Recent BooksMarch/April 2020 179in uence o the European Union—all
conditions largely absent from Cuba.
The animosity o Washington doesn’t
help: subject to prolonged U.S.
hostility, many Cubans view liberal
democracy and free-market capitalism
with deep mistrust.Ghosts of Sheridan Circle: How a
Washington Assassination Brought
Pinochet’s Terror State to Justice
BY ALAN MCPHERSON. University o
North Carolina Press, 2019, 392 pp.On September 21, 1976, the secret
police o the Chilean dictator Augusto
Pinochet assassinated Orlando Letelier,
a former ambassador and a leader o
the opposition in exile, and his col-
league, Ronni Mott, in broad day-
light on Embassy Row, in Washington,
D.C. Drawing heavily on previously
published accounts, McPherson re-
traces the many twists and turns o the
lengthy joint U.S.-Chilean investiga-
tion to identify and prosecute the
perpetrators. The brazen violation o
American national sovereignty,
McPherson argues, as much as the
violation o human rights, shook the
U.S. government. The Letelier case
established important precedents in
international human rights law. There
are many heroes in this account,
including tenacious U.S. government
attorneys, alert U.S. diplomats, and
dogged pro bono lawyers, but Letelier’s
widow, Isabel, stands out for her
intrepid, relentless activism. Arguably,
the strong U.S. response served as a
deterrent to other would-be political
assassins: the killing o Letelier remains
the only state-sponsored assassination
o a foreign diplomat on U.S. soil.lled promises” are reason enough to
dismantle open, democratic capitalist
systems. Hard-pressed democratic
governments will have to judiciously
select their priorities, leaving a lot for
future generations to accomplish.Paths for Cuba: Reforming Communism in
Comparative Perspective
EDITED BY SCOTT
MORGENSTERN, JORGE PÉREZ£
LÓPEZ, AND JEROME BRANCHE.
University o Pittsburgh Press, 2019,
408 pp.Revolutionary Cuba is ironically
among the more static political sys-
tems on earth. To imagine what a new
Cuba might eventually look like, the
contributors to this thoughtful collec-
tion examine the factors that have
driven change in other one-party
authoritarian systems. They paint a
rather melancholy picture. Cuba has
some advantages: an educated and
low-wage workforce, a capable state,
and proximity to dynamic economies,
nearby democracies, and a prosperous
Cuban diaspora in the United States.
But Cuba seems unlikely to follow the
path o China and Vietnam, commu-
nist countries that found prosperity in
opening up their closed markets. The
economies o China and Vietnam only
blossomed once elites agreed to
programs o reform; Cuban conserva-
tives have resisted even the most
modest market-oriented measures.
The relative success stories o for-
merly communist countries in eastern
Europe demonstrate the benet o
having a historical tradition o democ-
racy, an independent civil society, and,
most important, the liberalizing21_Recent Books_Blues.indd 179 1/20/20 5:11 PM