Some Americans embrace their lives in Cuba Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit source - originally from Jose Pertierra Comments from Walter Lippmann : ~Mike Fuller teaches advanced English conversation at the Jose Marti International School of Journalism in Havana. There's a wonderful website describing some of his experiences at NY Transfer News site: While Lorna Burdsall was married to Manuel Piniero, she did divorce him many years ago, and he later married Chilean political analyst Marta Harnecker, who is more properly described as Piniero's widow... Harnecker is the author of several books, including FIDEL CASTRO'S POLITICAL STRATEGY and CUBA: DICTATORSHIP OR DEMOCRACY. - Walter Lippmann * Some Americans embrace their lives in Cuba, holding to socialist ideals By PAISLEY DODDS The Associated Press 4/21/02 12:15 PM HAVANA (AP) -- The wall of windows at Lorna Burdsall's seventh floor apartment overlooks a bay ringed by trash. The vintage red elevator, installed before Fidel Castro seized power, is decrepit. Still, the American widow of "Red Beard" -- the socialist revolutionary who went on to become Cuba's top intelligence chief -- says her 47 years in the Caribbean country have given her few complaints. "The heat is one of the few things that I haven't gotten used to in Cuba," says Burdsall, 73, apologizing for not hearing the doorbell at first because she had retreated to her air-conditioned bedroom. Burdsall, who moved to Cuba from New York in 1955, is one of more than a dozen Americans who call this communist island home, still clinging to the ideals of a socialist revolution as capitalism expands its hold around the globe. "I would like to be a good communist, but I don't think they exist," the white-haired fiery grandmother says. "Socialism, however, is a good step toward that perfect society; it's an interim." Her sentiment is rare in a time of fading allegiances to the left. Since the collapse of communism and the rise of globalization, leftists around the world have struggled to maintain unity, and in the United States, that challenge has deepened since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. "The left has been limping along for decades but whatever legs it had were lost with the collapse of the Soviet Union," said Amitai Etzioni, a sociologist at George Washington University who specializes in American culture. "Leftists are looking for a place for their beliefs and Cuba is one of the last hopes, a remnant of communism." In Burdsall's sparse apartment on the outskirts of Havana, there are no outward signs of her revolutionary life except for faded pictures of herself with Cuban leader Fidel Castro, Argentine revolutionary Che Guevara and her husband, Manuel Pineiro, known as "Barbarroja" for the thick red beard he grew while a guerrilla in the Sierra Maestra. The Cuba that Burdsall now calls home is a world away from the place she discovered after marrying Pineiro, whose older brothers owned a distributing agency for Hatuey beer and Bacardi rum. He was studying business administration at Columbia University when he met her. "He was dancing the most fabulous mambo," Burdsall recalls. After marrying him, Burdsall put her career as a dancer on hold to follow her husband and his dream of starting a revolution in Cuba. Shortly after their arrival, Pineiro was engrossed in the pro-Castro underground working to overthrow the dictator Fulgencio Batista. "When we came, it was very dangerous," she says. "We moved around a lot. The conditions were terrible. I remember ants in the soup and staying in places where the rats would eat my high-heeled shoes." Burdsall became pregnant and before long, was keeping weapons and ammunition in her baby's room. The guns -- like her husband -- eventually ended up in the Sierra Maestra where Castro and his rebels were training to overthrow Batista. Two years after their victory in 1959, Pineiro was named deputy minister of the interior and went on to head Cuba's security and intelligence operations. He later helped train leftist groups throughout Latin America. "He was completely committed to the revolution," she says. Burdsall resumed her own career in dance, founding the Compania Danza Contemporanea and becoming national director of dance and modern dance under the culture ministry. She traveled frequently back and forth to the United States and eventually divorced Pineiro after 20 years of marriage. He died three years ago. Today, although still committed to her husband's dreams, Burdsall openly criticizes Cuba. She says low wages and a dependency on U.S. dollars has forced some doctors -- who earn the equivalent of $20 a month -- to work as piano players to earn the coveted currency. She also says the dependency on the state has led to complacency in some sectors. "In the United States, you're selling lemonade when you're 7 years old." But she believes the good outweighs the bad. "I think that if Manuel were alive today he would say that most of the things they set out to accomplish in the revolution were achieved, particularly in the areas of education, medicine and the arts, but it's only logical that some would be disappointed with the way some things turned out." Michael Fuller's journey to Cuba in 1994 was motivated by politics, not love. He came as a member of the "solidarity brigades," an international group dedicated to helping Cubans that he joined while living in Spain. "I thought about returning to Spain but all things pointed to me staying. My very presence was an act of solidarity," says the 37-year-old native of Syracuse, N.Y. He lives in Tarara, a town 14 miles east of Havana where more than 15,000 children and adults affected by Ukraine's 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster have received medical treatment. Fuller, who now works as a writer and teacher, says he's committed to Cuba's communist policies. "I eat great. I don't miss ownership and I have come to accept the philosophy," he says. "I suppose I could use a car, but I don't miss the commercials on TV and I've gained serenity here. I've also gained a family and faith in the future." Fuller criticizes U.S. perceptions of Cuba. "Some still refer to Cuba as a regime but it's too fun to be a regime. I don't rule out returning to the United States someday but for now there really is no reason." Another Cuba convert is Philip Agee, who became famous for his 1975 tell-all book about his years with the CIA. Now 66, the small, soft-spoken native of Tampa, Fla., had his American passport revoked in 1979 after being ruled a threat to U.S. national security. He entered Cuba on a German travel document and has opened a travel agency to entice foreign tourists. "A long time ago I was in the business of telling lies for the CIA. Today, I'm trying to dispel some of those lies," he says. ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytact-04.22.02-20:24:14-14152