Fidel: A Critical Portrait
Page 92
The political and ideological aspects of the revolutionary struggle during 1957 are inadequately explained in published sources—such as Lionel Martín's The Young Fidel or the Bonachea-Valdés Introduction to the Selected Works of Fidel Castro, 1947–1958. Important correspondence throwing some light on many acute political problems affecting the Movement are included in the Franqui Diary. A useful discussion on this topic is found in The Unsuspected Revolution by Mario Llerena. Herbert L. Matthews touches lightly on it in The Cuban Story in the context of his visit to Castro in the Sierra in February 1957; his book incorporates the text of his dispatches to The New York Times, which were the first direct reports on the Fidelista guerrillas. Che Guevara comments on many political aspects of the war in his Escritos y Discursos volumes.
Fresh material on the politics of the war resulted from the author's interviews with Faustino Pérez in Havana in 1985, and Raúl Chibás in Miami in 1984. Communist party attitudes toward the Sierra war were discussed by Blas Roca and Fabio Grobart in the author's interviews with them in Havana in 1985.
427–430 The story of the secret CIA involvement in the Sierra war was reconstructed from my own knowledge as a New York Times reporter in Cuba in 1959; this information was considered privileged by me at the time. It was subsequently confirmed in Washington by senior CIA and State Department officials on a confidential basis.
CHAPTER 11
433–459 The military history of the victory year—1958—is amply documented in sources ranging from Franqui's Diary (and its entries) to war diaries by Raúl Castro, Che Guevara, and Camilo Cienfuegos. The author obtained additional, detailed information in interviews with Faustino Pérez, Guillermo García, Vílma Espín, Universo Sánchez, and José R. Machado Ventura. To gain a visual impression of the war, my wife and I climbed to the Castro wartime command post at La Plata with Pedro Álvarez Tábio, the historian, and Colonel Arturo Aguillera, Fidel's wartime adjutant, who provided a running historical commentary as we went up and down the Sierra Maestra.
436–445 As in the case of the previous years, very little is available from public sources on the politics of the war—notably on the dissensions within the 26th of July Movement, the still painful controversy over the failed general strike in April 1958, and Castro's relations with the Communists. All these remain sensitive subjects in Cuba; Ramiro Valdés, the former interior minister, remarked in a speech in 1977 that it would be harmful to the revolution to bring the full strike story into the open while many of the compañeros linked with it were still alive. A bitter denunciation of the strike was written by Che Guevara; it appears in Escritos y Discursos. These questions are discussed by Mario Llerena and by the late Manuel Urrutia Lleó, revolutionary Cuba's first president, in Fidel Castro and Company, Inc.
Fidel Castro was still angry about the failure of the 1958 strike when the subject came up in a conversation I had with him in February 1985. I was able to gain insights into many of the political problems of the last year of the war in interviews in Havana with Faustino Peréz, Armando Hart, Jorge Enrique Mendoza, and Ramiro Valdés, and in Miami with Raúl Chibás. I discussed the Communist party's attitude toward Castro during
1958, and in conversations with Blas Roca and Fabio Grobart in Havana in 1985.
445–459 Aside from published sources, material on the Batista final offensive and the Castro counteroffensive came from interviews by the author with Colonel Arturo Aguilera and Pedro Álvarez Tábio in the Sierra Maestra. Raúl Chibás told me of attending the meeting between Castro and General Eulogio Cantillo, the Batista commander in Oriente, on December 28.
Book Four: The Revolution
CHAPTER 1
463 The quotation by Carlos Rafael Rodríguez is from Letra con Filo, published in 1983.
The decision to assassinate Castro is reported in an internal CIA memorandum submitted to Director of Central Intelligence Allen W. Dulles in August 1960.
464 Nuñez Jiménez made the comments on Castro and Lenin in a conversation with the author in 1985.
467 Enrique Oltuski reported his conversations with Che Guevara in an article in Lunes de Revolución in June 1959.
471–475 Secret negotiations with the "old" Communists by Castro and his top associates were described for the author in taped interviews in Havana in 1985, by Blas Roca, Fabio Grobart, and Alfredo Guevara.
476–478 The creation, existence, and activities of the "hidden government" in 1959, are discussed in taped interviews with the author in 1985, by Alfredo Guevara, Antonio Nuñez Jiménez, Jorge Enrique Mendoza, and Conchita Fernández.
CHAPTER 2
469–482 Material on the initial phase in the relations between Castro and the United States is drawn from Ambassador Bonsal's Cuba, Castro and the United States as well as from my own reporting at the time in Havana and Washington for The New York Times. In 1959 and 1960, I had numerous "background" conversations with Bonsal, and I have retained my notes.
490 The episode on Castro's meeting with the CIA official was first reported by Finance Minister López-Fresquet, I heard further details from my CIA sources in Washington.
494–495 Nuñez Jiménez is the source for quotations from Castro's "secret speeches. "
497 Nuñez Jiménez and Vice-President J. R. Fernández are the sources for the account on the modernization of the Rebel Army and the militia.
500–501 Castro's activities and movements were described in an interview by Conchita Fernández in 1985; much of the material is firsthand, from the author's own reporting in Havana at the time.
501–502 Nuñez Jiménez is the source for Castro's visits to the swamps.
503–506 Most of the material on Urrutia's demise comes from the author's own reporting in Havana in 1959.
507–508 On the first Soviet contacts with revolutionary Cuba, material comes from the author's own notes at the time. Nuñez Jiménez is the source for the story on Castro's vodka-and-caviar meeting with Alexeiev.
CHAPTER 3
514 Castro talked about Hemingway in an interview with the author in 1984.
CHAPTER 4
533 Castro's comments about John F. Kennedy, expressed at great length, were part of an interview with the author on January 28, 1984.
535 The author was Castro's American companion on the visit to the Pioneers' camp.
540–541 Castro discussed the Alliance for Progress in interviews with the author on January 28 and 29, 1984.
543 Ramiro Valdés discussed the preinvasion security precautions in an interview with the author in 1985.
549–554 Vice-President J. R. Fernández, then the military field commander, described the unfolding of the battle and his own and Castro's movements in interviews with the author in Havana in 1985.
CHAPTER 5
564–567 Castro's dealings with Cuban intellectuals were reconstructed from numerous conversations in Havana in 1984 and 1985, and from the text of his "Words to the Intellectuals" on June 30, 1961.
575–576 Valuable material on the Escambray fighting came from interviews with Norberto Fuentes, a noted Cuban journalist, who has studied this period in depth.
578–589 Castro's account of the October crisis was the central part of an interview with the author on January 28 and 29, 1984. I believe it to be the most comprehensive version ever supplied by Castro to a foreign writer.
Book Five: The Maturity
CHAPTER 1
597–598 Castro discussed the "errors" of the revolution in an interview with the author on January 29, 1984.
CHAPTER 2
616–617 Raúl Castro's report on the investigation appears in Bohemia in November 1968.
626 Nathaniel Davis's comments on the Castro visit to Chile are contained in The Last Two Years of Salvador Allende.
CHAPTER 3
637–640 Apart from Castro's own public and private statements to that effect, reliable information from United States, Portuguese, French, and Eastern European diplomatic sources corroborates the claim that the intervention in
Angola was a Cuban idea.
640–642 Partial material on U.S. -Cuban secret diplomacy comes from the author's interview with William D. Rogers, at the time Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs. Additional information is from Cuban diplomatic sources.
647–648 Castro discussed Central America and "internationalism" in an interview with the author on January 29, 1984.
Table of Contents
Cover Page
Copyright Page
Dedication Page
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
I: THE MAN
II: THE YOUNG YEARS
III: THE WAR (1952–1958)
IV: THE REVOLUTION (1959–1963)
V: THE MATURITY (1964–1986)
NOTES
CHAPTER NOTES