Cuba US Relations Ani Kazandjian

• What led President Obama to order the restoration of full diplomatic relations between the US and Cuba ?
• Is there a dearth of churches and religion in Cuba due to the fact that they where cut off from the outer world -therefore not feeling the drive or need for religion? 
• What was the cigar relations like before JFK's blockade in 1962?
• During the time of the Blockade what was the income of Cubans who specifically made cigars?
• Am I allowed to bring cigars into Cuba?
• What are the official regulations of Americans going to Cuba?
• What is the most famous Cigar in cuba and the most famous cuban Cigar in America?

• "Before imposing these historic sanctions on all Cuban products, the president called his press secretary at the time, Pierre Salinger, and asked him to secure “a lot of cigars,” Mr. Salinger recounted in 1992 in Cigar Aficionado magazine. As it happened, it wasn’t until the following morning, when Mr. Salinger informed the president that he had, in fact, scored 1,200 petite H. Upmanns (named after Herman Upmann, a German banker who opened a branch in Havana in the mid-1800s to send cigars home to Europe), that Kennedy signed the decree."
• Americans are allowed to bring back $100 of cuban cigars back to America from Cuba
• Michael Phillips, a Briton who moved to Havana some 25 years ago to teach English
• If there was a dark period, it occurred during the Communist revolution as some of Cuba’s most talented growers fled and set up operations in countries such as the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Honduras and Nicaragua. 
• Most Cubans living on a state salary of less than $20 a month can’t afford hand-rolled cigars of export quality.
• “The rollers in the factory have a quota, but many of the women find a way to sneak a few extras out. So they roll for eight hours in the factory, and then come home and roll for another two hours.”
• In secret meetings, Kennedy and his closest advisors agreed he had three choices: to negotiate with the Russians to remove the missiles; to bomb the missile sites in Cuba; or implement a naval blockade of the island.

“JFK Announces a Blockade of Cuba.” History.com, A&E Television Networks, www.history.com/this-day-in-history/jfk-announces-a-blockade-of-cuba.

Stodghill, Ron. “On the Cigar Trail in Cuba.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 20 Nov. 2015, www.nytimes.com/2015/11/22/travel/cuban-cigars.html.