Fidel Castro (1926- )

Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz was, up to 2008, the leader of his country on the Island of Cuba. With a bunch of revolutionaries, he toppled the dictatorship of general Fulgencio Batista in what is referred to as the 1958-1959Cuban revolution. Fidel Castro, Dr. Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara and his brother, lieutenant Raúl Castro only later turned the nationalist revolution into a marxist-leninist government –in the early 60s. Following the revolution, Castro progressively introduced an administration that was dictatorial for some and socialist for others. It is a state regime with a single political party and freedom of the press is quite limited. Elected for life, Castro saw ten US presidents come into office : Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, G.H. Bush, Clinton and G. W. Bush. In 1959, the United States started to plan for the invasion of a CIA-trained exile force at the Bay of Pigs but Cuba had been informed well ahead. The invasion by the 2506 Brigade under CIA agents Grayston Lynch and William Robertson occurred in 1961 on Cuba’s south coast. The CIA believed that the Cuban people would rise against Castro but the 1,400 invaders were repelled or killed and a thousand were captured. Two US Navy ships were sunk by the Cuban air force and nine people were executed. It is believed that President Kennedy had withdrawn his support to the operation at the last moment. Castro himself appeared on the batttleground and gained additional popularity among Cubans. A former chief of Cuban intelligence services stated that there has been no less than 638 assassination attempts on Castro’s life in the years following the Bay of Pigs failure.