By ANTHONY DEPALMA
Updated: Oct. 22, 2012
THE NEW YORK TIMES
Monday, November 12, 2012
Fidel Castro, Cuba’s fiery revolutionary patriarch and an international icon of rebellion, resigned as president on Feb. 19, 2008, in a letter in Granma, the state run newspaper in Cuba. “I will not aspire nor accept — I repeat I will not aspire to or accept, the post of President of the Council of State and Commander in Chief,” he wrote.
Since undergoing gastrointestinal surgery in 2006, Mr. Castro has slipped from the spotlight, but never completely disappeared. He has met frequently with foreign leaders, usually while wearing a jogging suit, and written regular commentaries for Granma on everything from the global financial crisis to the World Cup.
When he was hospitalized in July 2006, he handed power to his younger brother Raúl Castro, his defense minister and closest confidant. The moment Cubans had thought might never come finally arrived. At least, it had to an extent.
Love him or hate him, most Cubans had not been able to conceive of life without Fidel. But it appeared that he continued to pull the strings behind closed doors. Raul, a pragmatist who favors the Chinese economic model, announced a series of fundamental changes designed to open up Cuba’s sagging economy. But little seemed to change because Fidel, the ideologue, quietly opposed anything that looked like a weakening of Cuba’s socialist system.
In the summer of 2010, a frail-looking Mr. Castro, who is now in his 80s, made a series of public appearances that seemed to put to rest speculation that he was incapacitated or dead. He went on Cuban television and warned that the United States was increasing the chances of nuclear war in the Korean Peninsula and Iran. He also addressed a session of Parliament for the first time in four years, warning that the confrontation between Iran and the United States and its allies over the issue of nuclear weapons had pushed the world to the brink of nuclear war.
In October 2012, an article under Mr. Castro’s name, cheekily titled “Fidel Castro Is Dying,” ran on a Cuban website along with recent pictures of Mr. Castro, in an effort to dispel yet another round of rumors that he had died or suffered a debilitating stroke.
Still, it has become clear that his handover of power in 2006 was not just a cosmetic move.
For decades, Mr. Castro was a prickly nemesis to the United States, a snarling David who stood up to the aggressive American Goliath as people in some developing countries cheered. That, despite the obvious failure of his revolution to improve the quality of life for most of the Cuban people. But it appears that nature and human frailty are doing what assassination attempts and a half-century long embargo failed to do: Bring the Castro era to an end.
The Ascent of Castro
On Jan. 7, 1959, less than a week after his guerrilla army forced right-wing dictator Fulgencio Batista to flee Havana in the dark of night, and a day before Mr. Castro’s own imperial entry into the jubilant capital city, Washington was one of the first nations to formally recognize the new rebel government, stating that it “appears free from Communist taint,” and “intends to pursue friendly relations with the United States.”
The U.S. has rarely been a good judge of Mr. Castro.
Mr. Castro entered Havana the next day, 1959, a bearded guerrilla leader in his early 30s riding on an open jeep. He was initially considered a hero for removing Mr. Batista. But within months of taking over, Mr. Castro and his bearded followers were lining up Batista supporters against the walls of the historic La Cabana fortress and executing them without fair trials. When he confiscated land and property owned by Americans, public opinion in the United States turned sharply against him. At home, he ruled with an iron hand, jailing opponents and keeping a tight control over every aspect of government.
He wasted little time in cozying up to the Soviet Union, a relationship that brought the Cold War to the Western hemisphere and convinced American officials that Mr. Castro had to go. An American-backed armed invasion in 1961 at the Bay of Pigs backfired, and a tense standoff over Soviet nuclear missiles in 1962 led to a promise that the United States would not try to invade Cuba again.
Castro/U.S. Relations
Relations between the U.S. and Cuba-just 90 miles from the tip of Florida-have evolved into a delicate minuet. Mr. Castro has proven to be a master of imagery, a complex strategist who managed to turn U.S. attempts against him and his country to his own advantage again and again.
Presidents Ford, Carter and Clinton all thought they would be able to get through to Mr. Castro, and took steps to ease relations while opening a window for discussions. In each case, Mr. Castro responded aggressively, expanding his revolutionary exploits in Africa, or shooting down planes carrying Cuba-American civilians from Florida. So long as the U.S. represented the enemy, Mr. Castro could appear to be the savior of Cuba.
Mr. Castro embraced Communism and rabid anti-Americanism, and used both to hold onto power. He saw himself as Cuba’s messiah, and he governed with an ideological fervor that bordered on self-destructive.
Declassified Pentagon documents indicate that in the 1980s, Mr. Castro pushed the Soviet Union to take a tougher stand against Ronald Reagan’s military buildup, and urged the Soviet generals to seriously consider a nuclear strike on the United States, even if it meant catastrophe for Cuba. And after a pair of powerful hurricanes devastated large swathes of the island in 2008, leaving behind $10 billion in damage, the Castro regime refused to accept foreign assistance offered directly to the Cuban people. All aid had to go to the government, or it would be turned down.
The Revolutionary Icon
Fidel Castro still has many supporters both at home and in the United States. They point out that Cuba provides its people a life span longer than many developed countries, including the United States. But that long life is burdened with the never ending search for the basics that people elsewhere take for granted: decent housing, satisfying work, opportunity for the next generation.
Mr. Castro held power longer than any national leader other than Queen Elizabeth. His personal control over a Communist revolution made him perhaps the most important leader in Latin America since its 19th century wars of independence. The continent’s current anti-Yankee chief, Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, has declared Mr. Castro to be his ideological godfather.
Fidel, Raúl and Obama
Recently there have been small signs of détente between Cuba and the United States. Officials in both countries have talked about resuming direct mail service, and the Obama administration has given approval to American telecommunications firms to provide cell phone services in Cuba. The Cuban regime has promised to make internet service more available, though it still does not tolerate direct criticism, online or offline.
After admitting that the embargo is not working and that engagement with Cuba is preferable, will the Obama White House succeed where so many others have failed to make headway with Mr. Castro? Computers and cell phones are essential pieces of modern life, but thorny issues like political prisoners, the suppression of dissent, and the lack of freedom to read, write or speak publicly, suggest that Raúl’s Cuba is not yet so different from the regime that has, for a half century, stymied the United States.
But in April 2011, Raúl Castro proposed that politicians be limited to two five-year terms in an effort to rejuvenate a political system dominated by aging loyalists of the revolution. This made even more explicit what most Cubans discuss only behind closed doors and the rest of the world has taken for granted: The Castro era is nearing its end.
In May 2011 Raúl Castro’s government announced policy changes intended to shake up the country’s foundering economy, which will take effect by the end of the year. For the first time since Fidel Castro’s Communist revolution 52 years ago, Cubans will be allowed to buy and sell houses and newer automobiles, and they may be able to travel abroad as tourists more freely.
