“The Man of Two Havanas": Max Lesnik on His Transition From Cuban Revolutionary to Exile to Target of Terrorist Attacks by Anti-Castro Cuban Militants
“The Man of Two Havanas” is a new documentary about Max Lesnik. Lesnik was a close friend of Fidel Castro's who was exiled to the U.S. following a public disagreement over Cuba's ties to the Soviet Union. But instead of joining Castro's right-wing Cuban-American opponents, Lesnik became an outspoken critic of the U.S. embargo and covert warfare to bring down the Cuban government. For his views he was the target of several attacks that nearly cost him his life. In a moment we'll hear from Max Lesnick and his daughter Vivien Lesnik Weisman, director of the “The Man of Two Havanas.” But first, a preview of the film.
- The Man of Two Havanas
- Vivien Lesnik Weisman, director of "The Man of Two Havanas", which recently premiered at the TriBeCa Film Festival in New York. She is the daughter of Max Lesnik.
- Max Lesnik, former Cuban revolutionary turned exile, Max later became the target of terrorist attacks by anti-Castro Cuban exiles. He's currently a journalist with Radio Miami.
RUSH TRANSCRIPT
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AMY GOODMAN: We turn now to The Man of Two Havanas, a new documentary about Max Lesnik. Lesnik was a close friend of Fidel Castro’s, who was exiled to the United States following a public disagreement over Cuba’s ties to the Soviet Union. But instead of joining Castro's rightwing Cuban American opponents, Lesnik became an outspoken critic of the US embargo and covert warfare to bring down the Cuban government. For his views, he was the target of several attacks that nearly cost him his life.
In a moment we'll hear from Max Lesnik and his daughter Vivien Lesnik Weisman, who is director of the film The Man of Two Havanas, but first an excerpt of the film.
VIVIEN LESNIK WEISMAN: Did the Dolphins just win the Super Bowl? Some kind of Cuban American Mardi Gras? We are celebrating the imminent death of the non-plus, ultra-evil-doer of the twentieth century: Fidel. These are my people. However, since I don't see Castro as the root of all evil in the universe, well, I’m a little out of step with my tribe, and I could give a [beep], but there is a complicating factor: my dad. He gives a [beep]. He really does care, and he has from the very beginning.
Back in Havana, he was a revolutionary, and he fought alongside his buddy, Fidel. Then he fought Fidel, and it was “Miami, here we come.” But his animosity for Castro didn’t last. Now, he wanted dialogue. Really, he wanted peace. That's the when the [beep] hit the fan.
MAX LESNIK: A group of fascists tried to kill me in Little Havana, but anyway, this is the situation that any real newspaper man or journalist have to face when you want to openly explain your position.
VIVIEN LESNIK WEISMAN: Bombings, drive-by shootings, assassination attempts on his life -- but who would do this to us? We were Americans now. It must be the communists, right? Wrong, my father became the focal point of the anti-Castro terrorists. These were Cuban Americans, people just like you and me. Well, not exactly. They were trained by the CIA. What most people don't know is that terrorism in America did not begin on September 11. In the 1970s and the 1980s there was a reign of terror in Miami. There was as many as seven bombings in one day and hundreds per year. The culprits were not communists, they were Americans, Cuban Americans, and my dad was at the epicenter.
AMY GOODMAN: Vivien Lesnik, narrating the film about her father, The Man of Two Havanas. And now, we're going to go on and see another clip of that film that focuses on that issue of terrorism.
VIVIEN LESNIK WEISMAN: On October 6, 1976, a Cubana Airlines plane took off from Venezuela, heading towards Cuba. The seventy-three passengers included the entire Cuban fencing team. In Havana, a hero's welcome awaited them. The young athletes were bringing home from the Central American Games a gold in every category. They only made it as far as Barbados.
CUBANA 455: We have an explosion, and we are descending immediately. We have fire on board. This is Cubana 455. We are requesting immediately, immediately landing.
AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL: Cubana 455, you are cleared to land.
CUBANA 455: That’s worse! Get down to the water, Felo, close to the water!
VIVIEN LESNIK WEISMAN: What should have been a welcoming parade for the victorious young athletes on board Cubana 455 was instead a state funeral. The entire country mourned. The incident transformed them into revolutionary martyrs. Castro accused the CIA.
FIDEL CASTRO: [translated] The CIA directly participated in the destruction of the Cubana plane in Barbados.
PETER KORNBLUH: The CIA believed that a terrorist group of Cuban exiles led by Orlando Bosch was planning to blow up a Cubana airliner. Not a single agency in the US government passed along this extraordinary intelligence as a warning to the Cuban government.
VIVIEN LESNIK WEISMAN: The tragedy that came to be known as Barbados was an awakening for a new generation of Cubans that had not known hate, had not known fear. With Barbados, all that changed. A national wound had been inflicted.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN 1: [translated] It was absurd. It was the Olympic fencing team. Imagine, almost children.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN 2: Orlando Bosch, Luis Posada and two Venezuelans were charged with that crime, which was the first act of airline terrorism in our hemisphere.
VIVIEN LESNIK WEISMAN: The downing of the Barbados plane was buried on page eight of the New York Times and hardly got a mention in other newspapers. Most Cubans in Miami thought this act of terrorism was a well-deserved blow. Orlando Bosch was often quoted: “All of Cuba's planes are war planes and therefore legitimate targets.”
ORLANDO BOSCH: In this war against communists, a lot of innocents have been sacrificed, and we know some more has to be if we want to make the victory, the final victory.
AMY GOODMAN: Orlando Bosch in the film The Man of Two Havanas, but that film is about Max Lesnik. His daughter did the film, Vivien Lesnik Weisman, and they both join us here in New York, as the film has just debuted at the Tribeca Film Festival. We welcome you both to Democracy Now! And before we get into Posada, in particular, and Max Lesnik, your concerns, as you are a Cuban American here in this country, Vivien, why did you do this film about your dad?
VIVIEN LESNIK WEISMAN: Well, first I wanted to explore my relationship with my father. It's a personal film, as well as a political film. But my dad is -- he has one passion, and that's Cuba. So in order to understand my father better, I had to understand his passion. So therefore I went to Cuba. I got to know my country, the Cuban people, and was immersed in all the information about the terrorist groups that had targeted him throughout my childhood.
AMY GOODMAN: Had you understood this through your life?
VIVIEN LESNIK WEISMAN: Well, I was aware when I was growing up that we were bombed and that there were drive-by shootings in our house, and I lived in a constant state of siege, like a war zone. And Orlando Bosch --
AMY GOODMAN: And you're talking about here in the United States, when you lived in Florida.
VIVIEN LESNIK WEISMAN: Yes, that’s in Miami. And we were targeted by these people, the anti-Castro terrorists. And the two names, Orlando Bosch and Luis Posada, I can't remember a time when I didn't know those names, because they were constantly being discussed. And one of the groups that targeted my father was under the umbrella terrorist group that Orlando Bosch headed.
AMY GOODMAN: Now, Max Lesnik, as Vivien -- in this film, The Man of Two Havanas, you, Little Havana in Miami and Havana, Cuba, as she tells the story, you were one of the revolutionaries with Fidel Castro. Describe your early years in Cuba before you split with Castro.
MAX LESNIK: I was a young leader of Ortodoxo Party.
AMY GOODMAN: Of the Orthodox Party?
MAX LESNIK: Orthodox Party, the same party that Fidel Castro belong at that time. I met Fidel in the University of Havana, year 1949, where I was only eighteen years old. Fidel was maybe twenty, twenty-one. Both together fought -- not the revolution, but in some way I started with the student movement fighting for reforms and going to all -- the way the student at that time in Cuba did, fighting the police.
Then happened something incredible. At that time, Cuba was a democracy, but with defects, corruption, but democracy like your organization Democracy Now! But that system was overthrown by Batista. He was a sergeant in the ’33 revolution, and then he took power by arms in 1952. Then happened to Cuba the worst thing that can happen in a democracy: the overthrow of the system by a military group of -- commanded by Batista, that was a senator at that time.
Then after that, the only way to change the situation is through the arms, because Batista don’t permit any play in democracy or something like free expression. Then Fidel went to hills in Oriente province, the most -- the oriental section of the island. I was related to the group that went to the center part of the island, the Escambray Mountains, and by that time we fought for two years as guerrillas, combatant. Then, the first of January, Batista left the country, and the Revolution took power.
AMY GOODMAN: You were the first person in Havana of the group?
MAX LESNIK: I was one of the first --
AMY GOODMAN: Before Fidel Castro got there?
MAX LESNIK: Before Fidel. Fidel arrived to Havana in January the 8th, but I was in Havana the day that Batista left, because I was going forth from the Sierra to the city to organize the clandestine movement, and then Batista left the night of January the 1st, and then I go openly to the radio station and television station. I suppose I was the one of those who appear on television telling Batista left and we are here. In reality, only were a lot of people like milicianos in the city of Havana, but the rebel army was in Oriente and in Las Villas. I was alone fighting the government, because they was afraid that it’s true that I say that we have an army here, that it’s [inaudible] in a way functioned the joke.
AMY GOODMAN: We're going to break. When we come back -- you parted ways with Fidel Castro and came to the United States. This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. We'll continue with Max Lesnik and his filmmaker daughter Vivien Lesnik in a minute.
[break]
posted by Alice at
Monday, May 07, 2007
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