U.S. envoy recalls her ‘dog days’ with Castro

Avoid ‘Hoodlestone’
Years later, in the fall of 1999, when I proudly walked through the gates of the United States Interests Section in Havana as its new leader, I already I knew that I could influence, but not change, Cuba. Change only comes from Castro. But maybe — just maybe — I could make a difference by helping the Cuban people.

Things started off pretty badly when a furious Castro appeared on television to warn the Cuban people to beware of the new chief of the Interests Section.

During a two- or three-hour television appearance Castro explained how the SINA — the Spanish initials for the Interests Section, which somehow come out sounding like CIA —and I had disrupted the visit of then-Illinois Gov. George Ryan by arranging a meeting with Cuban dissidents.

“This woman, Hoodlestone, is making a lot of trouble,” complained Castro. Someone offstage whispered, “Huddleston,” prompting Castro to spell my name out slowly, letter-by-letter, “H-U-D-D-L-E-S-T-O-N. Just as I said,” he proudly continued, “Hoodlestone.”  I thought this was all pretty ridiculous until I began traveling around the island, and understood. Every hotel clerk, maid, and casual acquaintance knew who I was, and that I was to be avoided.

Then Elian Gonzales, the 5-year-old boy rescued from an inner tube after his mother and her companions drowned in the Florida Straits, changed the dynamic. I was to become the go-between.

Elian becomes a a cause célèbre
Castro had just the issue he needed to torment Cuban Americans. As one fiery exile explained, “We know we are being had, but we just can’t help ourselves.”

As for me, I believed — as did the Clinton administration — that Elian should be returned to his father. But how? Little Elian had quickly become the repository of all the longings and frustrations of Miami’s Cuban American community. How could our government return him to the communist island they had escaped and give Castro yet another victory?

I told Castro’s point man, Ricardo Alarcon, that we were committed to returning Elian; but that didn’t stop Castro from using him to reinvigorate and renew the revolution. Castro had an issue, and, for once, every Cuban in Cuba agreed with him. Through Elian he would show the world just how foolish the exiles were, and how foolish the U.S. government was for listening to them.

At first, hundreds, then thousands, and then hundreds of thousands of Cubans marched outside the Interests Section. During a particularly large demonstration led by Castro, I put a large Haitian papier-mâché lion’s head on the balcony of my fifth floor office. After all, Castro’s a Leo. 

When he looked up, he seemed to stumble in surprise. Raul Castro, his brother, for his part, just glared. Soon thereafter the Communist Party newspaper Granma published photos — not of the lion, but of my staff and I watching events from what Castro had dubbed the “Glass Palace.”

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