Childhood Forgotten
A Memoir
Author Rodolfo A. Cartas’ search for the untold facts behind his father’s political assassination uncovers the naked truth: the true effects of international covert operations and government cover-ups on a prominent Cuban family.
They were the good old days, a golden childhood on a paradise island.
It was also a time of terror, clandestine operations, and mindless violence.
When his world is in chaos, what is a child to do?
Saturday, May 29, 1976. Jesus Gonzalez Cartas, a former Cuban politician, is assassinated in Miami. At the time of his execution-style slaying, the city was already rocked by the murder of three other exiled anti-communist leaders, besieged by police corruption, foreign spies, and ravaged by organizations violently competing to overthrow Cuba’s communist regime. What his son, Rodolfo A. Cartas, did not know was that his father’s funeral and residence had been meticulously choreographed to appear to be what they were not. He would also eventually learn that all those who knew of his death and provided statements to the police had but one thing in common:
THEY ALL LIED.
Engulfed in a labyrinth of lies, espionage, corruption, and conspiracies, Rodolfo struggles to find answers to his estranged father’s unsolved murder. When no one would tell the truth, and everything is manipulated to appear what they were not, how can one ever find the answers?
Armed with one half of a torn United States dollar bill, the only piece of property found on his father’s body, and the vague stories of an affluent childhood, Rodolfo uncovers recently declassified documents that included official CIA, FBI, embassy despatches, U.S. State Department memorandums, and police investigation reports. When the facts are unearthed, the untold stories of a privileged life and the truth of his father’s homicide began to be unraveled, revealing the story of a man’s life that a historian called a political gangster more capable of violence than oratory.
What started as a quest for answers about the murder of a father ends instead with a search for solace from a forgotten childhood. Narrated with the innocence of a child, Childhood Forgotten captures the glamorous life of a lost paradise. More than that, writing with introspection, it draws the reader into an explosive psychological detective story interweaving a boy’s whimsical life with his father’s real-life cloak-and-dagger role with Cuba‘s dictator Fulgencio Batista, communist leader Fidel Castro, and the John F. Kennedy administration during the international political intrigues of the Cold War era. It is a true-life story of political forces that explores the appalling impact of global political conflicts on a proud family and the search to find meaning from it all.
“Childhood Forgotten is a terrific book. The combination of a boy’s innocence, an opulent environment, and the constant threat of terror make it a compelling and heartbreaking read.” Penny Perry, Selling Pencils, and Charlie
Peek inside Childhood Forgotten (coming soon) to read some sample chapters
Childhood Forgotten is a white-hot adventure that caters to the true or unsolved crime reader, those intrigued by Cuban politics, CIA conspiracy theorists, those fascinated by mysterious true stories, the readers of the plight of immigrant children, and those interested in the resiliency of children in overcoming traumatic events. It explores the root basis for current headline news driving American politics and international affairs. Furthermore, it appeals to the more than one million Cubans and their descendants to have immigrated to the United States and continue to influence presidential elections to this day.
Click here to hear when it is released. I would love to hear your thoughts!