A Letter From The Publisher: Nov. 23, 1981

Miami was selected last year as the home base for TIME's new Caribbean bureau, the only foreign bureau located within the U.S. The decision reflected the city's polyglot ambience and its emergence as a commercial and cultural center for Latin Americans. The members of the Miami staff hardly expected, however, that their home town would become their biggest continuing story this year, and a cover subject. In six weeks of intensive reporting, TIME's correspondents conducted more than 250 interviews, from the streets of the "little Havana" district to the refugee camps. They talked to Coast Guard officers, drug dealers, police, government...

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