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Santiago de Cuba Nov 6 1940
Mr Franklin Roosvelt,
President of the United States.
My good friend Roosevelt I don't know very English, but I know as much as write to you. I like to hear the radio, and I am very happy, because I heard in it, that you will be President for a new (periodo).
I am twelve years old. I am a boy but I think very much but I do not think that I am writing to the President of the United States.
If you like, give me a ten dollars bill green american, in the letter, because never, I have not seen a ten dollars bill green american and I would like to have one of them.
My address is:
Sr Fidel Castro
Colegio de Dolores
Santiago de Cuba
Oriente Cuba
I don't know very English but I know very much Spanish and I suppose you don't know very Spanish but you know very English because you are American but I am not American.
(Thank you very much)
Good by. Your friend, [Signed]
Fidel Castro
P.D. If you want iron to make your (sheaps) ships I will show to you the bigest (minas) of iron of the land. They are in Mayari Oriente Cuba.
University London College, Dr Semi Zeki. Scientists studying the physical nature of hate have found that some of the nervous circuits in the brain responsible for it are the same as those that are used during the feeling of romantic love – although love and hate appear to be polar opposites.
"Like love, it is often seemingly irrational and can lead individual to heroic and evil deeds.
It is impressive to see how something that could be fixed with just a kind brief letter to a kid and a ten dollar bill became a terrible headache that lasted decades across two centuries.
Brothels flourished. A major industry grew up around them; government officials received bribes, policemen collected protection money. Prostitutes could be seen standing in doorways, strolling the streets, or leaning from windows. One report estimated that 11,500 of them worked their trade in Havana. Beyond the outskirts of the capital, beyond the slot machines, was one of the poorest, and most beautiful countries in the Western world.
— David Detzer, American journalist, after visiting Havana in the 1950s
The Havana Conference convened on December 20, 1946.[1] Delegates were present representing New York City, New Jersey, Buffalo, Chicago, New Orleans and Florida, with the largest delegation of bosses from the New York-New Jersey area. Several major bosses from the Jewish Syndicate were at the conference to discuss joint La Cosa Nostra-Jewish Syndicate business. According to conference rules, the Jewish delegates could not vote on Cosa Nostra rules or policies; however, the Jewish crime bosses were allowed input on any joint business ventures, such as the Flamingo Hotel.
Luciano opened the Havana Conference by discussing a topic that would greatly affect his authority within the American Mafia; the position of "capo di tutti capi" or "boss of all bosses". The last official boss of all bosses had been Salvatore Maranzano, who was murdered in September 1931. By the end of 1931, Luciano had eliminated this top position and re-organized the Italian mafia into "La Cosa Nostra", or "This Thing of Ours". A board of directors, commonly called the "Commission", had been formed to oversee criminal activities, control rules, and set policies. La Cosa Nostra thus became the top criminal organization within the National Crime Syndicate.
At the beginning of 1959 United States companies owned about 40 percent of the Cuban sugar lands—almost all the cattle ranches—90 percent of the mines and mineral concessions—80 percent of the utilities—practically all the oil industry—and supplied two-thirds of Cuba's imports.
— John F. Kennedy.
I believe that there is no country in the world including any and all the countries under colonial domination, where economic colonization, humiliation and exploitation were worse than in Cuba, in part owing to my country's policies during the Batista regime. I approved the proclamation which Fidel Castro made in the Sierra Maestra, when he justifiably called for justice and especially yearned to rid Cuba of corruption. I will even go further: to some extent it is as though Batista was the incarnation of a number of sins on the part of the United States. Now we shall have to pay for those sins. In the matter of the Batista regime, I am in agreement with the first Cuban revolutionaries. That is perfectly clear.
— U.S. President John F. Kennedy, to Jean Daniel, October 24, 1963.