Human Interest

'Raúl Castro has described Cuba’s task as adapting Cuban socialism to contemporary reality, while preserving the core values of national sovereignty, dignity, and social justice that led Fidel Castro to take up arms half a century ago. Perhaps Fidel’s greatest achievement was upholding those values long enough to pass them on, albeit a little threadbare, to a successor generation of Cubans. To them falls the task of forging an efficient, productive economy, a more open, democratic polity, and a normal relationship with the United States. Will Fidel’s legacy prove to be a foundation on which they can build, or an obstacle to progress? The answer will determine whether history will absolve him. At the moment, it’s too early to tell.'

A short piece on the role of women in the Cuban Revolution.

The rendition of events that the Kennedy administration fed to a credulous press; the history that the participants in Washington promulgated in their memoirs, and the story that has insinuated itself into the national memory were misleading or erroneous.

'In the days since his death, and in parallel with obituaries detailing his record of violence and repression at home, Castro has been widely celebrated for his role in southern Africa in particular, a region where he supported Angolan revolutionaries pitted against the U.S.-backed apartheid regime of South Africa. And yet Cuba’s role on the continent also illuminates some of the contradictions of advancing an anti-imperial agenda, premised on social and racial justice, in part through the execution of proxy wars abroad.'

New York Times obituary of Fidel Castro, whose death was announced today.

After the Bay of Pigs disaster President Kennedy created a committee charged with overthrowing Castro's government. At a meeting of this committee at the White House on 4th November 1961, it was decided to call this covert action program for sabotage and subversion against Cuba, Operation Mongoose.

'Cuban leader Fidel Castro (1926-) established the first communist state in the Western Hemisphere after leading an overthrow of the military dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista in 1959.'