Conflicting Missions - (Envisioning Cuba) by Piero Gleijeses (Paperback)

About the Book

Conflicting Missions: Havana, Washington, and Africa, 1959-1976

Book Synopsis

This is a compelling and dramatic account of Cuban policy in Africa from 1959 to 1976 and of its escalating clash with U.S. policy toward the continent. Piero Gleijeses's fast-paced narrative takes the reader from Cuba's first steps to assist Algerian rebels fighting France in 1961, to the secret war between Havana and Washington in Zaire in 1964-65 -- where 100 Cubans led by Che Guevara clashed with 1,000 mercenaries controlled by the CIA -- and, finally, to the dramatic dispatch of 30,000 Cubans to Angola in 1975-76, which stopped the South African advance on Luanda and doomed Henry Kissinger's major covert operation there.

Based on unprecedented archival research and firsthand interviews in virtually all of the countries involved -- Gleijeses was even able to gain extensive access to closed Cuban archives -- this comprehensive and balanced work sheds new light on U.S. foreign policy and CIA covert operations. It revolutionizes our view of Cuba's international role, challenges conventional U.S. beliefs about the influence of the Soviet Union in directing Cuba's actions in Africa, and provides, for the first time ever, a look from the inside at Cuba's foreign policy during the Cold War.

Washington Post Book World

"Gleijeses's research . . . bluntly contradicts the Congressional testimony of the era and the memoirs of Henry A. Kissinger. . . . After reviewing Dr. Gleijeses's work, several former senior United States diplomats who were involved in making policy toward Angola broadly endorsed its conclusions." -- New York Times

"With the publication of Conflicting Missions, Piero Gleijeses establishes his reputation as the most impressive historian of the Cold War in the Third World. Drawing on previously unavailable Cuban and African as well as American sources, he tells a story that's full of fresh and surprising information. And best of all, he does this with a remarkable sensitivity to the perspectives of the protagonists. This book will become an instant classic." -- John Lewis Gaddis, author of We Now Know: Rethinking Cold War History

Based on unprecedented research in Cuban, American, and European archives, this is the compelling story of Cuban policy in Africa from 1959 to 1976 and of its escalating clash with U.S. policy toward the continent. Piero Gleijeses sheds new light on U.S. foreign policy and CIA covert operations, revolutionizes our view of Cuba's international role, and provides the first look from the inside at Cuba's foreign policy during the Cold War. -- >

Review Quotes

"Conflicting Missions . . . is fascinating . . . and often downright entertaining. . . . Gleijeses recounts the Cuban story with considerable flair, taking good advantage of rich material. The cast of characters all by itself would ignite lively conversations among Africa hands and students of U.S. policy in the developing world. . . . Rich and provocative."--Washington Post Book World

"[The author's] careful and convincing analysis illuminates Cuban motivations in Africa, while challenging standard interpretations of US and Soviet responses to Fidel Castro's decisions to intervene in African upheavals. . . . Thorough documentation, a detailed bibliography, maps, photographs, and a useful abbreviation list add to the value of this important Cold War study."--CHOICE

"A monumental study. . . . A model of how to document one of the least understood but most significant episodes in international Cold War politics."--Science and Society

"A Cold War study not of two superpowers but of Third World policy in Third World countries. . . . Gleijeses conducted extensive research in writing this book, including gaining unprecedented access to Cuban archival material and oral histories. There is little material available on Cuban-African relations, and nothing this comprehensive."--Library Journal

"Admirable. . . . A racy tale of revolutionary romance."--The Economist

"Deftly written and meticulously researched. . . . [Gleijeses] has written a very measured study and he has done so with considerable panache. He has succeeded in opening up important new perspectives on how the Cold War played out in sub-Saharan Africa."--International Affairs

"Gleijeses brilliantly describes those deceits and disguises, with all their accompanying blood and guts and glory. Over the 10 years it took him to research this book, Gleijeses seemingly tracked down every lead, every participant, every document on all sides of the conflicts. His book is a necessary corrective to past misinterpretations of how and why the Cubans intervened in Africa. . . . A fascinating account of Cuban involvement in Africa."--Los Angeles Times

"Gleijeses's research . . . bluntly contradicts the Congressional testimony of the era and the memoirs of Henry A. Kissinger. . . . [This] book strongly challenges common perceptions of Cuban behavior in Africa. . . . After reviewing Dr. Gleijeses's work, several former senior United States diplomats who were involved in making policy toward Angola broadly endorsed its conclusions."--New York Times

"Splendid. . . . [This] book will stand for a long time as the major study of the 'conflicting missions' of Washington and Havana in Africa to 1976."--Journal of Military History

"This will be as good an account of the whole episode as one will likely get."--Washington Times