Jorge Mañach is one of the most important Cuban thinkers of the 20th century. His activity as a philosopher, scholar, journalist, historian, and politician is an index of Cuba's dramas and conflicts at that time. Mañach, author of Martí, El apóstol, is largely responsible for not only construing the 20th century image of one of the nation's founders, but also for dissecting the conflicted relationship between Cuba and the United States, in the polemical Manifesto of the extremist political group ABC. His diverse list of writings include the foreword to a clandestine edition of Fidel Castro's famous 1953 speech, "History Will Absolve Me." He also belonged to the Cuban Association of the Congress for Cultural Freedom whose aim was to destroy anti-totalitarian thought worldwide.