Admittedly, it looks a lot like a movie plot. A political thriller where the intelligence director of the chief adversary state comes into the nervous capital city and meets with regime leaders to tell them their days in power are numbered. Unless…
Then, a week later, a US Federal Court in Miami, Florida, indicts a key military leader for the murder of US citizens 30 years earlier in a long-forgotten attack on civilian planes.
CIA Director John Radcliffe recently visited Havana to tell leaders of the communist government that their time was nearly up. During his surprising and stunningly candid visit to the Cuban capital, the US side met with key Cuban officials, including "Raulito" Rodriguez Castro, Minister of Interior Lazaro Alvarez Casas and the head of Cuban intelligence services, to "personally deliver President Trump's message that the United States is prepared to seriously engage on economic and security issues, but only if Cuba makes fundamental changes".
Raulito is the grandson of former president Raúl Castro, 94, who has been indicted by the US Department of Justice (DoJ) for conspiracy to kill US nationals and other crimes. Raúl is the younger brother of former caudillo Fidel Castro, who ruled Cuba from 1959 to 2008.
Mr Radcliffe brought along a special guest to the Havana meeting: a senior paramilitary operative involved in the capture of Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela. The connection was clear; Mr Maduro, a longtime political comrade of the Castros and petroleum benefactor to Cuba, was toppled and spirited into the arms of the DoJ in New York. Cuba had been a longtime security and intelligence backer of Venezuela's Marxist "Bolivarian Revolution" from the personalistic/populist regime of Hugo Chavez through Mr Maduro.
When the DoJ indicted Raúl Castro word was out age does not have an expiration date for those accused of killing American civilians; in this case Raúl Castro was Cuban defence minister during the "Brothers to the Rescue" incident, now a generation ago, in February 1996, when the Cuban-American pilots flew small Cessna aircraft into Havana's airspace only to be shot down by high performance Cuban military Mig 29s. Four Cuban-Americans were killed.
Former US ambassador to the UN Madeleine Albright held a terse and tough Cold War vibe press conference on Feb 27, which this correspondent vividly recalls her as naming and blaming the perpetrators of this airborne outrage. The cockpit transcripts of the attackers and the vulgar banter between the pilots willfully engaged in the illegal action of shooting down two American-registered civilian aircraft.
Then there's the old adage: Cuba is "frozen in time", circa late 1950s. Even the Russians don't subsidise it anymore. Yet since the Castro communist takeover in 1958, the enduring nostalgia of 1950s American chrome cars mixed alongside old Soviet Ladas has a certain charm, that's for the tourists who are going home, but far less so for the long-suffering Cuban people stuck by the system of Socialist brigades, mobilisations and mandatory/volunteer pro-regime cheer rallies.
Despite the US trade embargo on the island since 1960, Cuba survived. But without serious Russian, Chinese or Venezuelan economic and military support, to say that Cuba is a failed state is to state the obvious. Food and electric power shortages have now become endemic, and with the cutoff of Venezuelan oil, the economy has come to a grim standstill.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated on the anniversary of Cuban Independence Day, "The reason you are forced to survive 22 hours a day without electricity is not due to an oil 'blockade' by the US…The real reason you don't have electricity, fuel or food is because those who control your country have plundered billions of dollars, but nothing has been used to help the people."
He added, "30 years ago, Raúl Castro founded a company called GAESA. This company is owned and operated by the Armed Forces, and has revenues three times greater than your current government's budget... GAESA profits from hotels, construction, banks, stores… everything passes through their hands".
Earlier, the US State Department reiterated that the US will provide Cuba with $100 million in humanitarian assistance and support for satellite internet "if the Cuban regime will permit it".
The aid will apparently be distributed through Catholic Church networks.
Sunset often comes quickly after a spectacular last flash of orange-red brightness over the Caribbean Sea. Political sunset is fast approaching for the heirs to the Castro regime in Havana.
John J Metzler is a United Nations correspondent covering diplomatic and defence issues.
