Fidel Castro enters Havana in triumph: 8 January 1959 Posted on: 8 January 2017 As Cuban as palm trees The death of Fidel Castro at the age of 90 on 26 November 2016 marked the end of an extraordinary life: head of the Cuban government from 1959 until he handed over to his brother Raul in 2008, Castro was the longest serving non-royal leader of the 20th century and survivor of more than 600 assassination attempts by the CIA. Che Guevara & Fidel Castro (Alberto Korda, Museo Che Guevara, Havana Cuba)
Castro may have ruled over a small island in the Caribbean, but he was to become a powerful international figure, his influence felt from Moscow to Washington, from Buenos Aires to Cairo, from Caracas to Luanda. The most dangerous crisis of the Cold War was played out in Cuba in 1962. And yet Castro described himself as being ‘as Cuban as palm trees’, and the success of the revolutionary movement he led with his brother and Che Guevara, seizing power as the dictator Batista fled the island, came as a surprise to almost everyone—Fidel included. The Castro brothers had formed an underground movement in the early 1950s to try and overthrow the corrupt regime of the dictator Fulgencio Batista, under whose rule Cuba had become a haven for organized crime while the general population was brutalized. After an unsuccessful rising against Batista in 1953 the Castro brothers were jailed for 15 years, but were released after 2 and allowed to go into exile in Mexico. There they met the charismatic Argentinian doctor Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara, who returned to Cuba with them and a small band of followers in 1956. Joining with mountain bandits, from their stronghold in Sierra Maestra Fidel and his followers smuggled in arms, mounted guerrilla raids, blew up bridges, kidnapped Americans and cut off the ports from which sugar was exported, damaging the economy. Batista finally fled on New Year’s Eve 1958, and Fidel, at the age of 30, entered Havana in triumph on 8 January 1959. The eyes of the world were not on Cuba In the broader Cold War context, the international focus in 1958-9 was on Europe and the Middle East, not Latin America. In 1958 Khrushchev rose to supreme power in the Soviet Union, swiftly removing opponents and bringing his own supporters into power. A twin strategy of building up Soviet arms while calling for a nuclear test ban and initiating disarmament talks, plus increasing the pressure on the West over the status of Berlin and a divided Germany, kept the US Government headed by President Eisenhower
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