A Visit With Castro.

CASTRO, Fidel, 1926-2016; ECONOMIC conditions in Cuba, 1959-1990; CUBAN politics & government, 1959-1990; FOREIGN relations of the United States; INTERNATIONAL sanctions; COMMUNISM; HUMAN rights; POOR people; STYRON, William, 1925-2006

SOVIET Union; CUBAReport Available

The author describes his meeting with Cuban dictator Fidel Castro in 2000, during a visit to the island. Like a lot of other people's feelings toward Cuba, mine have been mixed in the past decades. Castro storming his way to power seemed like a clean wind blowing away the degradation and subservience to the Yankee dollar. What emerged once the smoke had cleared finally turned into something different, of course, and if I chose not to forget the background causes of the Castro revolution, the repressiveness of his one man government was still grinding away at my sympathy. By March 2000, the time of our meeting with Castro, the future of Cuba was the big question for anyone thinking about the country. The poverty is apparently close to catastrophic. It quickly became clear that instead of a conversation, we were to have what seemed a rather formalized set of approaches to various ideas springing from the Leader's mind. I can recall Castro suddenly looking severe as he spoke of the Russians' dumb stubbornness in all things. His principal beef was the Soviets' refusal to back his attempts at starting revolutions in various Latin American and other countries. At the dinner he also took a few stabs at the CIA and its numerous assassination attempts against him. Watching him at lunch--he ate two leaves of lettuce--one saw a lonely old man hungry for some fresh human contact, which could only get more and more rare as he ages. I found myself wondering what could possibly be keeping him from a graceful exit that might even earn him his countrymen's gratitude? The US embargo created this island's poverty out of hand, along with the Russians by their deserting him.