My Dinners With Fidel

[Say_What]

<clips>

Several years and many requests went by before I was finally granted my first one-on-one interview with Fidel Castro. But it was well worth waiting for. When we first sat down, we began talking at about 8 p.m. and didn't finish till 5 the next morning, with Fidel's translator, Juanita, providing brilliant support throughout. For the first four to five hours, Fidel pumped me for all kinds of information about America, from the role of the news media to race relations, from politics to the economy. Once he had exhausted his curiosity about the United States, he began answering my questions about Cuba, all of them.

The interview took place about 15 years ago, and we focused intently on two subjects. One was the Cuban missile crisis; the other was Fidel's experience with the Russians and their military advisers, whom he utterly disdained.

Balls and strikes. To my surprise, as I was touring a medical research center after we finished talking, Fidel showed up and offered to serve as tour guide. We spent the rest of the day together, and the next two days after that. Each night, we sat down for dinner at about 8 or 9 p.m. and talked for seven or eight hours. At one point, I asked Fidel what was the biggest mistake he had ever made. He answered immediately: aligning himself too closely with Moscow.

To this day, I have one regret from that first visit. On my last day in Havana, Fidel invited me to join him at the Cuban World Series, which was to start the next day. In our younger days, both of us had been pitchers, and we both still keenly enjoyed the game. I had pressing business back home, however, and decided to leave. Terrible call. What a gas it would have been to sit next to Fidel in the Havana sunshine, talking balls and strikes.


http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/060806/14havana.htm