Jorge Mas Canosa
Jorge Mas Canosa was a prominent Cuban exile and influential advocate for U.S. policy towards Cuba. Born in Santiago de Cuba, he became politically active at a young age, opposing the regime of Fulgencio Batista and later Fidel Castro. Following the rise of Castro, Mas Canosa fled to Miami in 1960, where he initially worked various low-paying jobs before establishing a successful construction business, MasTec, which became a multimillion-dollar enterprise. He was instrumental in founding the Cuban American National Foundation (CANF) in 1981, which aimed to unify and advocate for Cuban Americans.
Mas Canosa's lobbying efforts significantly shaped U.S. foreign policy towards Cuba, contributing to key legislative acts like the Cuban Democracy Act and the Helms-Burton Act. He was known for his ability to mobilize the Cuban American vote and influence political leaders, including several U.S. presidents. However, his leadership style was often criticized as authoritarian, leading to conflicts with both allies and media figures. Despite his controversial methods, Mas Canosa remains a central figure in discussions about Cuban American politics and U.S.-Cuba relations, remembered for his unwavering commitment to opposing the Castro regime until his death in 1997.
Subject Terms
Jorge Mas Canosa
- Born: September 21, 1939
- Birthplace: Santiago de Cuba, Oriente, Cuba
- Died: November 23, 1997
- Place of death: Miami, Florida
Cuban-born entrepreneur and activist
A Cuban refugee who rose from dishwasher to multimillionaire businessman and political activist, Mas Canosa is best known for his tireless advocacy of Cuban American interests in the United States and as one of the most visible, vocal, and controversial opponents of Fidel Castro’s regime.
Early Life
Jorge Mas Canosa (mahs cah-NOH-sah) was born in Santiago de Cuba, a mid-sized city in the southeast of Cuba, to Ramon Mas Cayado, an army veterinarian, and Josefa de Carmen Canosa Aguilera. Mas Canosa wrote in his autobiography that he developed an interest in politics as a young man and was involved in student groups opposing the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista. Fearing for his safety, his parents sent him to Maxton, North Carolina, where he studied at Presbyterian Junior College. After his return to Cuba, Mas Canosa studied law. He was living in Santiago in 1959 during Batista’s overthrow by Fidel Castro, and upon Castro’s drift toward communism, found himself again in opposition to the Cuban government. The Castro regime issued a warrant for Mas Canosa’s arrest, and he was forced to flee the island in 1960.
After his arrival in Miami, Mas Canosa worked a series of low-paying jobs: stevedore, shoe salesman, and milkman. He married his high school girlfriend, Irma Santos, and eventually had three sons with her. When the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) came to Miami seeking Cuban exiles to fight in an excursionary force that would attempt to topple Castro’s regime, Mas Canosa volunteered, joining Brigade 2506, as the group of volunteers came to be known. He did not participate in the fight, serving on a decoy ship instead. The excursion, later known as the Bay of Pigs, failed.
Following his return to the United States, Mas Canosa enlisted in the U.S. Army, eventually graduating from Officer Training School at Fort Benning, Georgia, as a second lieutenant. After his service, he went to work for a small construction firm and later purchased the company, changing its name from Iglesias and Torres to Church and Tower of Florida. He built the firm into a multimillion-dollar business with more than four hundred employees and changed its name again, to MasTec. The company provides construction and telecommunications services to clients in business and government. The success of MasTec also allowed Mas Canosa to amass a large personal fortune, which he used to finance his lobbying and political activities.
Life’s Work
While Mas Canosa did not become an American citizen until 1982 and never ran for public office, his lobbying activities in the United States on behalf of the interests of Cubans in exile and Cuban Americans began well before then and continued for the rest of his life. More than any other individual, Mas Canosa was responsible for the U.S. government’s hardline stance in its Cuban foreign policy, and he influenced the policies of presidents Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and Bill Clinton.
During the 1970’s, Mas Canosa became known as someone who could deliver the Cuban American vote to politicians, making him a much-sought-after political ally. He hoped to create an organization that would focus and harness that influence for the betterment of Cuban exiles and Cuban Americans; eventually, in cooperation with Raul Masvidal, a fellow member of Brigade 2506, Mas Canosa became a founder and chairman of the Cuban American National Foundation (CANF) in 1981. Under his leadership, CANF spawned an array of political action committees (PACs), such as the Free Cuba PAC and the Cuban American Foundation, the primary lobbying arm of CANF.
The foundation also was successful at fund-raising, which increased its influence—as well as that of Mas Canosa—through generous donations to presidential and congressional candidates. One of CANF’s greatest successes was the Cuban Democracy Act, signed into law in 1992, which prohibited the foreign subsidiaries of American companies from doing business with Cuba and prohibited travel to Cuba by U.S. citizens. Another triumph was the Helms-Burton Act of 1996, which prohibits foreign companies from engaging in any business with Cuba and penalizes them by denying their corporate leaders entry to the United States.
Under Mas Canosa, CANF also was instrumental in the founding of Radio Martí and TV Martí, which broadcast Spanish-language news and information to Cuba. During the 1970’s, Mas Canosa began to study the possibility of a radio station based in the United States that would broadcast news and information to Cuba and sought the backing of legislators in Congress. With Ronald Reagan’s election in 1980, Mas Canosa gained a powerful ally in his quest, and in 1985, Radio Martí began broadcasting, with TV Martí following in 1990. In 1986, Reagan appointed Mas Canosa chair of the advisory committee that now supervises both radio and television stations; as the chair, Mas Canosa wielded tremendous influence over the broadcasts’ content.
During the 1990’s, Mas Canosa’s reputation as a petty tyrant and a grudge holder grew with his influence in Washington and Miami. Under his leadership, CANF became in effect his megaphone and cudgel, as he used the organization’s funds and personnel to strong-arm his critics into submission. His detractors in the press found themselves the targets of investigations by the Immigration and Naturalization Service and other federal bureaus, as well as Miami city agencies. Journalists, media company owners, and others who failed to support his opinions wholeheartedly or who dared to offer alternative viewpoints received death threats, and in some cases, their offices were firebombed and their families threatened. He was famously involved in a feud with the publishers of The Miami Herald, whose newspaper had accused him of fraud, even challenging one of the editors to a duel. Even Mas Canosa’s colleague and cofounder of CANF, Masvidal, left the foundation in 1985 in a dispute with Mas Canosa over his authoritarian leadership style. Mas Canosa brushed off all criticism of his activities as the slurs of Castro’s agents seeking to discredit him, calling his critics communists, traitors, and racists. Whenever he drove anywhere in Miami, he rode in a bulletproof limousine, claiming that Castro’s agents were trying to assassinate him.
Mas Canosa was widely considered to be a possible successor to Castro as president of Cuba, once the regime had been toppled. Under his direction, CANF created a new constitution and economic recovery plan for Cuba, and Mas Canosa often was addressed in public by his supporters as “Señor Presidente” (Mr. President), a title he did not reject. While he insisted that he had no definite plans to run for the presidency of Cuba, he also stated that he would not give up his right to run. However, any plans Mas Canosa might have had to run for Cuban office were derailed when he developed Paget’s disease, a painful inflammation of the bones, then lung cancer. He died of complications from lung cancer and congestive heart failure in 1997.
Significance
As the most vocal and persistent of Cuban exiles and the foremost advocate for the U.S. government’s hardline stance on Cuba throughout the second half of the twentieth century, Mas Canosa secured a place in history. He is widely acknowledged not only as the primary influence on that stance but also as its architect. However, Mas Canosa’s legacy is somewhat tarnished by his bellicosity, his combative approach to politics, and his dictatorial stance with regard to CANF.
Bibliography
Bardach, Ann Louise. “Our Man in Miami.” The New Republic, December 3, 1994. An excellent overview of Mas Canosa’s life and works.
Eckstein, Susan. “The Personal Is Political: The Cuban Ethnic Electoral Policy Cycle.” Latin American Politics and Society 51 (Spring, 2009): 119-148. An examination of attempts by CANF and other Cuban American organizations to influence politicians through campaign donations and promises of votes.
Haney, Patrick Jude, and Walt Vanderbush. The Cuban Embargo: The Domestic Politics of an American Foreign Policy. Pittsburgh, Pa.: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2005. A well-researched and well-written overview of the policies behind the American embargo of Cuba, describing in detail the players in the formation of those policies, including Mas Canosa and others in the Cuban American National Foundation.
Mas Canosa, Jorge. Jorge Mas Canosa: A Life in Search of Freedom. Miami, Fla.: Cuban American National Foundation, 1997. Mas Canosa’s life, beliefs and struggle, in his own words in this collection of speeches. One of the few resources featuring Mas Canosa’s words available in English.
Rieff, David. The Exile: Cuba in the Heart of Miami. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994. An interesting examination of Cubans and Cuban Americans living in Miami, with particular attention to the divide between older Cuban “exiles” longing for the fall of Castro and the return home and younger Cuban Americans born in the United States with a thoroughly American sensibility.
Rohter, Larry. “A Rising Cuban-American Leader: Statesman to Some, Bully to Others.” The New York Times, October 29, 1992. Part of a series on Mas Canosa, CANF, and life among Cuban exiles in Miami.