The US group landed in Havana. Here, Tom Biersteker, Director of the Watson Institute for International Studies at Brown University, is greeted by Juan Vela, Rector (President) of the University of Havana.

The international press interviews Alfredo Duran. Duran was an early enlistee in Brigade 2506. Following the defeat of the brigade, he escaped but was captured 30 days later and taken to Havana and imprisoned. He is a past president of the Veteran's Association of Brigade 2506, from which he was expelled by its members for reasons associated with his public statements indicating his willingness to go to Havana to discuss the history of the Bay of Pigs invasion.

At the opening reception, there was a reunion: Jim Blight (left) and Fabian Escalante, whom we had not seen since the last planning meeting in 1996 for the long postponed Havana conference on the Bay of Pigs.

At the conference, right to left: Jim Blight, janet Lang, and Jorge Dominguez (Director of the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard University).

Discussion about the battle became animated. Alfredo Duran, "No Fidel ... I was here and you were there ..." President Fidel Castro and Vice President Jose Ramon Fernandez are not so sure about that.

Now it's Fidel's turn. "We blocked you here, which is why you, Alfredo, had to hide in the swamp for 30 days before we caught you!"

The conference sessions are intense, and there is no let-up during the breaks. Here, Daniel Schorr, senior correspondent for National Public Radio, goes up to Fidel Castro and says, "Mr. President, I would like to continue the interview that I started with you 40 years ago ..."

Correction -- there was a let up. When janet asked to take a picture of Fidel and Jim, Castro became playful. Who's taller, he asked? (He did not like the answer!)

Following the conference, all participants and observers were taken to the theater of operations -- Playa Giron at the Bay of Pigs. At the site of the invasion, there is this enormous billboard that reads: "Giron, the first defeat of yankee imperialism in Latin America."

For our last night in Havana, President Castro hosted a state dinner for all participants and observers at the Palace of the Revolution. At the end of the evening ... well into the wee hours of the morning ... janet and Jim showed that critical oral history mixes well with romance.