government of Batista and formed a people's government. When the Soviet Union supported the coup, the United States adopted an attitude of "non communicado" with the island nation less than 90 miles from America.
Prior to the Castro revolution, Cuba was considered "private property" by rich American corporations. These multinational corporations looked upon the island's rich sugar crops as an important asset. In addition, the city and port of Havana had been sort of a "millionaires' playground" where rich Americans and Europeans sat, would drink, and gamble in the clubs and casinos. They would "sip icy mojitos and daiquiris poolside at Havana's Hotel Nacional, savor Cohiba cigars and gaze at the showgirls sunning themselves prior to their performances at one of the many gambling clubs in the evening" (Langford, 1998, 3).
As Langford points out, the beach area of modern Havana, 39 years after the revolution still appears on the surface to not have changed much. It appears, he says, as a throwback to the pre-Revolution Batista days when Havana was the "ribald sin city of the Americas, a playground of mobsters and royalty, streetwalkers and Hollywood stars... strolling through Old Havana and quaffing Hatuey, the local beer, at the Floridita or La Bodeguita del Medio, Ernest Hemingway's haunts" (Langford, 1998, 3). This paper will deal with the events that transpired during these some forty years.
Today it is not against American law to travel to Cuba, but one should not spend any money there. The reasoning is that spending money is a violation of the U.S. government's 1963 Trading With the Enemy Act. That one situation -- okay to visit but do not spend any money -- typifies the United States almost schizophrenic attitude toward this nation (Reynolds, 1997, 1T).
Even though there are no scheduled commercial airline flights to Cuba and American travel agents are forbidden to arrange trips to the island, there is alw...