That Awesome Man in Havana

...To those words the reader of Szulc's book can only add "Amen...

...At the time "a corps of KGB advisers was attached to the Cuban Interior Ministry and [the corps'] chief took umbrage over Pineiro's failure to report the incident to him...

...he is perplexed that "a man who does understand the workings of Cuban society" does not allow "basic structural changes...

...in April 1959, he was accompanied by all of his "top Cabinet economic and financial experts...

...The author should reread his own book, with special attention to his earlier conclusion that Castro "knew exactly what he was doing all along...

...In the end," Szulc relates, "Fidel Castro had little choice but to fall into line...

...Yet as the plane was approaching the U. S., he ordered his people to cancel their appointments and not to request assistance of any kind...

...Ambassador Philip Bonsai's fruitless efforts to get along with Castro are described, but Szulc attaches no significance to willingness shown by the U. S. during Bonsai's tenure to accommodate the provisions of the Agrarian Reform Law...

...While researching Fidel Szulc enjoyed access to the highest echelons of the Havana regime—including the subject himself...

...his apparent improvisations had been carefully thought out and...

...He would not tolerate the functioning of a government which was not the façade of his personal rule or of a party which might develop a life of its own...

...A notable example is his description of how the Soviet Union managed "to teach Castro a lesson" in the fall of 1967...

...Instead, after a desultory ramble through 10 or so pages we are finally told how the problem with the Russians began...

...Szulc usefully supplies the Cuban leader's rather casual observations on the matter...

...The author now finds Castro wanting for "fresh ideas, " and "his beloved social and human experiment...

...Fidel Castro showed his displeasure by purging some old Communists—including Escalante—who seemed to have been following Moscow's instructions instead of his own...

...Many, such as the reference to Professor Roberto Agramonte as "an old politician" and to Che Guevara as a Perón supporter, conveniently buttress the author's basic premises...

...where "bureaucratic corruption and black marketeering in the streets are reemerging...

...locked into obsolete ideological orthodoxy and deadened bureaucratization...

...others kept quiet...

...Labeling men like Carlos Franqui, David Salvador and Huber Matos "moderates" (i.e...

...He has not strayed since...

...This is a pivotal event in postrevolutionary Cuban history, and deserves to be recounted in strict sequence...

...where "masses of costly equipment are destroyed...

...On the heels of these conflicts came the October 21 arrest of Major Huber Matos for resigning his commission to protest favoritism toward Communists in the rebel forces...

...Fidel, which covers the Cuban dictator's life from childhood to his 60th birthday, often suffers from hindsight...

...In May 1968 the student uprising in Paris occurred...

...Castro, however, endorsed the action with heroic platitudes —"We accept the bitter necessity that required the dispatch of these forces to Czechoslovakia"—and indicated his approval of the Brezhnev Doctrine, which prescribed Soviet military intervention when Communist rule in a bloc country appears threatened...

...supportfor Batista and minimizes the impact of the March 1958 U.S...

...Urrutia—no pro-American— turned him down flat...

...Neither this feat nor his victories against Batista's Army—not to mention eventual U.S...

...not real revolutionaries) and "pro-American" is simply absurd...

...In chronicling the highlights of the Revolution's direction, Szulc leaves out two early clashes between the 26th of July Movement and the old-line Communists...

...He knew they had arranged meetings with government agencies that could provide badly needed aid...

...One cannot simply deflect responsibility for Cuba's present blight on the system—Castro is to blame whichever way one looks at it...

...Pineiro appealed to Raul Castro, who took the matter up with the KGB...

...The same day the president of the National Bank of Cuba was forced out in favor of Che...

...The Soviets retaliated by reducing Cuba's fuel supplies and applying other kinds of pressure (which unfortunately the author does not bother to detail...

...ForSzulcismorethana little awed by the intellect, determination and world-stature of his subject— not an attitude conducive to detachment...

...arms embargo that crippled his Army...

...These three crucial turnovers marked the point of no return in the transmutation of the Cuban Revolution into a Communist state...

...Despite what Szulc suggests, the student Castro never achieved any prominence as a political leader...

...The first took place in Las Villas Province in September 1959, the second during the Federation of University Students' elections the following month...

...When the Soviets invaded Czechoslovakia in August many Western Communists spoke out in condemnation...

...He declared the Revolution "as Cuban as the royal palms," a move "neither to the Right or the Left but a step forward...

...Cuba is a land where "national creativeness has been blunted...

...Of the international episodes Castro became involved in after consolidating power, none was more momentous than the Cuban missile crisis of October 1962...

...More than a quarter century ago, Theodore Draper wrote in The New Leader (March 27, 1961) that "once power came into [Castro's] hands he refused to permit anything that might lessen or restrict it...

...Late in the book Szulc is guilty of some expository sloppiness...

...Cuba's woes are attributed by Szulc to an "overcentralized system of government and management...

...That way, he said, "the Americans will be surprised and when we go back to Cuba they will offer us aid without our asking for it...

...Then, in the Revolutionary Confederation of Workers' election, Castro disowned the 26th of July slate headed by David Salvador and imposed in its place a slate of "watermelons" (so called because they were green outside but red inside...

...That he was able to transform his following into a revolutionary mass movement is a tribute to his vision and resolve...

...Draper predicted that if the projected union with the old Communists was realized Castro "will certainly go down in history not as the Lider Maximo of a new movement but as the Pied Piper of an old one...

...Szulc, in short, disconcertedly discovered that "the island in 1986 was a wasteland of ideas and a reign of strict selfcensorship" whose "young people drink too much because there is little else to do in their spare time and they are not touched by the mystical magic of the Revolution...

...On November 26 two important Cabinet ministers, Faustino Perez and Manuel Ray, resigned to protest the Matos arrest and were replaced by Castro partisans...

...The effectsofCastro'ssubmission were felt almost immediately...

...He accepts Castro's explanation that his military forces are in Angola and Ethiopia to promote Cuba's interests—never mind that it is the Soviets who have transported, armed, fed, and resupplied the more than 200,000 Cuban soldiers rotated through Africa over the last decade...

...Szulc exaggeratesU.S...

...When the Cuban leader came to the U.S...

...It seems that Manuel Pineiro, the head of Cuban state security, saw old-line Communist Anibal Escalante emerging from "a secret meeting with an adviser from the KGB...

...the chastized one remained strangely silent, obedient to Moscow's policy of not getting involved...

...Though the information was no doubt vouchsafed carefully in order to enhance the image of Castro and the Revolution, Szulc's book is nonetheless an important document: By exploiting the Cuban ruler's eagerness to vaunt his early militancy and wiliness, it offers extraordinary insights into the workings of a complex mind...

...They will send chills up the spines of sober readers and give second thoughts to those who consider themselves supporters of both Castro and the peace movement...

...Thanks to his special sources, Szulc is able to clear up many hitherto conjectural aspects of Castro's move toward Communism and track the vagaries of the Moscow-Havana relationship...

...He concludes: "It is demonstrably incorrect to believe that American actions pushed Castro toward Communism...

...Washington's efforts to help Castro do not go entirely unnoticed by Szulc...

...It was not until he commanded the attack on the Moncada Garrison in Santiago on July 26,1953, that he became the undisputed head of the opposition to Fulgencio Batista— at least in the eyes of the young and those who spurned political solutions...

...where "shortages aggravate the problem of lo w productivity and high absenteeism...

...He omits any mention that Castro's Revolution was financed by collections made through 26th of July offices operating openly in the U.S., and that by the end of 1958 there was a virtual airlift of arms from Southern Florida to rebel forces in the Sierra Maestra...

...According to Szulc, Castro still believes that were it not for this fact, the USSR would not have withdrawn its missiles from Cuba short of actual war...

...Look, Rufo," Szulc reports him saying to López-Fresquet, "I am letting the Communists stick their heads out so I will know who they are...

...Indeed, by the end of the book the author is at a loss to explain how so great a man could have allowed his unique Revolution to become a totalitarian nightmare...

...And when I know them all, I'll do away with them, with one sweep of my hat...

...In both cases Castro stepped in to resolve matters in a way that was apparently neutral but ultimately detrimental to the 26th of July Movement...

...The powerful Raul was told, "We are Pineiro's bosses, not you"— quite a commentary on a revolution originally determined to shield the country from foreign interference...

...The Cuban leader chose the "overcentralized system" cum "obsolete ideological orthodoxy" precisely because it was the f ormula that would enable him to hold absolute and unquestioned power for life...

...The old Castro would have jumped right in and stolen the show...

...Members of the revolutionary government with access to Castro often confided their alarm at the intrusive tactics of known Communists...

...In intimate tones, Fidel would reassure them...

...The book is riddled with errors...

...Meanwhile, editorials in the government organ Revolution issued deceptive attacks on the oldline Communist party...

...What was not disclosed to him—lamentably, in his view—was that "the correlation of forces in the nuclear realm favored the United States...

...Castro knew the installation of ballistic missiles armed with nuclear warheads would bring about a confrontation between the United States and the USSR, and that by acceding to Soviet wishes he was putting "Cuba's life on the line...

...Reviewed by Antonio de la Carrera Former member of 26th of July Movement and secretary to President Manuel Urrutia Unless your first tendency is to read between the lines, you might find Tad Szulc's subtitle for his new study of Fidel Castro—A Critical Portrait—somewhat misleading...

...His power and his promises were from the first incompatible and this contradiction forced him to seek a basis for his regime wholly at variance with that of the anti-Batista revolution...

...He does cite the January 1959 meeting between American Ambassador Earl ?. Smith and President Manuel Urrutia Lièo, at which Smith offered Castro use of the American Point IV military missions...

...pressures of every kind—require the embellishment Szulc gives them when he rewrites Castro's early life...

...He identifies January 1959 as the time Castro began meeting with intimate rebel comrades and a select group of old-line Communists to organize and implement the Communist takeover of the Revolution...

...Castro's cunning attitude toward the United States is nicely illustrated by an episode Szulc recounts (incompletely) from Rufo López-Fresquet's memoirs, My Fourteen Months with Castro...

...It is typical of Castro's deviousness that he spared no effort to disguise his intentions while taking Cuba down the totalitarian road...

...Szulc dismisses charges that the Cubans became "the Gurkhas of the Russian Empire" after the 1967-68 inflection in the Moscow-Havana relationship...

...nothing was left to chance...

...Contrast this with the received opinion that Castro was forced to seek economic help from Moscow because Washington had turned him down...

...There is also an implicit attempt to discredit those within the revolutionary government who opposed Castro's mad dash to impose Communism...

...Characterizing this cabal, whose operations were "concealed from [Castro's] own Cabinet ministers," as a "parallel" government, Szulc goes on to show how its purpose was successfully accomplished in a little over 10 months, and thereby puts an end to speculation as to when and why the Revolution was transformed...

...Szulc'sadmirationforFiderspersonal qualities—the youthful promise, intellectual acuity, unflagging self-confidence, and knack for converting apparent setbacks into victories—turns to bewilderment when he surveys conditions in present-day Cuba...