After Chacho, my husband, told me the story about his parents and his life my first thought was that I had to write the book about that amazing story. Write a book? That is no easy task, even if it is the first or the second one. It is a rigorous and never ending process. After seven years in the making I realized that a book is always alive, always bringing new brushes to the already stories.
My expertise and passion had been Strategy and Design all my life. I am a strategist at heart and I love it. I have only Plan A, no Plan B. If Plan A doesn't work, I move to the next Plan A. Now it was about developing my story telling skills into what it is called a book, a different animal of what I was used to. However, they have things in common. Using Strategy, Design Thinking and Cultural Intelligence I was able to start the writing.
The runway from a narrative of Strategy and Design, to a human narrative about life and history. A narrative in the confluence of oral history, memory, research, the role of women, creativity, fashion, honor, identity, morality, immorality, balls, ships, uniforms and disguises, architecture and places, espionage and romance. A complex mix.
The first challenge was the timeline. As a strategist and storyteller for brands, people, and places, a timeline lets you see, as a forensic scientist or an anthropologist, in one snapshot, the pieces, the bones, the evidence of the whole story as it becomes a full skeleton. There is a huge research process here, both from history as well as oral history.
Oral history is key to determining a character's personality, layers of values, mysteries, and secrets. I interviewed 31 people who know or used to work with Olga and Tomás. I had to write their answers since if I had a recording device, I knew they wouldn't tell me everything I needed, or they would hide some conflicting information that I also needed. There is only one person who wished to use a code name since he is still probably working in intelligence, and he knows too much.
I decided also to tell everyone I knew about the story and the book I was writing, and that was a great idea since everyone in one way or another knew someone who was involved or had been there at the time of the story.
The second challenge was the title. It had to be original and somehow tell the story in a few words-the 60 seconds elevator pitch, as they call it. The title helped me determine the strategy and the development of the book, the chapters, the characters, and the content. I decided to make a fake cover of my book with the decided title, "The Admiral, The Ballerina and Mr. Switche," and stuck it on a real book to convince me that publishing a book was something possible. That cover helped me start writing too as a designer worked on a real cover.
From left: Chacho, Olga, Chacho's brother Enrique, Jean Luena Mestres with husband and CIA Agent, Lee G. Mestres. At the Miami Military Academy.
Olga and the children; Olguita, Chacho and Enrique, in exile after Trujillo's assasination. En garde on the left, their assigned CIA bodyguard.
The first sentence Chacho said when we started talking about the book and his parents. There were some hard feelings but also a sense of intrigue and urge to learn why. The first oral history was taken first hand.
Olga's closet where Chacho found US military weapons: one of the M-1 for the Trujillo assassination, Olga's Pistol PPK and Tomas' Revolver, caliber 38, hiding in a secret compartment below Olga's shoes.
The timeline, at the end, measured 7ft tall by 14ft long. It was rigurous research that combined documents, photographs, books, articles, declassified FBI and CIA documents, ships logs, key people, and pieces of oral history.
With the timeline done, the story's complexity called for a master storyteller. For three years, every October, I attended James Bonnet's workshops at A 'L'Ombre Du Chateau in Nans Sous Sainte Anne, France. As the story unfolded, I overcame my first-time writer fear.
After writing the outline of the story, the chapter's titles and list of characters, the writing of the manuscript began. I switched chapters around until the flow of the story felt right. Transitions, characters and scenes were crafted into each chapter.
Through oral history, photographs and declassified documents, I was able to sharpen each character's personality, standards, secrets and Olga and Tomas' espionage strategies.
The editing never finishes. One discovers repetition, grammar issues and some incongruences since stories grow as one learns more and more. Stories are alive.
It is very hard to enter the editorial world, you try and try and after some months and years you decide to make it happen. Self-publish or the book will stay in the drawer. Once published you know that the story has just began.
Everything started with oral interviews and collecting photographs from family and friends. Visiting the El Embajador Hotel where Chacho and the family were hiding in 1965 in a bullet proof room, the Sans Souci Port and the Fighting Navy offices where Tomas was trained.
Went to interview part of Tomas family who still live there and in San Felipe. Spent time with Chacho walking around the old and quite abandoned Port of Puerto Plata where Tomas worked in the frigates and destroyers traveling to England, the USA and Europe.
The Cuban Heritage Collection had valuable photos and documents, including a photo of the Everglades Hotel where Tomas and the family hid for a month during the 1965 Dominican Revolution.
Visited Queens where Tomas and the family were hiding after Rafael Trujillo's assassination in 1961. At the New York Public Library, I found the 20 volume encyclopedia "La Era de Trujillo."
An obligatory visit was The Library of Congress for declassified documents and photographs of the Caribbean and the Cold War. Also, visited the FBI Headquarters in the J. Edgar Hoover building.
Stayed at The Excelsior Hotel that used to be a CIA Station and full of spies. Tomás and Olga stayed there many times. The hotel was connected through an undergroud secret tunnel with the American Embassy.
I visited the Carlton Hotel where Tomas spent time. In one of the trips aboard the Yacht Moineau, when Tomás was Engine Officer and Captain, he stayed at Madame Moineau and Benitez Rexach's Villa.
Chacho and I went to the Anne Frank's House where Tomas used to have secret meetings with spies and with Dominican Revolution leader, Caamaño.
Chacho and I went to see the White House, La Moneda, with different eyes since now we knew that Tomas and William had been there for Allende's assassination in 1973.
A story can only live if it has readers. I want to thank every one of you who supported me throughout this journey that has no end. You have made it the beginning of the life of my first book. Thank you. Gracias. Merci.
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