For many Americans, Fidel Castro is a feared figure who brought the United States as close as it's even been to the brink of nuclear war. But few have had as close a brush with the wrath of the former communist leader as former Ambassador J. William Middendorf.
In the 1950s, Middendorf was a junior partner at Wood, Struthers and Company, a Wall Street investment firm that had tasked him with overseeing a new venture that converted the discarded stalks from harvested sugar cane into hardboard. Sometime in the mid to late 1950s, he traveled to Camagüey—a province far southeast from the capital of Havana—to inspect the factory where the wood was made.
A professor at the University of Southern California has barred her students from using the phrase "illegal immigrant" in their final exam for the class.
