I recently watched Oslo, a made for TV drama about the 1993 Oslo Peace Accords, now showing on HBO MAX.  The film, based on the 2017 Tony Award-winning play by J.T. Rogers (who adapted his script), tells the story of a  Norwegian couple who bypass the traditional diplomatic process and open up secret backchannels for discussions between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (then exiled in Tunis). The talks, carried out without government approval, result in the 1993 Oslo Peace Accords. 

If you’re into diplomatic intrigue, Oslo is gripping TV, but the drama lacks context.  But really, how much do we expect from our entertainment in terms of authenticity, factualness, nuances, and implications?

You can watch the trailer below.

Then fit the story into our timeline for context.

PALESTINE-ISRAEL TIMELINE: 1990 – 1996

Early 1990s: Hamas emerges as a viable political alternative to the local Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).

1990: When a splinter group within the PLO tries to mount a raid into Israel in summer 1990, the US breaks off negotiations with the PLO.

Having recognized Israel’s right to exist without receiving any concessions in return, Yasir Arafat decides to associate the PLO with the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein.

Saddam Hussein soon states that Israel’s withdrawal from the occupied territories is a necessary precondition for Iraq’s evacuation of Kuwait.

October 8, 1990: In the bloodiest day of the intifada, Israeli police respond to a Palestinian demonstration by killing 20 people and wounding many others.  Called the incident of the Temple Mount, the Palestinians were protesting plans by an Israeli fringe group to construct a Jewish temple on the site of Jerusalem’s holiest Islamic shrines.

April 6, 1991: Iraq officially accepts Desert Shield cease-fire terms. The invasion of Kuwait and the war that follows create a refugee problem of tragic proportions. Prior to the Iraqi invasion, Kuwait is home to a relatively prosperous Palestinian community numbering around 400,000. By war’s end, 350,000 Palestinians have fled Kuwait. Some refugees return to the West Bank and Gaza Strip, but the majority remain in Jordan. Several thousand are once again forced into UN-sponsored refugee camps. Jordanians fear that their country is becoming a surrogate Palestinian homeland.

1991: Following the Gulf War, the PLO enters a period of political and economic disarray. In the Gaza Strip, the PLO claim to political primacy comes under renewed challenge from Hamas. PLO leaders look to negotiations with Israel as a way of retaining their dominance.

October 30, 1991: An international peace conference jointly sponsored by the US and the Soviet Union opens in Madrid bringing Israelis and Palestinians to a new level of contact. Neighboring Arab states that have not yet recognized Israel’s right to exist – Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria – are also included. The Madrid Conference focuses attention on Palestinians who live and work in the occupied territories. The aging PLO leadership appears politically stale and out of touch with the realities of life in the territories.

December 1991-Spring 1993: Arab and Israeli delegations meet several times in Moscow and Washington. The sticking point concerns Israeli settlement policy in the occupied territories. Now the US administration adopts a firm stance against continued settlement activity. President Bush links US financial aid to Israel to Israel’s willingness to curb settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

February 1992: The US announces that it won’t approve a $10 billion loan guarantee to Israel unless Israel agrees to a freeze on the construction of all settlements in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Prime Minister Shamir is defiant, but Israel badly needs the US loan guarantee.

June 1992: In elections, the Israeli public rejects Shamir’s ideological  hard line and gives Yitzhak Rabin’s Labor Party an overwhelming victory. Rabin is willing to support measures designed to restore good relations with the US. He announces a partial freeze on settlement construction.

1992: Rabin makes his first state visit to the US and President Bush announces the authorization of a $10 billion loan guarantee without Israel supporting a complete freeze on settlements.

1993-1995: Rabin ends the freeze on settlement construction and Israel confiscates 20,000 acres of Palestinian owned land on the West Bank.

1993: Concern for Hamas’ militancy prompts Rabin to consider negotiations with Yasir Arafat (and vice versa).

Winter and Spring 1993: Israeli and PLO officials meet in a series of clandestine meetings near Oslo, Norway. The meetings are outside of normal diplomatic channels.

Late summer 1993: Arab and Israeli delegates meet in Washington for the eleventh round of the peace talks begun in Madrid two years earlier. Disclosure of a secret agreement between representatives of the Israeli government and the PLO takes the world by surprise.

The two part agreement (Oslo I) provides for mutual recognition between Israel and the PLO and lays the foundation for Palestinian autonomy in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Neither of the two 1993 documents makes explicit mention of a Palestinian state — Israel simply agrees to negotiate.

According to a schedule set forth at the time, the interim negotiations will conclude in 1998 with a permanent agreement based on UN Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338. (The schedule will not be met.  Discussion on a number of crucial issues will also be postponed.)

Arab leaders cautiously endorse the proposal. The US President Clinton agrees to reestablish formal contacts with the PLO.

September 13, 1993: Israeli and PLO leaders assemble at the White House for the signing of the autonomy agreement. Overall momentum toward a negotiated settlement is maintained for two years following the signing ceremony.

After 1993: The economic situation in the occupied territories deteriorates, further alienating the Palestinian community from the peace accords.

1994: Israel and the PLO sign two agreements dealing with economic relations and the transfer of administrative authority from Israel to the Palestinians in Gaza and Jericho. The establishment of a self-governing Palestinian authority is crucial. Both sides understand that Arafat and the PLO will constitute the leadership. This means allowing the PLO and Arafat to return to Palestine.

July 1994: Yasir Arafat establishes residence in Gaza and begins to put in place the rudiments of an administrative and security structure.

1994-1995: A series of Hamas supported suicide bombings are directed at Israeli civilians in the larger cities. Dozens of Israelis are killed. The objective of the bombings is to sabotage the peace negotiations by turning the Israeli public against Rabin and the Labor government. The Israeli response to the bombings is to pressure Arafat to undertake more rigorous security measures in the areas under Palestinian Authority (PA) control. In complying with Israeli demands and conducting raids against Hamas organizations, Arafat undermines his credibility and turns Palestinians against his administration.

February 1994: Baruch Goldstein, an Israeli settler activist, turns an automatic weapon on a large gathering of Palestinians praying in the Mosque of Abraham near the West Bank city of Hebron, killing 29 before he himself is killed.

July 1994: Yasir Arafat establishes residence in Gaza and begins to put in place the rudiments of an administrative and security structure. He endeavors to monopolize the decision-making process in the Palestinian Authority (PA).

Fall 1994: Israel and Jordan sign a treaty of peace and mutual recognition.

1995: Israeli opposition to the Oslo process is increasingly framed in religious terms. A group of rabbis issues a decree instructing soldiers to resist orders to evacuate army bases in the West Bank. Orthodox and nationalist organizations vilify Prime Minister Rabin.

September 1995: The Interim Agreement (Oslo II) is signed. It spells out in detail the stages of Israeli military redeployment in the West Bank, the process by which power will be transferred to the Palestinian civil authority and several other matters. Clauses on redeployments and the limitations imposed on Palestinian authority draw substantial criticism. The West Bank is divided into three zones and it is clear that the Palestinian Authority will have very limited power.

November 4, 1995: Prime Minister Rabin is assassinated by Yigal Amir, an Israeli student, as he leaves a large peace rally in Tel Aviv. The assassination of Rabin leads to the suspension of negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.

November 1995-May 1996: Hamas carries out another round of suicide bombings in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. Israeli public opinion shifts away from support for the peace process. The Israeli government seals off the occupied territories, placing many West Bank towns under curfew and causing increased economic distress within the Palestinian community. More and more Palestinians turn away from Arafat.

1996: A Palestinian Council, comprised of 88 representatives, is elected. Arafat’s supporters win a comfortable majority. Arafat is elected head of the PA and proceeds to ignore the new council and set up an authoritarian regime with an elaborate hierarchy of security forces. As many as 7 different security services, numbering upwards of 40,000 men, are deployed on behalf of the regime.

May 1996: Israelis go to the polls and choose Benjamin Netanyahu as their new prime minister. Netanyahu has campaigned on a pledge to “slow down” the peace process. What he wants to do is end the process as defined by the Oslo Accords. He adopts hardline policies toward the occupied territories, refuses to acknowledge any connection between land and peace, assures Israelis that they can have security and settlements at the same time that they have peaceful coexistence with the Palestinians. He inaugurates a new round of provocative settlement activities that seem to invite Palestinian retaliation.

Late 1990s: Israeli Arabs number nearly 1 million, roughly 20% of Israel’s population.

PALESTINE-ISRAEL TIMELINE: 1997 – 2012

Early 1990s: Hamas emerges as a viable political alternative to the local Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).

Late 1990s: Palestinian economic conditions are worse than at any time during the Israeli occupation. By 1997, as many as 5,000 Israeli housing units are under construction in the West Bank. Increasing numbers of Palestinians become disillusioned with the peace process and with Arafat’s one-man rule. Hamas is the main beneficiary. Hamas rejects the entire Oslo peace process.

Summer 1997: Hamas sponsors another suicide bombing. Israel seals off the occupied territories more tightly and demands that Arafat and the Palestinian Authority (PA) increase their efforts to arrest Hamas activists. The continued deterioration of Palestinian-Israeli relations raises the possibility of a major armed confrontation.

1998: Some 350,000 Israelis reside in areas taken in the June War: 180,000 in annexed East Jerusalem, 164,000 in the West Bank, and 5,500 in the Gaza Strip. A large settlement on confiscated Arab land in East Jerusalem is projected to eventually house 30,000 Israelis in violation of the Oslo Accords.

Autumn 1998: Netanyahu and Arafat meet at the Wye River estate in Maryland. They sign a set of agreements known as the Wye Accords, elaborating on the original Oslo agreement in which Israel had accepted the principle of exchanging land for peace; the PLO renounces the use of terrorism.

In violation of the Wye Accords signed just a month before, Netanyahu seeks to appease his critics on the Religious Right by announcing that Israel will suspend its scheduled withdrawal from an additional 13% of the West Bank.

May 17, 1999: Israel holds elections pitting Netanyahu and his Likud bloc against Labor’s Ehud Barak, a former army chief of staff.  Barak wins in a landslide and endorses the resumption of peace negotiations with the Palestinians.

May 2000: The Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon turns into a hasty retreat in the face of Hizbollah attacks.

July 2000: A 2 week summit conference, Camp David II, is convened by US President Bill Clinton. The summit ends in an impasse but, for the first time,  final status issues are subject to negotiation. These include sovereignty over East Jerusalem, the future of Jewish settlements, and the right of return for Palestinian refugees. The deadlock over how to share or divide Jerusalem is especially troublesome. No written offers are put on the table.

December 2000: Barak resigns and calls for a special election, hoping to receive a popular mandate for pressing forward with peace initiatives.  The election campaign takes place against the backdrop of  a new Palestinian uprising and harsh Israeli reprisals. The uprisings are firmly rooted in the failures of the Oslo peace process, and the violence, known as the second intifada,  places the issue of security at the top of the electoral agenda. Popular participation is not as widespread as in the first intifada and there is no coordinated leadership. The driving force of the second intifada  consists of loosely organized groups of young men affiliated with either one of the militant Islamic groups (Hamas and Islamic Jihad) or with Yasir Arafat’s al-Fatah. The second intifada is also much more militarized than the first.

December 2000: President Clinton tries to salvage the peace process. He proposes a peace plan that envisions the Palestinians getting between 94% and 96% of the West Bank for a future Palestinian state.

January 2001: In meetings held in the Egyptian resort town of Taba, Palestinian and Israeli negotiators tentatively agree on a more detailed peace framework based on the Clinton parameters. The Taba talks are too late, though, and effectively mark the end of the Oslo peace process.

February 2001: Ariel Sharon wins election as Israel’s fifth prime minister in 6 years.

Early 2002: An attempt by Saudi Arabia to rescue the peace process receives the unanimous support of the Arab League meeting in Beirut.

2002: As the second intifada continues, Israel escalates its military operations and forcibly reoccupies all the territory in the West Bank and Gaza Strip that it had earlier turned over to the Palestinian Authority. Also, Israel imposes an internal closure of the West Bank, prohibiting Palestinians from leaving their communities and effectively shutting down all forms of internal commerce. The result is economic disaster for the occupied territories. The massive Israeli military intervention leads to new waves of suicide bombings.

2002: Arafat is confined to his shattered Ramallah compound by Israeli forces. It becomes clear that no one else has the authority to negotiate in his place.

2000-2003: The second intifada claims the lives of 2,400 Palestinians and 780 Israelis.

April 2003: The US, the European Union, Russia, and the UN lay out a road map for ending the conflict.

December 2003: Seeking a comprehensive agreement, Israeli and Palestinian politicians launch their own peace effort, the Geneva Accord.

2004: Sharon announces that Israelis will unilaterally separate from Palestinians. The policy comes to be known as “disengagement.” Sharon pushes the plan through the Knesset.

2004: The International Court of Justice rules the West Bank physical barrier  built by Israel a grave violation of international law.

2004: Arafat suffers from a mysterious illness that causes his death. Mahmoud Abbas (Arafat’s successor as leader of the secular al-Fatah party) becomes president of the PA. An opponent of the second intifada, he calls for a return to negotiations. Seeking to steady the Palestinian political situation, he initiates discussion on integrating Hamas into the constitutional structures developed under the Oslo accords.

August 2005: Sharon successfully completes the planned evacuation of settlers from Gaza. He is willing to uproot 8,000 Jewish settlers from Gaza because a Jewish state in all of mandate Palestine can’t be reconciled with demographic projections of an approaching Arab majority in that area. Acting alone, Sharon can arrange for the removal of fewer settlements than would be required in a negotiated settlement.

By supporting Sharon’s unilateral disengagement plan, US President Bush is widely seen to be accepting Israel’s right to impose a solution. Thus, the pulling of settlements out of Gaza provides political cover for securing Israeli control over West Bank settlements.

August 2005-December 2006: Israeli checkpoints in the West Bank increase from 376 to 534.

November 2005: Sharon quits the Likud Party in frustration and transforms Israeli politics by forming a new party, called Kadima or “Forward.” Netanyahu succeeds Sharon as head of Likud.

January 2006: Hamas establishes itself as a strong political force, winning 76 seats to al-Fatah’s 43 in the 132-seat legislative chamber. The US and Israel refuse to recognize or deal with the  new government.

January 2006: Sharon suffers a stroke ending his political career. Ehud Olmert steps in as acting prime minister.

March 2006: Elections confirm Olmert as prime minister after Kadima campaigns on a platform of fulfilling Sharon’s disengagement plan.

March 2006: Hamas assumes power with Abbas retaining the presidency. The US (along with the European Union and other Western countries) leads an international boycott against the new government. Israel withholds transfer of millions of dollars in taxation revenues collected on behalf of the PA, further undermining Hamas’ ability to govern. The aim is to force Hamas to honor previous Palestinian peace commitments, recognize Israel’s right of existence, and renounce violence. Al-Fatah and Hamas fail to reach consensus on how to build power-sharing institutions or political platforms to relieve international pressure. Instead, they continue to fight over power. Hamas expands the strength of its own military units, better known as its executive force. The Hamas/al-Fatah confrontation is most pronounced in Gaza.

2006: Growing lawlessness in Gaza results in dozens of deaths and prompts the UN to withdraw its aid workers.

June 2006: A militant group of Gazans tunnels under the border with Israel and captures an Israeli soldier. Israel responds to the abduction with armed incursions into Gaza that leave hundreds dead. Israel also embarks on the arrest of dozens of Hamas officials, including government ministers.

July 2006: Thousands of rocket attacks are launched by Hizbollah from territory that Israel unilaterally withdrew from in 2000. Rockets are also fired from across the border in Gaza which had been evacuated in 2005. The July war shakes Olmert’s credibility.

June 2007: Concerned that forces loyal to President Abbas are preparing to overthrow it, Hamas swiftly and brutally seizes all the main al-Fatah bases in Gaza. Abbas accuses Hamas of staging a coup, dismisses the Hamas led government, and creates an emergency government to rule the West Bank separately. Abbas weakens his own position in the process.

Second half of 2007: The Israeli blockade on Gaza tightens, dramatically increasing the stark poverty and unemployment rates there. Israel’s goal is still to weaken Hamas credibility among Palestinians and force it from power. But sanctions hurt ordinary Gazans the most. Hamas continues to improve its military position in Gaza, establishing control over rival clans and militias. Tunnels under the border with Egypt are improved. A semiofficial smuggling system emerges and contributes to the manufacturing of rockets. Israel buttresses its economic blockade.

End of 2007: Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert issues a warning to Israelis that unless the opportunity of a 2-state solution is grasped soon, changing demographics could force Israel to become an apartheid-like state.

2008: Prospects for a peace settlement between Israelis and Palestinians look bleak. There is increasing worry that a 2-state solution to the Palestinian-Israel conflict is vanishing.

January 2008: Hamas moves to relieve the pressure of the blockade by knocking down the barriers at the Rafah border crossing with Egypt. For 11 days, hundreds of thousands of Gazans pour through the breached walls to go shopping. The Egyptian government permits the short-term movement of people and goods across the border. Once the border is resealed with Hamas’ help, President Mubarak reinvigorates his efforts as an intermediary with Israel. The breaching of the barrier bolsters Hamas’ legitimacy and its ability to act in the immediate term.

June 2008: Egypt successfully helps negotiate a ceasefire beween Israel and Hamas. Hamas accepts responsibility for preventing militant groups from launching rockets into Israel. In return, Israel pledges to allow increased imports into Gaza.

September 2008: A scandal-ridden Olmert steps down as prime minister.

November 26, 2012: The remains of Yasir Arafat, the longtime Palestinian  leader, are exhumed as part of an inquiry into whether he was poisoned; results could come within three months.

November 29, 2012: The United Nations General Assembly votes by a more than two-thirds majority to recognize the state of Palestine.

What’s Happening Now?

The Palestinian-Israeli conflict made headlines again in May 2021, as Israel and Hamas engaged in a bloody 11-day war. Following a tense confrontation between Israeli police and Palestinian protestors at the Al-Aqsa Mosque Compound, Hamas militants in Gaza fired long-range rockets toward Jerusalem. Over the next 11 days, Israel carried out air strikes aimed at Hamas military infrastructure and Hamas fired rockets into Israel – at least 230 Palestinians and 12 Israelis were killed.

On May 21, the fighting stopped when a ceasefire mediated by the Egyptian government took effect.

Those of you who like visuals will want to take a look at a recent New York Times piece titled Gaza’s Deadly Night: How Israeli Airstrikes Killed 44 People (June 24, 2021). You can watch the video here.

Recently I came across the details of an art installation inspired by nuclear weapon control centers. Pioneer Works, a gallery in Red Hook (Brooklyn), is presenting a documentary on “the bomb” which begins with the first atom bomb tests and traces the story to the present day. The film, directed by Kevin Ford, Smriti Keshari, and Eric Schlosser, sketches out the full history of atomic weaponry and international brinksmanship, from the first atom bomb tests in the Nevada desert in the 1940s through the Cold War into the modern day. Click here to access the Pioneer Works website.  Viewing of the documentary is by appointment only.

Other ways popular culture has addressed “the bomb” popped up on the independent arts site Hyperallergic.com. Three of them are mentioned below.

Atomic Cafe

The first of the three was the film Atomic Cafe from 1982.

                                           Poster for the re-release of The Atomic Cafe (courtesy Kino Lorber)

An article on the film in Hyperallgic notes that

the film combined newsreel footage, propaganda films, candid and news photos, cartoons, public service announcements, songs, and other materials from the 1940s, ’50s, and ’60s, all dealing with nuclear weapons and their looming threat to human civilization. . . . Many selections showcase the flippancy with which popular culture approached the bomb.

You can read the article here or watch the movie on YouTube.

Invisible Colors: The Arts of the Atomic Age

Hyperallergic also published a book review of Invisible Colors: The Arts of the Atomic Age by Gabrielle Decamous (MIT Press). The book has five stars and is almost out of stock on Amazon.

An abstract of the book from a Japanese source notes: “The effects of radiation are invisible, but art can make it and its effects visible. Artwork created in response to the events of the nuclear era allow us to see them in a different way. Invisible Colors explores the atomic age from the perspective of the arts, investigating atomic-related art inspired by the work of Marie Curie, the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the disaster at Fukushima, and other episodes in nuclear history.”

The Hyperallergic review says:

The book is organized geographically, coursing around the globe from well-known “nuclear events” like Hiroshima and Nagasaki (and, of course, Chernobyl) to the plights of subalterned peoples in New Jersey and uranium mines in Saskatchewan, Czechoslovakia, Niger, and elsewhere. Unlike the tourists visiting Chernobyl today, nearly everyone Decamous addresses was exposed to radiation over days, weeks, and even decades — and typically without informed consent.

Read more from the review here  or check it out on Amazon.

Chernobyl: HBO Miniseries

Interested in radioactive landscapes? Then you might also be interested in the 2019 HBO miniseries on Chernobyl. You can watch it on HBO Max or obtain it from Amazon Prime. The trailer is below.

Hot Spots: Radioactivity and the Landscape

Lastly from Hyperallergic is an article titled “Hot Spots: Radioactivity and the Landscape” at UB Art Galleries in Buffalo. This 2018 exhibit examines the nuclear past and future of the United States as portrayed by in diverse media by various artists. Below is one example.

                    Naomi Bebo’s “Woodland Child in Gas Mask” (2015).

Want to see more? Access the full article here. And be sure to enjoy the images.

The Photographer Who X-Rayed Chernobyl – How to Make the Invisible Visible

Chernobyl Exclusion Zone – Highly Contaminated Ground

A final take on contamination and radioactivity comes from Atlas Obscura and their article titled “The Photographer Who X-Rayed Chernobyl – How to Make the Invisible Visible.”

While living in Berlin in 2007, Brazilian artist Alice Miceli took long train rides—18 hours or more—to Belarus, then another leg, by car or train, to Chernobyl. She made this journey more than 20 times. With permission to be in Chernobyl’s Exclusion Zone before tours were available, she photographed the site using a regular camera, but also documented the area—and the legacy of the 1986 nuclear disaster there—in a different, more extraordinary way. Miceli placed radiographic film plates used for chest X-rays—specifically sensitive to radiation—wrapped in layers of industrial plastic on the ground, on windows, on trees. She wanted to make visual records of something invisible to the naked eye, namely the area’s radioactive contamination, particularly the isotope cesium 137.

Want to learn more details about her method and see some of her many photographs. You can read the article here.

Dr. Strangelove

To end — and to save myself tons of grief from disappointed readers — the trailer to Dr. Strangelove is below.

As you’ve no doubt heard, Myanmar’s military launched a coup to start the month of February 2021, unseating the country’s popularly elected government. The country’s top civilian leader, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi (known as “The Lady,”) is now under house arrest along with other leaders from her party, the National League for Democracy. A one year state of emergency has been announced with ultimate authority transferred to the army chief, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing. According to the New York Times:

State television broadcast a statement from the military . . . that said extreme steps were necessary because of what it labeled voter fraud in elections last November . . . .  In its statement, the military said that it will oversee free and fair multiparty elections after the end of a state of emergency.

Before the coup, Myanmar was celebrated as a country moving toward democracy. In a region where authoritarian governments were the norm, its generals honored 2015 election results that brought the National League for Democracy into power. But according to The Times:

the political transition of the Southeast Asian nation was never quite as smooth or as significant as the political fairy tale made it out to be.

Now the country’s future is uncertain. After achieving independence from British rule on January 4, 1948, and inching toward democracy in 2015, Burma — now Myanmar — was beginning to open up to tourism and other development. Observers now wonder what will happen to those efforts. How will the coup affect the country’s tourist industry? Will foreigners still want to visit given the nation’s dismal record on human rights?

What’s In A Name?

Before we go any farther, though, just a word about names. For now, I’m using Burma and Myanmar interchangeably. The ruling military junta changed the country’s name from Burma to Myanmar in 1989, a year after thousands were killed in the suppression of a popular uprising. Rangoon also became Yangon. The change was recognized by the United Nations, and by countries such as France and Japan, but not by the United States or the UK.

A statement by the British Foreign Office says:

Burma’s democracy movement prefers the form ‘Burma’  because they do not accept the legitimacy of the unelected military regime to change the official name of the country. Internationally, both names are recognized.

Myanmar’s Literary Tradition

Myanmar’s literary tradition has been a key element of the country’s push to attract foreign visitors. The Irrawaddy Literature Festival, an annual not-for-profit event under the patronage of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, has been a particular draw.

Assuredly, Suu Kyi’s support for the festival has ensured its success. Myanmar’s literary tradition goes back thousands of years and encompasses multiple genres including Buddhist literature, folklore and culture, scripts for pwe marionette theater, British fiction from the colonial period, post colonial literature, and today’s modern writing.

George Orwell and Colonialism

If you’re a political observer, especially if you’re interested in colonialism and its lasting impact, George Orwell’s first novel, Burmese Days, will immediately grab your fancy. Best known for his Cold War works 1984 and Animal Farm, Burmese Days was published in 1934 and draws heavily on Orwell’s experience as a colonial police officer in what was then a province of British India. His experiences there provided him with first hand knowledge of Burmese life — its people, and its culture.

Orwell’s first book gives us an account of colonial life in the British Empire, a world where the ‘club’ was everything, and bureaucracies were staffed by loyal subjects tasked with maintaining the peace and indoctrinating locals into the ethos of the Empire.  But I don’t want to give too much away. The book is available for just 99 cents on Kindle, so you can read it for yourself if you haven’t already done so. Suffice it to say that when Orwell lived in Burma, the country was one of the most violent parts of the British Raj, terrorized by armed gangs known as Dacoits.

Over time, Orwell’s Burma has been isolated and considered a pariah nation. As previously mentioned, the country was ruled for decades by a repressive military junta, but more recently it’s been opening up to the outside world. And even as ethnic and religious tensions continue to smolder in its hinterlands, especially focused on the Rohingya Muslims, the country’s hospitality industry has been scrambling to meet rising demand for hotels and services. Until the coup, tourists were flocking to Myanmar to see romantic echoes of Orwell’s former British colony before its remnants were destroyed by development.

But today I’m wondering. Is it possible to find traces of Orwell’s Burma in the cities of Yangon, Bagan, and Mandalay or has the nation been overrun by a strong military presence? Will tourists still come when the country is under military rule? 

Geography

For those of you unfamiliar with the geography of Myanmar, the nation is the northwestern-most country on the mainland of Southeast Asia, strategically located near major Indian Ocean shipping lanes. Characterized by central lowlands, the Central Valley Region is ringed by steep, rugged highlands.

Hkakabo Razi, Burma’s highest mountain (and the highest mountain in Southeast Asia at 19,295 feet) is  located in the northern end of the country. It’s part of a series of parallel ranges that run from the foothills of the Himalayas.

The climate varies in the highlands from subtropical to cool alpine, depending on elevation.  Above the alpine zone, it’s cold with harsh tundra and an Arctic climate. The higher elevations are subject to heavy snowfall and bad weather. Summers in the lowlands tend to be cloudy, rainy, hot, and humid. Tropical monsoons are common. Winters are less cloudy with scant rainfall, mild temperatures, and lower humidity.

Let’s Explore

Most tourists start their exploration of Burma in Yangon.  Previously known as Rangoon, the city is a former royal capital known as the “Garden City of the East” for its lush tropical setting.  Built in 1901, the five star Strand Hotel in Yangon remains one of Southeast Asia’s few grand colonial hotels, and one of its most inspiring. It is one of only two hotels in Burma that meet international luxury standards.

While you’re in Yangon, you’ll want to be sure to see the Shwedagon Paya, one of Myanmar’s top religious sites and a true wonder of the religious world. The pagoda complex contains hundreds of stupas, statues, and temples spanning more than 2,000 years of religious art and architecture. The central tower is covered with hundreds of solid gold plates, while the top is adorned with thousands of diamonds. Relatively few tourists visit here and it is primarily a gathering place for monks, worshippers, and local families.

During the Myanmar independence movement, Shwedagon Paya was the scene for much political activity. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi spoke to massive crowds here in 1988, and the temple was also at the center of the monks’ protests in 2007.

During an earlier detainment under house arrest (1989-2010),  Suu Kyi was one of the world’s most prominent political prisoners and she was honored with many awards, including the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 and the Congressional Gold Medal in 2008. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited her in 2011, a symbolic diplomatic gesture that paved the way for President Obama’s official trip the following year.

The Road to Mandalay

If you are going to travel from Yangon to Orwell’s home in Mandalay, you have a choice to make. Will you go by boat or by car?

The Irrawaddy or Ayeyarwady River, a river that flows through Myanmar from north to south, is the country’s largest river and most important commercial waterway.  George Orwell was posted to the Irrawaddy Delta in 1924. In his time (and Rudyard Kipling’s), one traveled from Rangoon to Mandalay by paddle steamer, a journey of several days.

Now many travel from Yangon to Mandalay by car, stopping at Burma’s new city, Nay Pyi Taw along the way.The city was created in 2004 to replace Yangon as capital.  The name means “Abode of Kings,” signifying an attempt to start a new history. According to the Indian journalist Siddharth Varadarajan, Nay Pyi Taw is  

the ultimate insurance against regime change, a masterpiece of urban planning designed to defeat any putative ‘colour revolution’ — not by tanks or water cannons, but by geography and cartography.

The recent coup proved Varadarajan wrong however.  Soldiers blocked roads in the capital and in Myanmar’s main city, Yangon. Regime change was evident when the military announced that 24 ministers and deputies had been removed, and 11 replacements had been named, including in finance, health, the interior and foreign affairs.

Several temples represent the early Bagan period. First, the Temple of Gubyaukgyi of Myinkaba Village, with its well preserved colored paintings inside that date back to its construction in 1113. The temple is typical of the Mon style in that the interior is dimly lit by perforated rather than open windows. Manuha Paya, known as the Mon King Temple and built by the captive Mon King Manuha in 1067, is said to represent his view of being imprisoned. Lastly, visit Nan Paya, a rare early period Sandstone temple with the best examples of the early Bagan carvings.

You might want to take a break before you continue your exploration of the temples of the Early Period at the Shwezigon Pagoda. Shwezigon was completed in 1058 C.E. as the most important reliquary shrine in Bagan, a center of prayer and reflection for King Anawratha of the new Theravada faith. Take some time to learn about the Burmese belief in “nats” (spirits), officially replaced by Buddhism, though the belief continues among many people today.

Mandalay

From Bagan, proceed on to Mandalay where “the flyin’-fishes play.” I’ve always loved the Frank Sinatra version of the song, but never had a clue that the lyrics were actually selected verses from a poem by Rudyard Kipling. Listen to the Frank Sinatra version on YouTube below. This particular version of the song is interesting because it’s so clearly dated and incorporates some images of the British colonial presence.

Orwell’s Mandalay

Orwell’s Mandalay has been long regarded as the cultural and spiritual heart of Myanmar. Mandalay, its second largest city, is located within easy walking distance of colonial hill stations, ancient cities, and other cultural attractions.  Orwell says:

Mandalay is rather a disagreeable town . . . it is dusty and intolerably hot, and it is said to have five main products all beginning with a P, namely, pagodas, pariahs, pigs, priests, and prostitutes.

The pagodas are still here (and probably the prostitutes), but I’m not so sure about the other three.

Clearly things have changed since Orwell’s time. There’s now a five star hotel, the Sedona Hotel Mandalay, nestled on four acres of beautifully landscaped gardens, and located on the edge of the large moat that surrounds the Mandalay Palace, the last royal palace of the Burmese monarchy. 

Orwell did his police training less than a mile from the Mandalay Palace. And, like the palace , Orwell’s great trilogy of novels tracks the development of Burma. As Emma Larkin argues in her book Finding George Orwell in Burma, Burma’s colonial society was transformed through independence and the socialist coup in 1962 into a version of Animal Farm and then Nineteen Eighty-Four.

Banned for many years, Burmese Days is now celebrated. In 2012, eight decades after its initial publication, the novel won the highest literary award in Burma.

Maung Myint Kywe, the book’s translator, sees the work as “a scathing portrait of the imperious attitudes of both the British and Burmese.”  He also feels the book is a way for young people to learn the history of discrimination against the Burmese during British rule.

He says

Orwell is unbiased, even though he himself is British. He has fairly portrayed how bad the British were, as well as we Burmese too.

According to Emma Larkin, the author of Finding George Orwell in Burma, there’s a joke ‘in country’ that Orwell wrote not just one novel about the country, but three: a trilogy comprised of Burmese Days, Animal Farm, and Nineteen Eighty Four. She says: 

It is a particularly uncanny twist of fate that these three novels effectively tell the story of Burma’s recent history. The link begins with Burmese Days, which chronicles the country’s period under British colonialism. Not long after Burma became independent from Britain in 1948, a military dictator sealed off the country  from the outside world, launched ‘The Burmese Way to Socialism’, and turned Burma into one of the poorest countries in Asia. The same story is told in Orwell’s Animal Farm, an allegorical tale of a socialist revolution gone wrong in which a group of pigs overthrow the human farmers and run the farm into ruin. Finally, in Nineteen Eighty-Four, Orwell’s description of a horrifying and soulless dystopia paints a chillingly accurate picture of Burma today, a country ruled by one of the world’s most brutal and tenacious dictatorships.

It’s interesting that Nineteen Eighty-Four has long been admired by Burmese readers who are drawn to its descriptions of “official deception, secret surveillance and the manipulations of the authoritarian state.” These activities are all familiar to those who lived under Burma’s military dictatorship. In fact, Than Shwe, Burma’s former dictator was often referred to as “Big Brother,” the name given to the party leader in Nineteen Eighty-Four.

Since 2011, the regime has engaged in political and economic liberalization. The government released most political prisoners and dropped the censorship laws that were reminiscent of Orwellian totalitarianism. Nevertheless, In 2014, Myanmar was still ranked as one of the 25 most corrupt countries in the world according to Transparency International. Religious violence was mounting, peace talks with ethnic armed groups were unsuccessful, and the military continued its hold on parliament. 

Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s support of the military in their efforts against the Rohingya led many to say that she had “lost her halo.” Even before the coup, the fate of democracy in Myanmar was yet to be determined.

I’m willing to gamble that Orwell’s old residence, recently identified, will be restored. A group of artists — led by local historian (and Orwell fanatic) Nyo Ko Kaing — has launched a campaign to protect and restore Katha, the town that was the basis for the fictional Kyauktada in Burmese Days. The group wants Orwell’s home in Katha as well as the nearby European Country Club turned into tourist attractions. And the government has said that it will give the group money to convert a red-brick colonial mansion, formerly the district commissioner’s house, into a museum celebrating the author. Tourism is now a government imperative, so momentum is growing.

When Orwell made Kautha his home, he said it had “not changed greatly between the days of Marco Polo and 1910” when the British established a railway terminus. A century later, the town remains relatively isolated and hard to reach. 

Al Jazeera writes that “horse drawn Hackney carriages can still be seen whisking people past the colonial prison, school, hospital, tin-roofed church and pagoda, which (according to Orwell) “rose from the trees like a slender spear tipped with gold.” A two-story teak house  — long thought to be the  novelist’s old residence — sits on raised brick stilts across a dirt track from the tin-roofed church.  And the house has come full circle since Orwell lived there. It now belongs to a police major. I wonder if he is a writer . . . .

Note: You can read the Rudyard Kipling poem here. http://www.poetryloverspage.com/poets/kipling/mandalay.html

Photos:

Featured photo of Sule Pagoda by William (Flickr.com/photos/heyitschili)

Swedagon Paya in Yangon by Jose Javier Martin Esparto (Flickr.com/photos/druidabruxux/)

Irrawaddy River by Stephane DAMOUR

Bagan by KX Studio (Flickr.com/photos/104284854@N07/)

1984 by Christopher Dombres (Flickr.com/photos/christopherdombres/)

Orwell’s Home in Katha by podia.smith (Flickr.com/photos/36464510@N03/)

Carriage by Paul Arps (Flickr.com/photos/slapers/)

How many of you play chess or at least watched The Queen’s Gambit on Netflix?

Do you wonder if chess actually played an important role in the Cold War or do you think it’s just suggestive of the American-Russian rivalry?

Well, if you’re sick of being mired in bad news and want a little entertainment, here are two fairly recent movies and a Netflix series that can provide some insight.

The Coldest Game

The first movie, The Coldest Game, is available on Netflix. It’s a Polish Production set in Poland, but the dialogue is primarily in English. I think it’s the weakest of the offerings even though it includes lots of original footage of events surrounding the Cuban Missile Crisis.

The story revolves around an alcoholic math genius who is abducted by US officials and convinced to play in a US-Soviet chess match in 1962.

Bill Pullman does a great job in his role as Professor Manksy, and some of you may find it really enjoyable. Audiences seem to be split.

The blog decider.com says:

This is Thirteen Days crossed with Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy crossed with Searching for Bobby Fischer crossed with, um, Barfly. Or Arthur. Take your pick.

Need help deciding?

Here’s a trailer that makes it look more coherent than it is.

Pawn Sacrifice

I really enjoyed this next movie, Pawn Sacrifice, a film by Edward Zwick about Fischer’s chess match against the Soviet grandmaster Boris Spassky. You can watch the whole thing for free on YouTube.

The Fischer-Spassky match was played in Iceland in the summer of 1972 with the title of world champion at stake.

A New York Times review by Neil Genzlinger in 2015 argues that the film is only partly about Bobby Fischer.

It is equally about us — Americans or any other nationality inclined to put too much importance on chess matches, soccer matches, space races, whatever. It’s about how we manufacture celebrities on scant pretext and then destroy them, or allow them to destroy themselves while we watch.

Like The Coldest Game, the film includes original footage, illustrating that the match was treated not just as a sports event but as a symbolic showdown between the ideologies represented by the US and the Soviet Union.

Watch the trailer here.

The Queen’s Gambit

And then there’s The Queen’s Gambit – a Netflix miniseries with a 4.9 star rating out of 23,611 reviews on ‘google’.

Set during the Cold War era, orphaned chess prodigy Beth Harmon struggles with addiction in her quest to become the greatest chess player in the world.

In its review, The New Yorker Magazine calls it “the most satisfying show on television.”

I don’t play chess, so I can’t comment on the accuracy of the actual chess scenes. But I am awfully competitive, so I got too hyped up to binge watch.

The Cold War isn’t quite as overpowering here as in the other two films, but I think it gives you more of the actual atmosphere of the era.

Here’s the trailer.

All three are highly recommended for anyone who wants to turn off cable TV. How much bad news can you watch?

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Photograph by Matt on Flickr.

Are you as sick of Zoom as I am? If so, you might want to pick out a good read, grab a cup of coffee or a glass of wine, and decompress.

Here are 10 recently released books to choose from. All the books can be purchased on Amazon, and many — if not all — will be available at your local library. The books are listed in no particular order, and all have 4.4 stars or above (out of 5).

(Please note: the links will take you to Amazon and if you purchase there, Cold War Studies will receive a small donation at no extra charge to you.)

The Daughters of Yalta: The Churchills, Roosevelts, and Harrimans: A Story of Love and War (by Catherine Grace Katz) tells the story of the three intelligent and glamorous young women who accompanied their famous fathers to the Yalta Conference in February 1945, and of the conference’s fateful reverberations in the waning days of World War II.  According to Amazon

The Daughters of Yalta is a remarkable story of fathers and daughters whose relationships were tested and strengthened by the history they witnessed and the future they crafted together.

Some of you may have read Ben Macintyre’s highly acclaimed work from 2019, The Spy and the Traitor: The Greatest Espionage Story of the Cold War.  Well, he’s out with a new one titled Agent Sonya: Moscow’s Most Daring Wartime Spy.  Highly rated on Amazon, the book tells the story of Agent Sonya, a decorated intelligence agent and colonel in Russia’s Red Army, who’s living undercover as a housewife in a small English village. All that her neighbors know about her is that she makes great scones; they don’t realize she’s funneling atomic secrets from Britain and the U.S. to the Soviet Union. 

Here are two more good reads for those of you who are interested in espionage.

The Quiet Americans: Four CIA Spies at the Dawn of the Cold War–a Tragedy in Three Acts  is on my bedside table now. Authored by Scott Anderson, the author of the best seller “Lawrence in Arabia,” the book is set in the early Cold War years, an era when Washington’s fear and skepticism about the agency resembles our climate today.

The Spymasters: How the CIA Directors Shape History and the Future, written by Chris Whipple,  offers a detailed portrait of the agency and its work. Often, their biggest adversary is the federal bureaucracy. “We can overthrow foreign governments,” one official told Whipple, “but we have a more difficult time dealing with our own.” 

Not interested in espionage?  If you’re interested in technology, you might want to try Jill Lepore’s new book titled If Then: How the Simulatics Corporation Invented the Future. (It’s free with Kindle Unlimited.) In their review, the New York Times says:

Starting in 1959, a team of social scientists began work on the ‘People Machine’, trying to learn how to predict human behavior and decisions. Over time, the team did work for the Kennedy presidential campaign, the Department of Defense and The New York Times. In many ways, it was a precursor to big tech and its relentless hunger for user data: Lepore calls the company ‘Cold War America’s Cambridge Analytica’.

The period immediately after World War II was a time when millions of people were left homeless and stranded. The Last Million: Europe’s Displaced Persons from World War to Cold War by David Nasaw tells their story. Nasaw offers a broad look at how political indecision left the fate of these people in limbo for years. According to The New York Times, lingering prejudices, especially unfounded links between Jews and Communism, meant that many Nazi collaborators were resettled before Jewish Holocaust survivors.

Can’t get enough of books about JFK? Here’s a new one titled JFK: Coming of Age in the American Century, 1917-1956.  Is there anything new to learn about JFK?  Apparently Fredrik Logevall, the author seems to think so.  A Pulitzer Prize winning historian and Harvard professor, Logevall’s book is the first of a projected two-volume project.  This volume traces President John F. Kennedy’s formative years, from his childhood through his decision to run for president.

Speaking of the American Century, Stephen Wertheim’s Tomorrow The World: The Birth of U.S. Global Supremacy is also on my bedside table. So far I’ve spent a lot of time reading about the evolution of isolationism and internationalism over the course of American history. According to Wertheim, elites in the United States conceived a new role for the nation as the world’s armed superpower even before the attack on Pearl Harbor. As the Nazis conquered France, the architects of the nation’s new foreign policy came to believe that the United States ought to achieve primacy in international affairs.

Lastly, the book I’m actually most looking forward to reading, The Man Who Ran Washington: The Life and Times of James A. Baker III by the husband and wife team of Peter Baker and Susan Glasser. Acclaimed by both liberals and conservatives, the book has a full five stars on Amazon after 211 reviews. Peggy Noonan, the Wall Street Journal columnist and speech writer for Ronald Reagan states:

No one has ever captured James Baker’s historical importance and essential nature as well as Peter Baker and Susan Glasser have in this superlatively reported history. This is a history not only of a man but of late twentieth century politics in America .  .   .

As a bonus you might want to listen to The New York Times Book Review‘s podcast on The Quiet Americans and The Man Who Ran Washington.  You can find it here.

Happy Reading!!

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Photograph by Carl on Flickr

The video below is the second in a two part series that takes you quickly through the last 50 or so years of Cuba’s political and economic history.

Here are the salient points:

By 1990, when the Russians were gone, things were really tough. It was becoming very clear that the Cuban people could not sustain life at such a minimal level indefinitely.

Castro and his advisers came up with a new strategy.

Agriculture was one of three areas of focus.

Acquisition of scarce hard currency through tourism and biotechnology was also central.

The key was to develop things that would produce a high rate of return.

Cuba’s economic decision-makers wanted to allow capitalist investment and enterprise to operate within Cuba itself.

They counted on the appeal of Cuba’s beautiful beaches.

They also believed that historic attractions like Old Havana could be used to promote the tourist sector.

Prostitution has increased and inequality between those working in the dollar economy and others has become a reality.

Multiplier effects include sales of tobacco and rum.

In mid 1990, the first joint venture hotel opened in Varadero beach with profits to be split 50-50.

The hotel, built with foreign capital, had construction costs of $30 million.

The growth of the tourist industry has been accompanied by large investments in construction to enlarge hotel facilities.

By 2011 there were well over 2 million tourists, many more than before the Revolution.

Joint venture capital includes major investors from Spain, Germany, Austria, and Finland among others.

Cuba’s military is highly involved in the tourist sector.

There has been substantial construction of tourist facilities within Havana itself, which retains its position as the main tourist attraction within the country.

Old Havana, a UNESCO World Heritage site, is particularly attractive to tourists.

Old Havana, the colonial core, is known for its lovely old buildings.

Finance was centered in Old Havana in an area known as ‘little Wall Street.’ This was a symbol of North Americanization.

Most activities was centered around the various plazas.

In Havana, rather than displacing residents of the old core, the area is being redeveloped with a concern for the integration of social services and living quarters.

While commercial activities are in place on the first floor of many buildings, renovated housing is available on the upper levels.

Due to a shortage of classrooms, elementary school classes are held in the public space of recently reconstructed museums.

Joint ventures and foreign real estate investment insure that resources are available to redevelop historical commercial structures.

UNESCO continues to assist with the renovation of convents, cathedrals, and other designated buildings.

Despite strenuous US objections, tourism alone is ensuring Cuba a fair amount of success in its efforts to be reintegrated into the regional economy of Latin America and the Caribbean.

Jamaica, Mexico, and other Latin American nations are involved in substantial joint ventures related to tourism.

Other Cuban trade efforts are also meeting with regional success.

The relaxation of US sanctions would provide a definite boost to the Cuban tourism industry.

Raul says: “We have to eliminate forever the notion that Cuba is the only country in the world where one can live without working.”

He goes on to say: “Without an increase in efficiency and productivity, it is impossible to sustain definitively the enormous social expenditures of our socialist system.”

Right now Cuba’s economy is stagnant.

The real value of wages in Cuba remains at around 40% of the 1989 level.

Cuenta-Propistas — the self-employed — have become the designated saviors of the Cuban economy.

Raul diplays remarkable faith in micro-enterprise and the “Gospel of Productivity.”

The key question: Can the micro (and cooperative)-enterprise sector absorb 500,000-1,200,000 apparently redundant workers?

The Fidelista model is discredited.

We will have to wait and see what happens.

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Video by Lisa Reynolds Wolfe

(Please don’t use the contact info at the end of the video. You can always reach me at lisa@coldwarstudies.com)

I wrote this post for Cold War Magazine in 2016 when, for the first time in 88 years, an American president was visiting the island of Cuba. Now, Cuban Americans are in the news again because of their voting power in the upcoming 2020 presidential election, so I thought this would be a good time to reprint the article. The focus is on what’s been happening in Cuba since the 1959 revolution.

The video below will give you the insight you need to understand Cuba’s sociocultural, political, and economic conditions.

It is the first of two parts that will take you quickly through the last 50 or so years of Cuba’s political and economic history. (I’ll post Part Two next week.)

Here are the highlights:

Fidel Castro – popularly named “Savior of the Fatherland” and “Maximum Leader” – reached Havana on January 8, 1959.

President Batista fled Cuba very early in the morning on January 1, 1959.

Opposition to Batista first emerged in 1955. By December 1958 most Cubans despised his government.

Even the Eisenhower Administration wanted Batista out of office.

At the time of the Revolution, Havana was home to the privileged, hardworking, and marginalized.

A great deal of American investment was in the Vedado section of Havana where the Hotel Nacional was located.

In the 1950s, Havana was the center of commercialized vice, much of it underwritten by US organized crime.

The city was famous for its glitzy atmosphere.

At first everything was fine between Castro and the American government. But soon bad blood ensued.

When Cuba nationalized US petroleum properties, Eisenhower eliminated Cuba from the US sugar quota.

As the 1960s progressed, Castro was preoccupied with developing a model of socialist self-government that was uniquely Cuban.

Castro wanted to “ruralize the city” and “urbanize the countryside.”

Resources poured into rural areas for electrification and the construction of new towns.

Roads and buildings in Havana suffered from a lack of upkeep and maintenance.

In 1972, Cuba joined COMECON, the economic arm of the Soviet bloc, and in 1975 Cuba began implementing Soviet economic and planning principles.

Soviet models of economic and social planning facilitated Havana’s social, cultural, and political integration with the Soviet bloc.

1986 marked the beginning of a new period called the Period of Rectification. By this time, Cubans were disillusioned with the Soviets.

Cubans were pressuring their government to return to the core Revolutionary project with its significant gains in the status of women and blacks.

Unfortunately for Cuba, glasnost and perestroika in the Soviet Union put an end to any hoped for reforms.

In 1990, with the end of the Cold War, Cuba entered a challenging period known as The Special Period (of War) in Time of Peace.

Cuba had an oil driven economy and 98% of the island’s petroleum came from the Soviet bloc.

Aside from oil, 66% of Cuba’s food, 86% of all raw material, and 80% of machinery and spare parts came from Soviet dominated trading partners.

Factory closures became common, food scarcity was widespread, and the already inadequate technology base began eroding.

Exports were also affected since 66% of Cuba’s sugar, 73% of the island’s nickel, and 98% of the country’s citrus fruits had been exported to the Soviet bloc.

Cuba’s abandonment by the USSR was further complicated by a tightening of US sanctions.

Things were very tough. Learn more in Part II.

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Video by Lisa Reynolds Wolfe

(Please don’t use the contact info at the end of the video. You can always reach me at lisa@coldwarstudies.com)