The departure board at Miami airport shows dozens of cities from Montego Bay to Montevideo. But I scanned the screens in vain for my destination.

Eventually I tracked down the right desk in an obscure corner of the terminal. Here, I handed over a wad of dollar bills and signed a form confirming my nationality. Finally, I was allowed to board a “ghost flight” that slipped out of Florida late on a Saturday evening to Jose Marti airport in Havana.

The year was 1989; the mission, to research the first independent guidebook to Cuba. Such is the paralysis of relations between the world’s superpower and the final fragment of state Communism in the West that, were I to repeat the journey tonight, the process would, despite the seismic events of this week, be much the same. Americans are not allowed to travel to Cuba, except with special permission, which explains why I had to certify I was British. And the duplicity of despatching aircraft to a country that is the subject of the Trading with the Enemy Act remains a matter of official embarrassment.

That year a quarter-century ago, just before the Eastern Europe dominoes started tumbling towards the West, turned out to be the last in Fidel Castro’s Golden Age. It had begun with the revolutionaries celebrating three decades since their triumph on New Year’s Day 1959. In the interim, Cuba had acted as sometime aircraft carrier for the Soviet Union, and thorn in the heel of Washington – of immense strategic and propaganda value to the Kremlin.

Cuba has turned to tourism to survive (Getty)

The Castro regime had long been propped up by a sugar-for-oil swap that was skewed to Cuba’s advantage. However low the world price of the island’s staple crop fell, tankers full of Soviet oil continued to sail into Havana’s magnificent harbour. The surplus could be sold on to third countries for hard currency that was promptly pumped into maintaining the Cuban state.

From a visitor’s perspective, it was tempting to view the Caribbean’s largest island as a Marxist-Leninist theme park. Health and education had been transformed since the revolution; cities and countryside were plastered with slogans informing the people of the nation’s straight choice between socialismo o muerte, “socialism or death”; and the average Cuban weary of the Party line could easily party by grabbing a cheap bottle of rum and heading for the beach.

Behind the façade, though, Cuba could be a dark, frightening place. Despite official moves towards equality, racism was common – and young, desperate black men sometimes turned to crime. Political dissidence was monitored through local Committees for the Defence of the Revolution – an ideological neighbourhood watch scheme – and brutally suppressed.

To justify its many human-rights abuses, the government needed only to nod in the direction of Washington. Repelling the CIA-orchestrated Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961 provided Fidel with his first major post-revolutionary triumph. Subsequent attempts to diminish or destroy el Jefe proved equally ineffective, and provided the regime with an endless reservoir of propaganda.

Che Guevara has iconic status (Getty)

The economic embargo that began in 1960 has been exploited equally enthusiastically. It has enabled the regime to deflect criticism of the shambolic collectivisation of industry and agriculture. Satan was represented by the United States.

As I wrote in the resulting guidebook, Travellers Survival Kit: Cuba, the island was a wonderful destination for the intrepid traveller. The standard approach was on Aeroflot from Shannon. Accommodation was so scarce that it wasn’t a matter of selecting hotels for the travel guide, but merely listing them all. Local transport was a challenge, but you could always flag down a Detroit dinosaur in the shape of a lumbering 1950s Chevrolet or Studebaker. Culturally, the island combined the faded grandeur of European colonialism with the vitality of salsa. And with judicious use of the currency black market, the visitor could live splendidly on a shoestring. By the end of 1989, though, the game looked as though it was up for every Soviet satellite. From Berlin to Bucharest, Communist governments had collapsed. Havana found itself mercilessly unfriended. The economic umbilical chord to Moscow survived for a couple more years until the break-up of the Soviet Union.

How bad did it become? Well, the second edition of the travel guide contained the advice “If you want to lose weight, go to Cuba” and described a repertoire of public transport that ranged from a horse and cart to state-sponsored hitch-hiking. As the economy and infrastructure imploded, it was exhausting enough being a traveller in Cuba; living there appeared unbearable.

Kennedy addressing the US in 1962 over the missile crisis (Reuters)

The young, energetic President Bill Clinton passed the Helms-Burton Act in 1996 – prescribing penalties for foreign companies that had the temerity to trade with Cuba. Clinton’s move proved so effective that Thomson promptly cancelled its entire holiday programme to the island for fear that its directors could be barred from the US.

Yet – as another young, energetic President observed this week – ratcheting up the economic and political pressure on the Castro regime has proved not merely futile but counter-productive. The guerrilla leader has turned out to be the ultimate cold warrior.

President Obama, the 11th US leader to square up to the regime, is the first to be born in the Castro era and the first to recognise: “It does not serve America’s interests, or the Cuban people’s, to try to push Cuba toward collapse.” In Wednesday’s meticulously constructed speech, he threw in the ideological towel by conceding what had been blindingly obvious to the rest of the world. Two decades ago, I would not have put a peso on the revolution surviving to the 21st century. Indeed, I was telling anyone who would listen: it appeared to me that Cuba’s despond would quickly deteriorate into economic surrender to the US.

So how did Cuba survive such an onslaught? Because the nation learnt, painfully, to forget America. Twenty years ago, as thousands of Cubans boarded makeshift rafts to try to reach Florida, Castro modified his message from “Socialism or death” to “Welcome to Cuba”. He concluded that the only way to preserve the gains of the revolution was to harness Cuba’s immense potential as a holiday destination.

In pictures: Timeline of US and Cuba relations Show all 19 1 /19 In pictures: Timeline of US and Cuba relations In pictures: Timeline of US and Cuba relations Cuba timeline July 1953: Fidel Castro begins a revolutionary campaign against the regime of Cuban President Fulgencio Batista In pictures: Timeline of US and Cuba relations Cuba timeline January 1959: Castro and Che Guevara enter Havana after a successful final offensive. Batista flees, and Castro becomes prime minister, ruling by decree In pictures: Timeline of US and Cuba relations Cuba timeline October 1960: Castro’s reforms sees hundreds of US businesses in Cuba nationalised and their owners not compensated. In December, US US breaks off diplomatic relations and imposes a trade embargo In pictures: Timeline of US and Cuba relations Cuba timeline April 1961: Cuban exiles launch the Bay of Pigs invasion with US backing In pictures: Timeline of US and Cuba relations Cuba timeline October 1962: A 13-day confrontation known as the Cuban missile crisis begins when Castro allows the USSR to deploy nuclear missiles on the island. Generally regarded as the closest the world has come to nuclear war In pictures: Timeline of US and Cuba relations Cuba timeline 1962: US President John F Kennedy signs off a naval blockade Getty Images In pictures: Timeline of US and Cuba relations Cuba timeline April 1980: A sharp downturn in the Cuban economy and Castro temporarily lifting restrictions sees around 125,000 people, many of them released convicts, flee to the US In pictures: Timeline of US and Cuba relations Cuba timeline February 1996: Cuba shoots down two US aircraft operated by Miami-based Cuban exiles, prompting the US to make its trade embargo permanent In pictures: Timeline of US and Cuba relations Cuba timeline June 2001: The case of the “Cuban Five” begins, as five spies in Miami are convicted of providing intelligence to the Havana government In pictures: Timeline of US and Cuba relations Cuba timeline Nov 2001: US sells $30m of food to the Cuban government to assist in the aftermath of Hurricane Michelle, which killed 22 people, the first food export between the countries for more than 40 years In pictures: Timeline of US and Cuba relations Cuba timeline Oct 2003: US President George W Bush announces fresh anti-communist measures, including tightening the travel embargo and creating a new government body, the Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba In pictures: Timeline of US and Cuba relations Cuba timeline Aug 2006: President Bush seizes the opportunity of President Castro’s illness and a handover of powers to Raul Castro, urging Cubans to work towards democratic change In pictures: Timeline of US and Cuba relations Cuba timeline Feb 2008: Raul Castro officially takes over as president. Washington responds by saying its trade embargo will remain in force unless free and fair elections are held In pictures: Timeline of US and Cuba relations Cuba timeline Dec 2008: A poll by Florida International University suggests for the first time that a majority of Cuban-Americans living in Miami want an end to the embargo In pictures: Timeline of US and Cuba relations Cuba timeline April 2009: President Obama lifts restrictions on family travel to Cuba In pictures: Timeline of US and Cuba relations Cuba timeline Dec 2009: US aid worker Alan Gross is detained in Cuba on suspicion of spying for Washington AP In pictures: Timeline of US and Cuba relations Cuba timeline Nov 2010: American Ballet Theatre performs in Cuba for the first time in 50 years, the most high-profile in a series of cultural exchanges In pictures: Timeline of US and Cuba relations Cuba timeline Sep 2012: Cuba hints at its willingness to do a deal with Washington on the Gross case In pictures: Timeline of US and Cuba relations Cuba timeline December 2013: President Obama and Raul Castro shake hands at the memorial service for Nelson Mandela. Castro says in English: “Mr President, I am Castro.” It was hailed in Cuba as “the beginning of the end” for what were then described as “US aggressions”

“Only tourism can save Cuba” may not be as catchy a message as Castro’s defiant “History will absolve me”, but it did the trick. For a destitute country with a young, well-educated workforce, tourism is the ideal industry. It requires little capital investment, earns copious foreign exchange and is highly labour-intensive. Sure, it has had the unintended consequence of doctors and teachers becoming taxi drivers, and created a society with inequalities that would horrify Marx and Lenin.

Cuba stopped forlornly gazing north towards Miami, and instead looked to the rest of the world for support. Sun, sea and socialism appealed to Mexicans, South Americans, Canadians and Europeans. Tourism kick-started the economy, enriched the country and preserved the power base of Fidel Castro, now 88. After dodging Washington’s bullets for decades, Castro fell seriously ill in 2006. Some observers predicted that power would ebb away. Instead, it was smoothly handed over to Fidel’s younger brother, Raul. He has been a moderniser, but has preserved both the power of the state and the achievements of the revolution.