United States | Relations with Cuba

Our man in Havana

In mid-July, if all goes well, Cuba and America will reopen proper embassies in each other’s countries. Diplomatic relations, severed when Cuba became a Soviet satellite in the early 1960s, have been thawing since the end of 2014. The present US Interests Section in Havana, which will become the embassy, is a rectangular modernist cheese-grater erected in 1953 to display “a young, progressive and modern-minded America”. The Cuban Interest Section in Adams Morgan, a wealthy bit of Washington, has elegant balustrades and columns and reeks of old money. The most controversial aspect of the arrangement is that the American flag will now fly on the Malecón, a seaside promenade adorned with graffiti of the same flag being trashed.

This article appeared in the United States section of the print edition under the headline "Our man in Havana"

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