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What I discovered during this time was a private, almost shy Fidel, a polite, affable man who pays attention to each person he talks to and speaks without affectation, yet with the manners and gestures of a somewhat old-fashioned courtesy that has earned him the title of 'the last Spanish gentleman'. He is always attentive to others, aware of them as persons especially those he works with, his staff, and his escorts - and he never raised his voice. I never heard him give an order. But still, wherever he is, he exercises absolute authority - it is the force of his overwhelming personality. Where he is, there is but one voice: his. He makes all the decisions, big and small. Although he consults the political authorities in charge of the Party and the government very respectfully, very 'professionally' during the decision-making process, it is Fidel who finally decides. There is no one within the circle of power that Fidel moves in, since the death of Che Guevara, who has an intellectual calibre comparable to his own. In that respect, he gives the impression of being a man alone, with no close friends, no intellectual peers.He is a leader who lives, so far as I could see, modestly, austerely, in almost spartan conditions: there is no luxury; his furniture is sober; his food is frugal, healthy, macro biotic. His are the habits of a soldier-monk. Most of his enemies admit that he is one of the very few heads of state who has not taken advantage of his position to enrich himself.
He sleeps about four hours a night, and sometimes one or two more during the day, when he has a chance. His workday, all seven days a week, usually ends at five or six in the morning, as the sun is rising. More than once he interrupted our conversation at two or three in the morning because, weary but smiling, he still had to attend an 'important meeting.' . . . One trip, one drive from here to there, one meeting, one visit, one public appearance follows upon another incessantly, and dizzyingly. His assistants - all young men in their thirties, and brilliant - are drained at the end of the workday. They are virtually asleep on their feet, exhausted, unable to keep up with that indefatigable eighty-year-old.
Fidel is always asking for notes, reports, cables, international and national news, statistics, summaries of TV or radio broadcasts, the results of national opinion polls. He is constantly making or receiving telephone calls via the mobile phone carried by his personal assistant, Carlitos Valenciaga . . . He is a man of infinite curiosity, and he never stops thinking, pondering, rallying his staff of advisers. Always alert, in action, at the head of a small General Staff - his group of assistants - ready to engage in the day's new battles. Ready to remake the Revolution, every day. There is nothing more alien to him than dogma, precept, rules, 'the system', revealed truth. He is the very definition of an anti-dogmatic leader. He is an innate and instinctive transgressor - subversive, anti-authoritarian - and, though it may be too obvious to say it, a rebel....
Fidel has a profound sense of himself in history, and an extreme sensitivity to everything touching upon national identity. He quotes José Martí, the hero of Cuban independence, whom he reads and rereads much more than any figure in the history of the socialist or labour movement. Martí, in fact, is his principal source of inspiration. But he is also fascinated by the sciences, and scientific research. He is impassioned by medical progress, the possibility of healing children - all the children. And the fact is, thousands of Cuban doctors are to be found in dozens of poor countries, healing the poorest and most needy.
Moved by humanitarian compassion and internationalist solidarity, he has a dream, which he has talked about a thousand times, of bringing health and knowledge, medicines and education, to every corner of the planet. Is that an impossible dream? Not for nothing is his favourite literary hero Don Quixote. Most of the people who speak with Castro, and even some of his adversaries, admit that he is a person who acts out of ambitions that are noble, out of ideals of justice and equity. This quality, which makes one think of those words of Che Guevara: 'A great revolution can only be born out of a great feeling of love,' made a profound impression on American film-maker Oliver Stone. 'Castro,' he said, 'is one of the wisest men there are; he is a survivor and a Quixote. I admire his Revolution, his faith in himself and his honesty.'
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posted 12 August 2008 08:49 PM
