Following President Obama’s decision to normalize relations with Cuba and re-open the U.S. embassy in Havana, I talk with two men who bore witness the brutality and economic collapse of Cuba under Fidel Castro.  They both escaped to the U.S. as young boys, but their fathers weren’t so lucky, and they’ll tell their stories in today’s episode.

My first guest is Carlos Eire.  Today he’s a history and religion professor at Yale University and a best-selling author who won the 2003 National Book Award for his memoirs, WAITING FOR SNOW IN HAVANA: CONFESSIONS OF A CUBAN BOY, which he followed up with LEARNING TO DIE IN MIAMI: CONFESSIONS OF A REFUGEE BOY.  

And in the second half of the podcast, I’ll talk with Miami Mayor Tomas Regalado.  After coming to America as kid, he became a broadcast journalist at the spanish-language network Univision and the first Cuban-American member of the White House Press Corps.  Now Tomas Regalado is Mayor of the city Miami, and he is personally dealing with the aftermath of Obama’s Cuba policy as it affects his constituents in “Little Havana,” home to the largest group of Cuban exiles in America.

We’ll take an honest look at the cost of throwing away 53 years of U.S. foreign policy toward Cuba and caving to the world’s last communist dictator.

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