In the Pirate’s Den

In 1964, at age seven, Jorge Masetti was informed by a Cuban colonel that his father had died gloriously leading a guerrilla band in Argentina. By the age of sixteen, Masetti had left Havana to follow in his father’s footsteps, fighting as an urban revolutionary in Buenos Aires. Two years later, he was back in Cuba for a course in “conspiratorial methods.” Then he joined the notorious Americas Department, entering what he calls “the pirate’s den” as a secret agent for Fidel Castro. In this riveting book, Masetti takes the reader inside the war room of the Cuban revolution. His life involved international revolutionary intrigue: smuggling diamonds and ivory; counterfeiting U.S. dollars; trafficking in narcotics. He served in Angola and other war zones in the 1980s. He was an advisor with groups such as the M-19 guerrillas in Columbia and the Sandinistas. Masetti’s first hand account at times seems to have come from a Le Carre novel. But his story is true. In addition to shedding light on the machinations of the Castro government, it is also a compelling story of a crisis in a revolutionary faith. In the Pirate’s Den is the result of that painful introspection, a page turning chronicle of a remarkable journey into and out of the Cuban revolution.