The speaker was Tom Leonard, a unionist and longtime leader of the Socialist Workers Party, and a participant in protest actions in Denver in 1961 against Washington's invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs. Twenty people attended the event.

The program, which was part of the store's weekly community affairs events featuring books carried in the store, was advertised by flyers available at the bookstore. In addition Barnes and Noble mailed out 100 postcards on the meeting and placed an advertisement in the Houston Press.

Alethea Nelson, community relations manager for the store and organizer of the event, welcomed the participants and introduced Leonard. A table displaying dozens of copies of Playa Girón, along with copies of Making History: Interviews with Four Generals of Cuba's Revolutionary Armed Forces and posters of Cuba and the Coming American Revolution in Spanish, French, and English, was set up next to the speakers' platform.

The store ordered 40 copies of Playa Girón, according to Nelson, who was pleased with initial sales of the book. As customers came up the store's escalator to the second floor they saw the book display and gathering. Several stopped for awhile to listen to the program.

Leonard encouraged those present to buy and read the book. Drawing upon his own experiences as a merchant seaman during the 1940s and '50s, he pointed out that while U. S. imperialism was defeated for the first time in the Americas at Playa Girón it was not its first defeat. Leonard spoke of the events following the end of World War II when U.S. soldiers in the Pacific demanded to come home, thereby thwarting Washington's desire to take China, and about U.S. imperialism's defeat in the 1950-53 Korean War.

"I want to draw your attention to the book's foreword in particular," he said. "It is written by Jack Barnes, who was a student at Carleton College in Minnesota at the time of the events." Leonard asked his audience to think about a quote from Fidel Castro in a March 1961 speech printed in the book that begins, "A victorious revolution will be seen in the United States before a victorious counterrevolution in Cuba."

After the presentation those present participated in a lively discussion period for more than an hour, and several of them purchased copies of the featured book.  
 
 
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