When one thinks of a Cold War-era metropolis, dreary London, drab D.C., or snowy Moscow probably come to mind. By contrast, sunny Miami is more likely to conjure images of beaches and piña coladas, and, if you’re from a certain era, the actor Don Johnson in a pastel shirt and a white suit with shoulder pads. But as Vince Houghton and Eric Driggs show in Covert City: The Cold War and the Making of Miami, the town was more than a tropical playground. Rather it was—indeed still is—a veritable den of spies.
For decades, Cold War historians have given the "Magic City" short shrift. To the extent that Miami appears in their narratives it is often but a brief passage or two on the role that the locale played in the Cuban Missile Crisis. But the truth is far more interesting.
Miami, Houghton and Driggs argue, is inseparable from a full understanding of the Cold War. Indeed, it was "built by those who were there to keep tabs on our adversaries. … The Miami of today was built by the need for tactical and strategic intelligence, to warn American leaders of an impending attack, or to help them win when war became the only option." It is, they note, "a city built by spies." This might sound hyperbolic, but it makes a lot of sense. One only needs to look at a map to see why.
Miami has a "direct line of sight to both Latin America and Europe." It is, in key respects, a cultural and geographic crossroads, sitting at the nexus of different worlds. Many of the very reasons that make the town a popular tourist destination make it a favorite for spies. Nor is this a modern development.
As the authors note, more than half a century before Fidel Castro came to power, the Cuban patriot Jose Marti used Miami to gin up support for the cause of Cuban independence from colonial Spain. Marti would die on a battlefield in 1895. But the fight for his cause—a free and fair Cuba—would live on. And Miami would play a starring role in the drama.
When Castro deposed longtime Cuban leader Fulgencio Batista in 1959, thousands of Cubans fled. Many of them wound up in Miami, forever changing both the city’s landscape, and the nation itself. Castro soon cozied up to the Soviet Union, presenting the United States with a national security threat a mere 100 miles from its shores.
The CIA was late to the game. Initially, the agency sent down a single officer who, desperate for sources, literally put his name in the phone book in a bid to establish contacts. Soon, however, Miami was crawling with spooks. And for good reason—dozens of dissident groups had been established in the city, many eventually receiving various levels of agency support.
"Only a few years after the Revolution took power in Cuba," Covert City notes, "the number of Cuban exile organizations, most of them based in Miami, required the CIA’s authoring of the Cuban Counterrevolutionary Handbook, a guide for overwhelmed CIA personnel trying to navigate the dizzying number of counterrevolutionary groups. The handbook listed 415 organizations." Elements of an estimated 119 separate "movements," 72 "fronts," and 22 "armies" found themselves cobbled together in the "Magic City."
Some of these groups began running guns and ammunition to the island as early as 1960. They hoped to fuel sabotage attempts on the island. For years, many would plan, even train for, an invasion of Cuba, envisioning a D-Day-type scenario where they could reclaim their country from tyranny. Indeed, in September 1960, the naval office of a "Cuban Navy in exile" began operations in Miami, forming task forces to better prepare for an invasion. By November, many had established contacts with the CIA.
Many of these groups included former Cuban Army officers—even former politicians. They came from all walks of life, ranging in age from teenagers to men in their 60s. All "felt this was a duty, a calling to rescue their country from autocratic rule and to restore democracy in Cuba." It was, the authors observe, "deeply personal."
Houghton and Driggs recount the bravery of many of these men while also noting the varying levels of support they’d receive from the U.S. government.
One such group, the Cuban Revolutionary Council, would receive as much as $90,000 a month from Washington—a not-inconsiderable sum in those days. For a time, the CRC even had direct access to senior White House aides and the president. Soon training camps began popping up in Miami, the Everglades, and Florida Keys, where exiles practiced for the inevitable invasion of Castro’s Cuba. On several occasions, bewildered park rangers would accidentally stumble across well-armed Cuban men practicing military maneuvers, prompting panicked calls to Langley.
The CIA even established a headquarters in Miami, located in Coral Gables, not far from Miami International Airport. In agency-lingo it was known as JMWAVE, but its cover story was that it was "Zenith Technical Enterprise." Eventually, "hundreds of millions of dollars of government money rushed into Miami to maintain this mission." The CIA controlled more than 50 front companies in Miami, many with nondescript names like "Actos Technology," the "Pacific Corporation," and "Vanguard Service."
At its height, the agency was pumping the annual equivalent of $500 million into the city. As the authors note, "this inflow of money funded purchases all over the Miami area: land for training camps, marinas, hunting camps, airlines, safe houses, leasing firms, transportation, publishing offices, boat shops, merchant shipping, travel agencies and more."
In the 1960s, the CIA was one of the largest employers in Miami, with hundreds of Cuban exiles on the payrolls, and a thousand contractors. They even had three or four people on staff whose exclusive job was to handle real estate, managing the numerous front companies that the agency created.
Accordingly, it is no small exaggeration to say that the CIA helped build modern Miami. The scope of the agency’s involvement is breathtaking. But over time, a lot of that support would dry up. The fallout from the failed Bay of Pigs invasion and the Cuban Missile Crisis largely ended agency ambitions to overthrow the Castro regime, leaving many exiles in the lurch.
Yet Miami continued to play an important role in the Cold War. As the authors detail, plots were hatched to assassinate or discredit Castro—some involving the Mafia, beautiful women, and unsurprisingly quite a few mistakes. None were successful.
Covert City: The Cold War and the Making of Miami
by Vince Houghton and Eric Driggs
PublicAffairs, 256 pp., $30
Sean Durns is a Washington, D.C.-based foreign affairs analyst.
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