“Cuba’s Gross Domestic product in 1957 was $2.7 billion. Cuba’s foreign receipts in 1957 were about $750 million–of which tourism made up only $60 million. Gambling was a small fraction of this $60 million. How could the beneficiaries of that tiny fraction of Cuba’s income “own” the entire ‘freakin country, and “infiltrate its levers of power from top to bottom,” as TJ English’s book asserts?
Well, we have it on the good authority of Castro regime officials, primary sources for this book, which neglects to mention how “the Revolution” has made multiple times that few million in cahoots with Colombia’s cocaine cowboys.”
Also: according to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, in 1958 U.S. investments in Cuba accounted for only 13 per cent of Cuba’s GNP.
And the kicker: in 1953, more Cubans vacationed in the U.S. than Americans in Cuba.
All above fully documented in my books, using records of Banco Nacional de Cuba.
The mainstream stupidity on these matters is utterly UNREAL. After all, I’m contradicting a Hollywood Movie! The Godfather!
Humberto,
That’s why you need to keep writing books that portrait the real Cuba before 1959, not the one portrayed by the MSM.
Thank you Humberto!
Humberto, thanks for the info … + you speak about “my books” having this info. Are you referring to the Che or Castro book? or both?
An additional problem that occurs with issues like this is that publishers don’t seem to take issue with books like English’s and they become the dominant narrative. Thus if there are 10 books on pre-Castro Cuba and 9 of them say one thing, and 1 says what you are saying – then people believe the former based on the overall evidence.
How do you think this can be stopped? other than the obvious writing more books to counter act it? There are basically 2 different realities/histories operating at the same time and it seems that the majority in print say the wrong thing?
Thank you Humberto. Let me throw my book away now.
Jerome, I wouldn’t just throw it away. Everything Humberto says here is probably true, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t also certain things that could be gained from the book. However, I think that Humberto shows us that we should then look at the sources that English is using for a particular claim. Nobody would deny that the Mob was present in Havana, the issue seems to be on how much control and power they had. The bath water may be tinged with Castro talking points, but lets not be so quick to throw the baby out with it. Just read more critically I would say.
Um, I rilly hate to be contrary with my very first post, but wouldn’t most of the mob’s money and income go unreported to the authorities?
I’ve always understood that criminals don’t go around fully reporting their income to the government and the banks.
Isn’t this how it worked in the the old Vegas casinos, there were 10 dollars siphoned off for every 1 dollar reported, or something like that?
Sandi