That Persistence which was Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz
 Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz August 13, 1926 – November 25, 2016 |
When I was a child in Key West Florida I recall watching him on the fuzzy broadcast television signal and he was instantly recognizable going off on a rant regarding some political communist rhetoric in Spanish and I was constantly amazed at his persistence upon the world stage given how the odds were stacked against him with some very formidable enemies of state.
My memories of him were sporadic but always left me in awe of a man who could pretty much speak his mind with little in the way of consequences — and maintain rule in the presence of that retro culture which was (and is by and large) Cuba today.
Then we have that nepotism which is the continued regime under his brother, Raul Castro. It makes me think this is one of those 'cult of personality' things such as that which goes on in the former Soviet Union with decidedly clique elements playing out power on the world stage.
His Marxist–Leninist model and anti imperialist political bent was decidedly to the left. That single communist party he used to nationalize business and industry and socialist reforms remain today.
In the end, he was not so much a threat to the United States but a gadfly out to banty rooster his way in the fickleness which is public opinion. We had the Cuban Missile Crisis where he was confronted in no uncertain terms. Lessons of history regarding The Bay of Pigs Invasion however make me think that some things should have been omitted from the equation of politics and diplomacy between Cuba and the United States.