Fidel Castro, Cuban Revolutionary Who Defied U.S., Dies at 90

[elleng]

Mr. Castro brought the Cold War to the Western
Hemisphere, bedeviled 11 American presidents and
briefly pushed the world to the brink of nuclear war.

'Fidel Castro, the fiery apostle of revolution who brought the Cold War to the Western Hemisphere in 1959 and then defied the United States for nearly half a century as Cuba’s maximum leader, bedeviling 11 American presidents and briefly pushing the world to the brink of nuclear war, died Friday. He was 90.

His death was announced by Cuban state television.

In declining health for several years, Mr. Castro had orchestrated what he hoped would be the continuation of his Communist revolution, stepping aside in 2006 when he was felled by a serious illness. He provisionally ceded much of his power to his younger brother Raúl, now 85, and two years later formally resigned as president. Raúl Castro, who had fought alongside Fidel Castro from the earliest days of the insurrection and remained minister of defense and his brother’s closest confidant, has ruled Cuba since then, although he has told the Cuban people he intends to resign in 2018.

Fidel Castro had held onto power longer than any other living national leader except Queen Elizabeth II. He became a towering international figure whose importance in the 20th century far exceeded what might have been expected from the head of state of a Caribbean island nation of 11 million people.

He dominated his country with strength and symbolism from the day he triumphantly entered Havana on Jan. 8, 1959, and completed his overthrow of Fulgencio Batista by delivering his first major speech in the capital before tens of thousands of admirers at the vanquished dictator’s military headquarters.'>>>

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/26/world/americas/fidel-castro-dies.html?

[Mika]

1. Most of the DU Cuba "experts" don't know that Fidel didn't assume the head of state position until..

1976.


But... never mind any factual discussion on Cuba topics here. A ton of RW gibberish though.

[avebury]

2. A really interesting book is"Castro's Secrets: Cuban

Intelligence, The Cia, and the Assination of John F. Kennedy" by Brian Latell.

I need to finish reading the book. What I found interesting was that Castro built a 1st World Country level intelligence agency. The US treated Castro as the head of a banana republic but he built a secret service that ran rings around the US. The US never realized how good his service was until some of his people defected. He had to have been a really brillant man because he literally ran a multi-dimensional spy chess game in his head.