In the Pirate's Den: My Life As a Secret Agent for Castro

At the age of eighteen, Jorge Masetti had been selected by Fidel Castro's spymasters to study "conspiratorial methods" that would allow him to work in Havana's growing international underground. After graduation he joined the notorious Americas Department, entering "the pirate's den" where he worked as a secret agent for Castro for the next twenty years. Taking the reader inside the war room of the Cuban revolution, Masetti tells a dramatic story of international intrigue: smuggling diamonds and ivory from Africa to help support the Havana government; counterfeiting U.S. dollars; trafficking in narcotics. He describes his work as an agent in Europe and throughout Latin America, and his activities in Angola, Nicaragua and other war zones. He was happily married to the daughter of Antonio de la Guardia, a major figure in the Cuban government, whose twin brother, Patricio, was a general in the Cuban army.

Things suddenly changed in 1989 when Masetti returned from a mission in Africa to find that Castro's secret police had arrested both Antonio and Patricio de la Guardia along with General Arnaldo Ochoa, Cuba's most famous and respected soldier -- all of whom were thought to be fomenting a Cuban perestroika. Masetti describes the Kafkaesque workings of the tribunal that resulted in the execution of his father-in-law and General Ochoa, and ultimately made him see the brutal reality of the revolutionary movement to which he had devoted half a lifetime. In the Pirate's Den offers a window onto the secret machinations of Castro's government as well as a compelling account of a crisis in revolutionary faith. This is a page-turning chronicle of a remarkable journey into and out of the Cuban revolution.