JUANITA CASTRO: THE BOOK

FIIDEL AND RAUL MY BROTHERS. THE SECRET HISTORY

By: Felipe Argote

I found very interesting the book of Juanita Castro, sister of Fidel and Raul Castro who lives in exile in Miami since 1963. After so long of his departure from the island is appealing his story that regardless of their ideological basis is entertaining, and above all I think, honestly. The book was written by journalist María Antonieta Collins on the testimony of Juanita Castro with the editor and publisher Aguilar published late last year. In some editions appears as "The Other History" while in others with more suggestive subtitle of "The Secret History."

Juanita talks about his childhood on the farm of his father, Angel Castro Argiz, a Spanish immigrant who had made a fortune as foreman transnational banana. He speaks of his six brothers and sisters, how young Fidel was very clear from his vocation of power, Raul Marxist militancy while Fidel ideologically moved as it suited his purposes. Juanita talks of his own experience as a CIA agent hired by the wife of Brazilian Ambassador to Cuba Virginia Leitao de Cunha and then his contact in the U.S. intelligence agency. His contact with the agent whose pen name was Henry, with whom he developed an almost filial relationship. Talk of his work in what was called "The Company", his pseudonym Donna, about Lewis Salvador his boss when it moved its operations from Mexico to Miami. Spoke in detail of his relationship with his brothers Fidel and his special relationship with her favorite brother Raul Castro.

Juanita admits that since the beginning of Fidel government she was conspiring with the remnants of the followers of Batista. Then directly as a CIA agent, who was handed a short-wave radio to communicate the secret places where he spent his instructions through the use of milk cans and beans, while she was still in Havana and worked to move people and hide weapons.

She speaks of his exile in Mexico, then in Miami always working for the CIA until during the Nixon administration the United States change its policy toward peaceful coexistence with the Soviet Union and literally sent to her the agent A and agent B to inform that her services were no longer needed and requested to cease its anti-Castro activities.

Then develops as he could survive without the funding from the CIA by establishing a small pharmacy with the help of financing from a bank whose vice president was a Cuban exile. Mini Price Pharmacy, the pharmacy she still personally manages.

He lamented how he was caught years later for selling drugs without prescription Tranxene specifically to an undercover agent as it was to come up with their bones to a prison in Miami when, despite all their activities in Cuba had never visited a prison if not to seek release of persecuted batiatanos posing as the sister of Fidel.

For the book I learned that Agustina, Fidel's younger sister, was married to Cuban singer Silvio Rodriguez and his son Silvio Rodriguez Raul Castro lives in exile in Orlando Florida along with his wife and children.

Juanita's book is a historical document from a primary source that seriously attempts to be fair on the information but does not hide from the antipathy felt to her brother Fidel and his special love for his brother Rau. Her obvious aim is protect the honor of the Castro family, his father, Angel Castro Argiz and his mother, Lina Ruz Gonzalez who are products of the second marriage of Aangel with a much younger woman. In fact, the seventh child of this union, Augustina, was born when his father was 62 years.

The way to tell the story, its mood, is like listening to a grandmother tells stories of old days. It reminds me of my own mother as Juanita hated Fidel as his personal enemy, but instead Juanita justified Raul only because he was her favorite brother.