In the meantime, the graves hint at an earlier era, when gates were open, two-way traffic flowed freely, and seafarers visited - and who, for one reason or another, died here.

For instance, one headstone belongs to a merchant marine named Olaf Z. Olson. The marker doesn't say when he died, but he lies near another merchant marine, a Greek captain called Anthony J. Coumelis, who was laid to rest in 1942 at age 45.

Cuzco Beach is also the final resting place for Juan Zarazabat, 33, whose marker says he was a Cuban contractor when he died, for reasons unknown, in June 1943, during an era of amiable U.S.-Cuban relations - when thousands of Cubans commuted to the base each day for work.

Another headstone belongs to Miguel Tam of China, described as a civilian employee who was born on Oct. 15, 1906. He died, according to his marker, on May 7, 1962. By then U.S.-Cuban political tensions were roiling, and the year would see the Cuban Missile Crisis.

By the time civilian worker Ramon Guerra Pinero of Spain died here at age 65 on Jan. 23, 1965, the base was a self-sufficient, isolated entity desalinating its own water and producing its own electricity in defiance of Fidel Castro's demand that U.S. forces abandon the outpost.

Georgiana Hurley, a Jamaican civilian, was born Oct. 17, 1908, and died March 19, 1996, after the families of U.S. sailors were evacuated from the base to make way for Cuban rafters, or balseros, who fled the island.

Less is known about others buried here. One marker identifies its occupant simply as Mrs. Walters - perhaps because of the 1940s cemetery consolidations, which swept up remains from now-lost locations called the North Toro and Caracoles Point cemeteries.

Another declares simply, "Vincent, civilian."