In April 1963 the Cuban leader Fidel Castro bluntly asked James Donovan, the U.S. representative of the Cuban Families Committee for the Prisoners of War (CFC), responsible for negotiating the release of prisoners of the U.S.-backed Bay of Pigs invasion on the south coast of Cuba, “if any relations were to commence between the U.S. and Cuba, how it would come about?” An expert Cold War negotiator, Donovan replied by questioning whether Castro knew how porcupines make love. Castro said he did not know, and Donovan explained, “well, the answer is ‘very carefully’, and that's how you and the U.S. would have to get into this” (pp. 66, 67).
Probably neither Donovan nor Castro imagined back in 1963 that caution would not be sufficient to bring about normalization in relations between the United States and Cuba. Fifty-five years would pass before diplomatic relations were restored and the trade embargo imposed...