In short supply in Gott's book are the various perspectives of Cuba's exiles--no small oversight, as about one-tenth of the population has fled. Also, we do not get a clear sense of the complex and crushing triangulation among Castro, exiles and US politics. In May, just in time for the 2004 election season, the Bush Administration announced its new policy on Cuba--drafted by a handpicked team of hardliners. The new policy virtually ends all educational travel to Cuba, slices remittances to relatives on the island and limits family visits for exiles from one per year to one every three years. Travel is now limited only to parents and children, with aunts, uncles and cousins no longer considered "family"--a blow to most Cubans, who value extended families.

Around the same time, Americans learned how their tax dollars earmarked for the "war on terrorism" were being spent. A Treasury Department report noted that it employed four investigators to hunt for the funds of Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein as opposed to twenty-one to chase after Cuba embargo violators.

Among those prosecuted have been a 75-year-old grandmother from San Diego who took a bicycling trip in Cuba, an Indiana Christian academy teacher who delivered Bibles there and the son of missionaries who traveled there to spread his parents' ashes at the site of the church they founded fifty years ago. Since 1990 OFAC, the Treasury division charged with handling sanction violations, had investigated only ninety-three cases related to terrorism and, since 1994, had collected $9,425 in related fines. This compared with 10,683 cases against travelers to Cuba, for which $8 million in fines was collected. In an unguarded interview in GQ magazine, Colin Powell's chief of staff, Larry Wilkerson, opined on the use of sanctions against Cuba as the "dumbest policy on the face of the earth. It's crazy."

The restrictive new policy, however, was a triumph for Mario and Lincoln Diaz-Balart, the two exile brother Congressmen from Miami. Gott gives us the bare-bones background of the Castro/Diaz-Balart relationship, but not enough to understand how much this bitter family feud has poisoned US-Cuba relations. In 1948 Fidel Castro married his best friend Rafael Diaz-Balart'ssister, Mirta (whom he later divorced). A year later their son was born and christened Fidel Castro Diaz-Balart, a remarkable oxymoronic apellido (last name) uniting two warring families in one name. The Diaz-Balarts were powerful ministers in Batista's government--and Batista's close friends and neighbors--upon whom Castro would soon declare war.

Rafael would have four sons, two of whom--Lincoln and Mario--inherited their father's passion for politics. Lincoln is among Castro's most implacable and bellicose enemies and led the crusade to keep Elián González in the United States. During his political career, Lincoln has called for a naval blockade of Cuba and military force to be used against his former uncle, and even suggested on Miami television this year that the assassination of Castro was a good idea.

About 60 percent of Cuban-Americans in the United States arrived after the 1980 Mariel boat exodus. According to two recent polls, one conducted by Florida International University and the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, the other by Bendixen & Associates, members of this group tend to view themselves primarily as economic, not political, refugees. For them, family comes first, then issues of freedom in Cuba. Unlike the first wave of exiles, these more recent arrivals reject any policy of confrontation with the island that could bring harm or added hardship to their families still in Cuba. High on their agenda is unfettered travel to Cuba, along with the ability to send unlimited cash to their families. True, they do not turn out to vote as strongly as first-wave exiles, but they make up one-third of the Cuban-American vote. But that one-third can swing a presidential election--as Bill Clinton proved in 1996.

John Kerry, as cautious a politician as they come, saw an opening and has ambled over to it. With his eye on that crucial one-third slice of Cuban votes, he criticized the policy as antifamily and encouraged more travel. If he plays his cards right--a big if--he could peel off just enough Cuban voters to carry Florida on November 2.

But again, exile politics really do not figure much in Gott's history. To my mind, that's a huge omission.

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