One day last spring, while walking along the breakwater in the once fashionable western section of Havana, I spotted a pair of massive high-rise buildings facing the ocean on an isolated promontory. "What are they?" I asked my Cuban companion. "Those are the living quarters of Soviet and East European technicians and their families," he said.
What did he think, I asked, of Soviet "influence" on Cubans and the Cuban Revolution? "It doesn't exist," he replied....