Fidel Castro Profile and Full Biography :

Fidel Castro, the illegitimate son of a successful Creole sugar plantation owner,
was born in Cuba in 1926. He was a rebellious boy and at the age of thirteen
helped to organize a strike of sugar workers on his father's plantation.
Both his parents were illiterate but they were determined that their children
should receive a good education and Fidel was sent to a Jesuit boarding school.
Although he disliked the strict discipline of the school, Fidel soon showed that he
was extremely intelligent. However, except for history, he preferred sports to
academic subjects. Fidel was good at running, soccer and baseball, and in 1944
was awarded the prize as Cuba's best all-round school athlete.
After he had finished his education Castro became a lawyer in Havana. As he
tended to take the cases of poor people who could not afford to pay him, Castro
was constantly short of money. Castro's experience as a lawyer made him
extremely critical of the great inequalities in wealth that existed in Cuba. Like
many other Cubans, Castro resented the wealth and power of the American
businessmen who appeared to control the country.
In 1947 Castro joined the Cuban People's Party. He was attracted to this new
party's campaign against corruption, injustice, poverty, unemployment and low
wages. The Cuban People's Party accused government ministers of taking bribes
and running the country for the benefit of the large United States corporations
that had factories and offices in Cuba.
In 1952 Fidel Castro became a candidate for Congress for the Cuban People's
Party. He was a superb public speaker and soon built up a strong following
amongst the young members of the party. The Cuban People's Party was
expected to win the election but during the campaign. General Fulgencio Batista,
with the support of the armed forces, took control of the country.
Castro came to the conclusion that revolution was the only way that the Cuban
People's Party would gain power. In 1953, Castro, with an armed group of 123
men and women, attacked the Moncada Army Barracks. The plan to overthrow
Batista ended in disaster and although only eight were killed in the fighting,
another eighty were murdered by the army after they were captured. Castro was
lucky that the lieutenant who arrested him ignored orders to have him executed
and instead delivered him to the nearest civilian prison.
Castro also came close to death in prison. Captain Pelletier was instructed to put
poison in Castro's food. The man refused and instead revealed his orders to the
Cuban people. Pelletier was court-martialed but, concerned about world opinion,
Batista decided not to have Castro killed.
Castro was put on trial charged with organising an armed uprising. He used this
opportunity to make a speech about the problems of Cuba and how they could be
solved. His speech later became a book entitled History Will Absolve Me. Castro
was found guilty and sentenced to fifteen years in prison. The trial and the
publication of the book made Castro famous in Cuba. His attempted revolution
had considerable support in the country. After all, the party he represented would

probably have won the election in 1952 had it been allowed to take place.
Following considerable pressure from the Cuban population, Fulgencio Batista
decided to release Castro after he had served only two years of his sentence.
Batista also promised elections but when it became clear that they would not
take place, Castro left for Mexico where he began to plan another attempt to
overthrow the Cuban government.
After building up a stock of guns and ammunition, Castro, Che Guevara, Juan
Almeida, and eighty other rebels arrived in Cuba in 1956. This group became
known as the July 26 Movement (the date that Castro had attacked the Moncada
barracks). Their plan was to set up their base in the Sierra Maestra mountains. On
the way to the mountains they were attacked by government troops. By the time
they reached the Sierra Maestra there were only sixteen men left with twelve
weapons between them. For the next few months Castro's guerrilla army raided
isolated army garrisons and were gradually able to build-up their stock of
weapons.
When the guerrillas took control of territory they redistributed the land amongst
the peasants. In return, the peasants helped the guerrillas against Batista's
soldiers. In some cases the peasants also joined Castro's army, as did students
from the cities and occasionally Catholic priests.
In an effort to find out information about Castro's army people were pulled in for
questioning. Many innocent people were tortured. Suspects, including children,
were publicly executed and then left hanging in the streets for several days as a
warning to others who were considering joining Castro. The behaviour of Batista's
forces increased support for the guerrillas. In 1958 forty-five organizations signed
an open letter supporting the July 26 Movement. National bodies representing
lawyers, architects, dentists, accountants and social workers were amongst those
who signed. Castro, who had originally relied on the support of the poor, was now
gaining the backing of the influential middle classes.
Fulgencio Batista responded to this by sending more troops to the Sierra Maestra.
He now had 10,000 men hunting for Castro and his 300-strong army. Although
outnumbered, Castro's guerrillas were able to inflict defeat after defeat on the
government's troops. In the summer of 1958 over a thousand of Batista's soldiers
were killed or wounded and many more were captured. Unlike Batista's soldiers,
Castro's troops had developed a reputation for behaving well towards prisoners.
This encouraged Batista's troops to surrender to Castro when things went badly
in battle. Complete military units began to join the guerrillas.
The United States supplied Batista with planes, ships and tanks, but the
advantage of using the latest technology such as napalm failed to win them
victory against the guerrillas. In March 1958, the United States government,
disillusioned with Batista's performance, suggested he held elections. This he did,
but the people showed their dissatisfaction with his government by refusing to
vote. Over 75 per cent of the voters in the capital Havana boycotted the polls. In
some areas, such as Santiago, it was as high as 98 per cent.

Castro was now confident he could beat Batista in a head-on battle. Leaving the
Sierra Maestra mountains, Castro's troops began to march on the main towns.
After consultations with the United States government, Batista decided to flee
Cuba. Senior Generals left behind attempted to set up another military
government. Castro's reaction was to call for a general strike. The workers came
out on strike and the military were forced to accept the people's desire for
change. Castro marched into Havana on January 9,1959, and became Cuba's new
leader.
In its first hundred days in office Castro's government passed several new laws.
Rents were cut by up to 50 per cent for low wage earners; property owned by
Batista and his ministers was confiscated; the telephone company was
nationalized and the rates were reduced by 50 per cent; land was redistributed
amongst the peasants (including the land owned by the Castro family); separate
facilities for blacks and whites (swimming pools, beaches, hotels, cemeteries etc.)
were abolished.
Castro had strong views on morality. He considered that alcohol, drugs, gambling,
homosexuality and prostitution were major evils. He saw the casinos and nightclubs as sources of temptation and corruption and he passed laws closing them
down. Members of the Mafia, who had been heavily involved in running these
places, were forced to leave the country.
Castro believed strongly in education. Before the revolution 23.6 per cent of the
Cuban population were illiterate. In rural areas over half the population could not
read or write and 61 per cent of the children did not go to school. Castro asked
young students in the cities to travel to the countryside and teach the people to
read and write. Cuba adopted the slogan: "If you don't know, learn. If you know,
teach." Eventually free education was made available to all citizens and illiteracy
in Cuba became a thing of the past.
The new Cuban government also set about the problem of health care. Before the
revolution Cuba had 6,000 doctors. Of these, 64 per cent worked in Havana
where most of the rich people lived. When Castro ordered that doctors had to be
redistributed throughout the country, over half decided to leave Cuba. To replace
them Cuba built three new training schools for doctors.
The death of young children from disease was a major problem in Cuba. Infant
mortality was 60 per 1,000 live births in 1959. To help deal with this Cuba
introduced a free health-service and started a massive inoculation program. By
1980 infant mortality had fallen to 15 per 1,000. This figure is now the best in the
developing world and is in fact better than many areas of the United States.
It has been estimated that in his seven-year reign, Batista's regime had murdered
over 20,000 Cubans. Those involved in the murders had not expected to lose
power and had kept records, including photographs of the people they had
tortured and murdered. Castro established public tribunals to try the people
responsible and an estimated 600 people were executed. Although this pleased

the relatives of the people murdered by Batista's government, these executions

shocked world opinion.
Some of Castro's new laws also upset the United States. Much of the land given
to the peasants was owned by United States corporations. So also was the
telephone company that was nationalized. The United States government
responded by telling Castro they would no longer be willing to supply the
technology and technicians needed to run Cuba's economy. When this failed to
change Castro's policies they reduced their orders for Cuban sugar.
Castro refused to be intimidated by the United States and adopted even more
aggressive policies towards them. In the summer of 1960 Castro nationalized
United States property worth $850 million. He also negotiated a deal where by
the Soviet Union and other communist countries in Eastern Europe agreed to
purchase the sugar that the United States had refused to take. The Soviet Union
also agreed to supply the weapons, technicians and machinery denied to Cuba by
the United States.
President Dwight Eisenhower was in a difficult situation. The more he attempted
to punish Castro the closer he became to the Soviet Union. His main fear was that
Cuba could eventually become a Soviet military base. To change course and
attempt to win Castro's friendship with favourable trade deals was likely to be
interpreted as a humiliating defeat for the United States. Instead Eisenhower
announced that he would not buy any more sugar from Cuba.
In March I960, Eisenhower approved a CIA plan to overthrow Castro. The plan
involved a budget of $13 million to train "a paramilitary force outside Cuba for
guerrilla action." The strategy was organised by Richard Bissell and Richard
Helms. An estimated 400 CIA officers were employed full-time to carry out what
became known as Operation Mongoose. Edward Lansdale became project leader
whereas William Harvey became head of what became known as Task Force W.
The JM WAVE station served as operational headquarters for Operation Mongoose.
Sidney Gottlieb of the CIA Technical Services Division was asked to come up with
proposals that would undermine Castro's popularity with the Cuban people. Plans
included a scheme to spray a television studio in which he was about to appear
with an hallucinogenic drug and contaminating his shoes with thallium which they
believed would cause the hair in his beard to fall out.
These schemes were rejected and instead Bissell decided to arrange the
assassination of Castro. In September 1960, Richard Bissell and Allen W. Dulles,
the director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), initiated talks with two
leading figures of the Mafia, Johnny Roselli and Sam Giancana. Later, other crime
bosses such as Carlos Marcello, Santos Trafficante and Meyer Lansky became
involved in this plot against Castro.
Robert Maheu, a veteran of CIA counter-espionage activities, was instructed to
offer the Mafia $150,000 to kill Fidel Castro. The advantage of employing the
Mafia for this work is that it provided CIA with a credible cover story. The Mafia
were known to be angry with Castro for closing down their profitable brothels and

casinos in Cuba. If the assassins were killed or captured the media would accept
that the Mafia were working on their own.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation had to be brought into this plan as part of the
deal involved protection against investigations against the Mafia in the United
States. Castro was later to complain that there were twenty ClA-sponsered
attempts on his life. Eventually Johnny Roselli and his friends became convinced
that the Cuban revolution could not be reversed by simply removing its leader.
However, they continued to play along with this CIA plot in order to prevent them
being prosecuted for criminal offences committed in the United States.
In 1961 Eisenhower retired and the problem of dealing with Castro was passed on
to the new president, John F. Kennedy. The new president continued with
Eisenhower's policy of trying to assassinate Castro. This became known as
Operation Freedom and was placed under the control of Robert Kennedy.
In the three years that followed the revolution, 250,000 Cubans out of a
population of six million left the country. Most of these were from the upper and
middle-classes who were financially worse off as a result of Castro's policies.
Of those who stayed, 90 per cent of the population, according to public opinion
polls, supported Castro. However, Castro did not keep his promise of holding free
elections. Castro claimed the national unity that had been created would be
destroyed by the competing political parties in an election.
Castro was also becoming less tolerant towards people who disagreed with him.
Ministers who questioned the wisdom of his policies were sacked and replaced by
people who had proved their loyalty to him. These people were often young,
inexperienced politicians who had fought with him in the Sierra Maestra.
Politicians who publicly disagreed with him faced the possibility of being arrested.
Writers who expressed dissenting views and people he considered deviants such
as homosexuals were also imprisoned.
When John F. Kennedy replaced Dwight Eisenhower as president of the United
States he was told about the CIA plan to invade Cuba. Kennedy had doubts about
the venture but he was afraid he would be seen as soft on communism if he
refused permission for it to go ahead. Kennedy's advisers convinced him that
Castro was an unpopular leader and that once the invasion started the Cuban
people would support the ClA-trained forces.
On April 14, 1961, B-26 planes began bombing Cuba's airfields. After the raids
Cuba was left with only eight planes and seven pilots. Two days later five
merchant ships carrying 1,400 Cuban exiles arrived at the Bay of Pigs. The attack
was a total failure. Two of the ships were sunk, including the ship that was
carrying most of the supplies. Two of the planes that were attempting to give aircover were also shot down. Within seventy-two hours all the invading troops had
been killed, wounded or had surrendered.
At the beginning of September 1962, U-2 spy planes discovered that the Soviet
Union was building surface-to-air missile (SAM) launch sites. There was also an

increase in the number of Soviet ships arriving in Cuba which the United States
government feared were carrying new supplies of weapons. President John
Kennedy complained to the Soviet Union about these developments and warned
them that the United States would not accept offensive weapons (SAMs were
considered to be defensive) in Cuba.
As the Cubans now had SAM installations they were in a position to shoot down
U-2 spy-planes. Kennedy was in a difficult situation. Elections were to take place
for the United States Congress in two month's time. The public opinion polls
showed that his own ratings had fallen to their lowest point since he became
president.
In his first two years of office a combination of Republicans and conservative
southern Democrats in Congress had blocked much of Kennedy's proposed
legislation. The polls suggested that after the elections he would have even less
support in Congress. Kennedy feared that any trouble over Cuba would lose the
Democratic Party even more votes, as it would remind voters of the Bay of Pigs
disaster where the CIA had tried to oust Castro from power. One poll showed that
over 62 per cent of the population were unhappy with his policies on Cuba.
Understandably, the Republicans attempted to make Cuba the main issue in the
campaign.
This was probably in Kennedy's mind when he decided to restrict the flights of the
U-2 planes over Cuba . Pilots were also told to avoid flying the whole length of the
island. Kennedy hoped this would ensure that a U-2 plane would not be shot
down, and would prevent Cuba becoming a major issue during the election
campaign.
On September 27, a CIA agent in Cuba overheard Castro's personal pilot tell
another man in a bar that Cuba now had nuclear weapons. U-2 spy-plane
photographs also showed that unusual activity was taking place at San Cristobal.
However, it was not until October 15 that photographs were taken that revealed
that the Soviet Union was placing long range missiles in Cuba.
President Kennedy's first reaction to the information about the missiles in Cuba
was to call a meeting to discuss what should be done. Fourteen men attended
the meeting and included military leaders, experts on Latin America,
representatives of the CIA, cabinet ministers and personal friends whose advice
Kennedy valued. This group became known as the Executive Committee of the
National Security Council. Over the next few days they were to meet several
times.
At the first meeting of the Executive Committee of the National Security Council,
the CIA and other military advisers explained the situation. After hearing what
they had to say, the general feeling of the meeting was for an air-attack on the
missile sites. Remembering the poor advice the CIA had provided before the Bay
of Pigs invasion, John F. Kennedy decided to wait and instead called for another
meeting to take place that evening. By this time several of the men were having
doubts about the wisdom of a bombing raid, fearing that it would lead to a

nuclear war with the Soviet Union. The committee was now so divided that a firm
decision could not be made.
The Executive Committee of the National Security Council argued amongst
themselves for the next two days. The CIA and the military were still in favour of
a bombing raid and/or an invasion. However, the majority of the committee
gradually began to favour a naval blockade of Cuba.
Kennedy accepted their decision and instructed Theodore Sorensen, a member of
the committee, to write a speech in which Kennedy would explain to the world
why it was necessary to impose a naval blockade of Cuba.
As well as imposing a naval blockade, Kennedy also told the air-force to prepare
for attacks on Cuba and the Soviet Union. The army positioned 125,000 men in
Florida and was told to wait for orders to invade Cuba. If the Soviet ships carrying
weapons for Cuba did not turn back or refused to be searched, a war was likely to
begin. Kennedy also promised his military advisers that if one of the U-2 spy
planes were fired upon he would give orders for an attack on the Cuban SAM
missile sites.
The world waited anxiously. A public opinion poll in the United States revealed
that three out of five people expected fighting to break out between the two
sides. There were angry demonstrations outside the American Embassy in
London as people protested about the possibility of nuclear war. Demonstrations
also took place in other cities in Europe. However, in the United States, polls
suggested that the vast majority supported Kennedy's action.
On October 24, President John F. Kennedy was informed that Soviet ships had
stopped just before they reached the United States ships blockading Cuba. That
evening Nikita Khrushchev sent an angry note to Kennedy accusing him of
creating a crisis to help the Democratic Party win the forthcoming election.
On October 26, Khrushchev sent Kennedy another letter. In this he proposed that
the Soviet Union would be willing to remove the missiles in Cuba in exchange for
a promise by the United States that they would not invade Cuba. The next day a
second letter from Khrushchev arrived demanding that the United States remove
their nuclear bases in Turkey.
While the president and his advisers were analyzing Khrushchev's two letters,
news came through that a U-2 plane had been shot down over Cuba. The leaders
of the military, reminding Kennedy of the promise he had made, argued that he
should now give orders for the bombing of Cuba. Kennedy refused and instead
sent a letter to Khrushchev accepting the terms of his first letter.
Khrushchev agreed and gave orders for the missiles to be dismantled. Eight days
later the elections for Congress took place. The Democrats increased their
majority and it was estimated that Kennedy would now have an extra twelve
supporters in Congress for his policies.

The Cuban Missile Crisis was the first and only nuclear confrontation between the
United States and the Soviet Union. The event appeared to frighten both sides
and it marked a change in the development of the Cold War.
Castro remained dependent on the support of the Soviet Union. Nikita
Khrushchev was ousted from power on 15th October, 1964, but his successors,
including Leonid Brezhnev, Yuri Andropov, Konstantin Chernenko and Mikhail
Gorbachev provided aid to his government. However, after the fall of communism
in the Soviet Union in 1989 this economic help came to an end.
In 1991 Cuba suffered an economic crisis. Its outdated and unrepaired equipment
meant that sugar and tobacco production fell. At the same time Cuba could no
longer rely on former countries in Eastern Europe to buy its goods. Castro
suffered great embarrassment when his own daughter sough asylum in the
United States in 1994.
In 2005, the CIA reported that Fidel Castro was suffering from Parkinson's
disease. Other rumours suggested that he had terminal cancer. The following
year he underwent intestinal surgery and on 31st July, 2006, he transferred his
political responsibilities to his younger brother Ral Castro.
On 19th February, 2008, Fidel Castro announced he would neither seek nor
accept a new term as either president or commander-in-chief of Cuba