October 15th, 2012
10:08 AM ET
A return to ground zero of the Cuban missile crisis
By Patrick Oppmann, reporting from Cuba
Fifty years ago, 15-year-old Omar Lopez knew a secret that governments around the world would have killed to learn or safeguard: Soviet troops were building hidden military installations in Cuba.
One of those installations was on the farm where his family raised chickens and pigs.
In 1962, Fidel Castro's revolution was just beginning to reshape Cuba. Thousands of Cubans had fled the country, and the year before, Castro's troops had routed a U.S.-backed invasion at the Bay of Pigs.
But little of the drama of those times reached the remote Lopez farm in western Cuba, where palm trees vastly outnumber human residents.
@natlsecuritycnn on Twitter
The one bright spot to come out of all this is the SALT-1 treaty 9 months later and closer relations between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. Moreover, we sorely need to normalize relations with Cuba ourselves. The current policy toward Cuba is like a blighted tree waiting to be cut down!!! I say, down with the cursed Helms-Burton law!!!