# Canadian book cover with Cuban cigar censored in US?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadian-book-cover-with-cuban-cigar-censored-in-us/30250
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [August 22, 2000, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadian-book-cover-with-cuban-cigar-censored-in-us/30250 "2000-08-22T01:43:31Z")
**Posts on this page:** 5
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)
#### Post date: [August 22, 2000, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadian-book-cover-with-cuban-cigar-censored-in-us/30250/1 "2000-08-22T01:43:31Z")
I heard a story that the covers of _Barney’s Version_ by Mordecai Richler had to be changed when they appeared in the United States, because they depicted a Cuban _Romeo y Julieta_ cigar.
If you check out [this version](http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0671028464.01.LZZZZZZZ.gif), at [amazon.com](http://amazon.com), you can see that the original _Romeo y Julieta_ label which is on the Canadian edition has been replaced with a plain band.
Is this story true?
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### Author:  [@mealypotaotes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mealypotaotes)
#### Post date: [August 22, 2000, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadian-book-cover-with-cuban-cigar-censored-in-us/30250/2 "2000-08-22T02:22:41Z")
I heard a US Customs officer once address a crowd of Canadian businesspeople at a trade show in Cleveland. He said that their busiest time of the year is after Caribbana festival in Toronto, where 200,000 free straw hats (made in Cuba) are distributed to the crowd along the parade route. US Customs guards at 1000 Islands, Buffalo and Detroit spend days confiscating all the hats. That’ll teach those pesky commies.
Why is that the most powerful nation on earth is so scared of the weakest nation in the hemisphere? Historians will chuckle and scoff and the USA’s 40 year hipocracy over Cuba (to whit - engage Russia to end communism, engage China to end communism, engage North Korea to end communism, but isolate Cuba and starve its people to end communism - God bless America!)
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### Author:  [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)
#### Post date: [August 22, 2000, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadian-book-cover-with-cuban-cigar-censored-in-us/30250/3 "2000-08-22T02:55:13Z")
I saw this cartoon once… It was eight presidents speaking as follows:
Kennedy: “Don’t”
Johnson: “worry,”
Nixon: “Fidel”
Ford: “will”
Carter: “fall”
Reagan: “any”
Bush: “minute”
Clinton: “now!”
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### Author:  [@AWB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AWB)
#### Post date: [August 22, 2000, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadian-book-cover-with-cuban-cigar-censored-in-us/30250/4 "2000-08-22T13:11:07Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by matt\_mcl \*
> \*\*I saw this cartoon once… It was eight presidents speaking as follows:
>
> Kennedy: “Don’t”
> Johnson: “worry,”
> Nixon: “Fidel”
> Ford: “will”
> Carter: “fall”
> Reagan: “any”
> Bush: “minute”
> Clinton: “now!” \*\*
I saw this one too. Martlette drew it, I think. I wonder why he forgot Eisenhower.
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### Author:  [@Ike\_Witt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ike_Witt)
#### Post date: [August 22, 2000, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadian-book-cover-with-cuban-cigar-censored-in-us/30250/5 "2000-08-22T13:35:51Z")
The US is so misguided in their attitude towards Cuba it it astonishing. It is too bad there aren’t 1 billion people in Cuba or there would be cigars here and they would be free to steal US nuclear secrets.