Rena Pederson
The Dallas Morning News,
11/01/98
HAVANA - At 72, Fidel Castro remains the last titan of communism. The Soviet Union has fallen apart. Spies have come in from the cold in East Germany. "Red" stars from Josip Broz Tito to Ho Chi Minh are gone. Mao Tse-tung is a bad memory.
Only Fidel remains.
Isolated on this lovely island, a down-at-the-heels Elba frozen in the 1950s, he rules a Jurassic Park of dinosaur communism. At an age when most leaders turn to golf and grandchildren, he's still swatting at the capitalist world.
Last weekend, he sat down with 32 newspaper editors from around the United States and tried one more time to convince them that he is right and the rest of the world is still wrong. Charming, mercurial and manipulative, he talked for more than six hours.
And offered to keep talking.
One answer lasted 55 minutes. Often he lectured with a wave of his hand, saying world opinion has swung against the United States for continuing its Cold War blockade of Cuba. "They have assumed the role of Goliath and we the role of David," he said pridefully. "And the world will always be for David."
Sometimes he teased. "If I fell down the stairs," he asked, "you could feel happy?"
It was a fascinating glimpse of one of the most unique figures of this century. When asked when he was going to retire, he said, "Do you think one has the right to retire in the midst of such a struggle? As long as I have the necessary energy to be useful . . . and they ask me, I will be here."
The only sign he was slowing down was a stiffness when he stood up to take a break after four hours of talking virtually nonstop. But by that time, most of the editors had trouble standing up, too.
His purplish gray hair looked as if it had had a close brush with Grecian Formula. But even though he is now a little stooped, at 6-foot-1, he stood tall above most of the younger members of his cabinet. His eyes twinkled as he matched wits with the journalists. And when they threw a sharp-edged question at him, he threw it right back.
One editor asked him to explain why most of the beautiful buildings in old Havana had peeling paint and were falling apart, while posh new tourist hotels were being opened for bourgeois tourists. The old Marxist was too defiant to concede he now is forced to court capitalist dollars to make up for evaporated Soviet subsidies. So he simply shot back, "Can you give me some advice?"
"Get some paint," the journalist quipped.
And Fidel laughed as hard as anyone.
One editor asked him why he wouldn't allow his people to read the same array of world news that he bragged about reading every morning. The island dictator launched into a meandering monologue for 30 minutes, claiming he wouldn't allow "pornographic" magazines like Playboy into the country and winding up with a classic propaganda dodge that his was a poor little country and if it came to a choice between buying publications and medicine for a dying child, he would help the sick child.
One editor pointed out that when Pope John Paul II visited Cuba in January, he wore a suit and tie instead of his customary Army fatigues and looked like a cowed "choir boy." "I'm glad to know this is the Fidel Castro you prefer," he said, pointing to his olive drab uniform. Then he vowed his respect for the pope as a "sincere and impressive man."
It took some effort to keep in mind this was the same dictator who has sent thousands to their deaths to perpetuate his power.
At times, he sounded like the average county commissioner complaining petulantly about press coverage. He argued that it wasn't fair to identify Cubans and their descendants as "exiles" while refugees from countries like China or Mexico are simply called "immigrants." He complained that Forbes magazine printed that he was worth $1.5 billion. "What right do they have to print such slander?" he said, angrily waving his arm for emphasis.
However, many of his comments contradicted other accounts about his regime:
* He said he had given away 17,500 gifts he had received over the years and only wore a $30 Seiko watch. "I hate individualism and selfishness. I don't own any property."
Yet respected international correspondent Georgie Anne Geyer has reported that Mr. Castro keeps multiple homes and has had millions deposited in Swiss banks for his use.
* He said the Cuban government is not a dictatorship and that elections are "free and democratic."
Yet other political parties still are not allowed.
* He said Cuban law does not allow authorities to jail people merely for "disrespecting" the government.
But four prominent dissenters - who proposed a different economic plan - have been detained for more than 14 months without trial. The president of a medical college was imprisoned merely for alerting the international press of a dengue fever epidemic.
* He bragged that Cuba has the largest number of doctors per capita and a high life expectancy.
Yet international observers say doctors now are forced to drive cabs to make ends meet and even staples like black beans are in short supply. Prostitution and suicide are on the increase.
Mr. Castro insisted to the American editors, "I will never lie to the people. I have never done this, and I never will."
It was masterful theater, a spellbinding demonstration of the wiley skills that have made Mr. Castro the oldest living dictator.
If he staged the performance primarily to press the United States to drop its punishing blockade, it would be fitting if he got his wish. Because then he would have no one else to blame. And his people might get the paint and newspapers and vitamins they need.
© 1998 The Dallas Morning News