supposed Cuban-American human rights crusader posing as a human rights activist---appointed by Ronald Reagan, no less. THE FISH IS READ is the definitive study of the U.S. intelligence community's war against Castro's revolution, from 1959 to the end of the 1970s; not that it has ceased since then. The Bay of Pigs invasion, yes, but also arming counterrevolutionary brigands in the Escambray Mountains of Cuba, U-2 spy flights 365 days a years, dropping off CIA agents and material in Cuba by speed boats, sabotage of everything from department stores to Cuba's sugar crop, to say nothing of hundreds of assassination attempts on Castro's life, from Cuba to Chile to New York City. Most Americans don't know this story not because it was ever a secret but because they choose not to know.
I knew the late Warren Hinckle, slightly. A one-time editor of the ultimate counterculture political magazine RAMPARTS, Hinckle once wrote a column I found useful in exposing a supposed Cuban-American human rights crusader posing as a human rights activist---appointed by Ronald Reagan, no less. THE FISH IS READ is the definitive study of the U.S. intelligence community's war against Castro's revolution, from 1959 to the end of the 1970s; not that it has ceased since then. The Bay of Pigs invasion, yes, but also arming counterrevolutionary brigands in the Escambray Mountains of Cuba, U-2 spy flights 365 days a years, dropping off CIA agents and material in Cuba by speed boats, sabotage of everything from department stores to Cuba's sugar crop, to say nothing of hundreds of assassination attempts on Castro's life, from Cuba to Chile to New York City. Most Americans don't know this story not because it was ever a secret but because they choose not to know.
March 17, 2013
There's some very good information in this book, but the writing was not great, and it doesn't really hang together as a book very well. These is an entire chapter on various paramilitary plots against Duvalier that feels totally extraneous. Also, some regrettable simple errors, like calling Antonio Veciana "Carlos," cost some points.
November 12, 2010
Though I'm an admirer of William Turner, this book is dated -- as the releases of the ARRB have essentially superseded it. And there are better and more up-to-date things to read on the prosopography of the Cubans.
May 19, 2011
Not to add to Erik Graff's review. Think about the writers that supported the CIA and the past commissions such as Steinbeck. Everyone was affected.
June 11, 2011
Not to add to Erik Graff's review. Think about the writers that supported the CIA and the past commissions such as Steinbeck. Everyone was affected.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews