I n 1960, Washington watched aghast as Fidel Castro’s post-Revolution government seized companies and assets it viewed as the spoils of vanquished U.S. imperialism. Among the biggest prizes were two plants that sat above some of the largest nickel and cobalt deposits in the world. The United States had acquired one of them to secure a strategic supply of nickel for armor plating and aircraft engines during World War II. But the revolutionaries lacked know-how, and soon, the operations were