Fidel Castro, the fiery apostle of revolution who brought the
Cold War to the Western Hemisphere in 1959 and then defied the United States
for nearly half a century as Cuba’s maximum leader, bedeviling 11 American
presidents and briefly pushing the world to the brink of nuclear war, died
Friday. He was 90.
His death was announced by Cuban state television.
In declining health for several years, Mr. Castro had
orchestrated what he hoped would be the continuation of his Communist
revolution, stepping aside in 2006 when he was felled
by a serious illness. He provisionally ceded much of his power to his younger
brother Raúl, now 85, and two years later formally resigned as president. Raúl Castro,
who had fought alongside Fidel Castro from the earliest days of the
insurrection and remained minister of defense and his brother’s closest
confidant, has ruled Cuba since then, although he has told that the Cuban
people he intends to resign in 2018.
Fidel
Castro had held on to power longer than any other living national leader except
Queen Elizabeth II. He became a towering international figure whose importance
in the 20th century far exceeded what might have been expected from the head of
state of a Caribbean island nation of 11 million people.
He
dominated his country with strength and symbolism from the day he
triumphantly entered Havana on Jan. 8, 1959, and
completed his overthrow of Fulgencio Batista by delivering his first
major speech in the capital before tens of thousands of admirers at the
vanquished dictator’s military headquarters.
A
spotlight shone on him as he swaggered and spoke with passion until dawn.
Finally, white doves were released to signal Cuba’s new peace. When one landed
on Mr. Castro, perching on a shoulder, the crowd erupted, chanting: “Fidel!
Fidel!” To the war-weary Cubans gathered there and those watching on
television, it was an electrifying sign that their young, bearded guerrilla
leader was destined to be their savior.
Most
people in the crowd had no idea what Mr. Castro planned for Cuba. A master of
image and myth, Mr. Castro believed himself to be the messiah of his
fatherland, an indispensable force with authority from on high to control Cuba
and its people.
He
wielded power like a tyrant, controlling every aspect of the island’s
existence. He was Cuba’s “Máximo Lider.” From atop a Cuban Army tank, he
directed his country’s defense at the Bay of Pigs. Countless details fell to him,
from selecting the color of uniforms that Cuban soldiers wore in Angola to
overseeing a program to produce a superbreed of milk cows. He personally set
the goals for sugar harvests. He personally sent countless men to prison.
But it
was more than repression and fear that kept him and his totalitarian government
in power for so long. He had both admirers and detractors in Cuba and around
the world. Some saw him as a ruthless despot who trampled rights and freedoms;
many others hailed him as the crowds did that first night, as a revolutionary
hero for the ages.
Even
when he fell ill and was hospitalized with diverticulitis in
the summer of 2006, giving up most of his powers for the first time, Mr. Castro
tried to dictate the details of his own medical care and orchestrate the
continuation of his Communist revolution, engaging a plan as old as the
revolution itself.
By
handing power to his brother, Mr. Castro once more raised the ire of his
enemies in Washington. United States officials condemned the transition, saying
it prolonged a dictatorship and again denied the long-suffering Cuban people a
chance to control their own lives.
But in
December 2014, President Obama used his executive powers to dial down the
decades of antagonism between Washington and Havana by moving to exchange
prisoners and normalize diplomatic relations between
the two countries, a deal worked out with the help of Pope Francis and after 18
months of secret talks between representatives of both governments.
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