Coral Gables
"DO WE HAVE TO PUT tanks in the streets?" asks Raúl Castro, the new leader of the Cuban Communist party. It is just past 6 a.m. on February 14, 2008, a few hours after the death of Raúl's brother Fidel, who ruled Cuba for nearly half a century. The younger Castro, Cuba's longtime military chief, has convened a meeting of selected Politburo members to discuss the post-Fidel transition.

A lot is happening, and quickly. Riots have broken out in Guantánamo City. The U.S. Interests Section in Havana has requested permission to send a high-level American delegation to Fidel's state funeral. Raúl must make his first crucial decisions--and he's getting some wildly disparate advice.

This was the hypothetical scenario entertained earlier this month at the University of Miami by a group of Cuba experts, including several defectors, in a war-game-like simulated presentation, "Cuba Without Fidel Castro." Each expert played the role of a senior Cuban Politburo official. For well over an hour the participants, sitting at a long conference table in front of two oversized photos of the Castro brothers, squabbled about a host of concerns: the rioters, the dissidents, the Yanquis, the economy, and more. At least a hundred people, including a number of media, made up the audience.

According to the introduction, Fidel died from complications related to Parkinson's disease (a reasonable assumption, given recent reports). But even before his passing, "he had been unable to appear in public, or to speak intelligibly, since the previous July 26th," when he sat awkwardly through Raúl's speech at the annual commemoration of the 1953 Moncada Barracks assault.

In a sharp break with protocol, the Cuban government made no secret of Fidel's failing health. After the Moncada ceremonies, Communist apparatchiks kept Cubans abreast of their leader's condition. State-run media outlets also aired tributes to El Comandante and extolled his long career of revolutionary passion. According to our program, "these were intended to anesthetize the populace and to prepare them for the elaborately planned, month-long funeral celebrations to be held across the island. The calculation was that the chances of sudden violent outbursts once Fidel's death was announced would therefore be reduced."

Raúl Castro, Fidel's designated successor, had essentially been running the show since his brother took a turn for the worse. Now he has formally been named Cuba's president--and already he's blundered. Rather than make an official announcement of Fidel's death, Raúl orders a dirge to be broadcast around the island, thus alerting Cubans to the news. Riots quickly ensue in Guantánamo City.

"We rehearsed this situation a year ago," declares José Ramón Machado Ventura (in the person of former Cuban diplomat Alcibíades Hidalgo). A veteran Politburo member charged with organizational duties, Machado reminds his comrades of the war games of 2007, in which the Communist party, the armed forces, and other state bodies prepped for a nationwide emergency that required immediate coordination against "counterrevolutionary" elements. But Raúl (who's being played by ex-CIA officer Brian Latell) sounds a note of hesitation. "Can we refrain from large-scale arrests and detentions of dissidents and human-rights activists?" he asks. "I'm concerned that we not overreact."