Covert City

The Cold War and the Making of Miami

By: Vince Houghton, Eric Driggs

Narrated by: Eric Driggs, Vince Houghton

Secret operations, corruption, crime, and a city teeming with spies: why Miami was as crucial to winning the Cold War as Washington DC or Moscow.

The Cuban Missile Crisis was perhaps the most dramatic and dangerous period of the Cold War. What's less well known is that the city of Miami, mere miles away, was a pivotal, though less well known, part of Cold War history. With its population of Communist exiles from Cuba, its strategic value for military operations, and its lax business laws, Miami was an ideal environment for espionage.

Covert City tells the history of how the entire city of Miami was constructed in the image of the US-Cuba rivalry. From the Bay of Pigs invasion to the death of Fidel Castro, the book shows how Miami is a hub for money and cocaine but also secrets and ideologies. Cuban exiles built criminal and political organizations in the city, leading Washington to set up a CIA station there, codenamed JMWAVE. It monitored gang activities, plotted secret operations against Castro, and became a base for surveilling Latin American neighbors. The money and infrastructure built for the CIA was integral to the development of Miami.

Covert City is a sweeping and entertaining history, full of stunning experimental operations and colorful characters--a story of a place like no other.

Entertaining history to understand Cuban exiles

My generation grew up hearing some wild stories about Cuba before, during, and after the revolucion. Personally, this book confirmed a couple of them. There's a handful of entertaining books that deal with the history of the Cuban revolution from the outsiders perspective; like TJ English books on the American mob in Cuba and the CIA-trained Cuban exile mafia, as well as Annie Jacobsen book on CIA paramilitary operations. This book belongs right beside them as it beautifully describes the local mythos which still drives the political psychology of most Cuban exile boomers living in the USA, and is very well researched without becoming boring and academic. Worth the read.

The final chapter

Interesting historical account of Miami. Kind of hard to follow at some points but overall good.

A good overview about Miami history

I should start by saying I am a native Floridian that lived and recalled many of the chapters in this book. Saying that, I believe this to be a good primer for younger readers that are studying the Cold War and Cubans that came to Miami in the early 60s. I also believe this to be a vanilla treatment of much of the darker side of Miami during the same period. This was touched on more in the last chapters but escaped from recounting how crime masked freedom fighting and conversely how freedom fighting complimented crime when Miami was the murder capital of the US. Nonetheless this work should be required reading for students of cold War history regardless of their profession. Well done to the authors.

An American view on Cuba history and bad ending

The authors provided a decent overview of the events of the cold war in Cuba, however its obviously spun into a narrative supporting the good exiles, flossing over the criminal exiles, declining to address Cubans who actually wanted to stay in their country, and seemingly missed a further analysis on the future of Cuba.

This is to be anticipated as the authors were children of exiles, however interviews or opinion from actual Cubans would have added value.

Also and most unfortunately, the final chapter was very hastily added and seemingly was only meant to trash President Trump and provide face value social media analysis on south American events post 2020. obviously written before 2024 where the Steele Dossier has been debunked, liberals attempted to assassinate a presidential candidate and completely glossed over left wing movements dumping Latin Americans over the US border.

The ending made me reanalyze the entire book and begin to see the authors spin and perhaps lack of proper analysis on a book about intelligence operations in the cold war.

List to this

The book is not only fascinating, but very unbiased. As a Cuban American, who lives in South Florida, I can appreciate all angles told about my great community. You could literally write multiple movie scripts and documentaries from every chapter.