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"Castro Visit Triumphant"
Harvard
Law Record - April 30, 1959 - Pages 3, 4
reprinted by permission
The Boston amusement season came to a triumphant climax last Saturday night at Soldiers Field as a rising young Cuban star named Fidel Castro brought his touring road show into town for a one-night stand, much to the delight of some 10,000 spectators and untold others who tuned in over radio and television.
Though Castro was the main attraction, his show was well supplied with supporting actors. Act One of the performance consisted in the elaborate precautions taken to protect Seņor Castro -- several hundred policemen patrolled the improvised arena outside the Dillon Field House long before showtime, and Castro himself arrived in a flourish of lights, motorcycle roar, cloistered limousines and more uniformed guardians.
Then the spotlight shifted to the stage erected high above the audience and extending from the Field House where Castro, wearing his familiar green costume and bearded make-up, engaged in a one-hour soliloquy that was Act Two. Act Three consisted of some dialogue between the headliner and several selected straight men who were planted in the audience. Further support was rendered by Harvard College Dean McGeorge Bundy, who on occasion had a few lines to say during the course of the dialogue; by an unidentified interpreter, who helped the Cuban overcomes some language difficulties; and to a few other costumed members of Castro's troupe whose role seemed unclear, unless it was to provide background scenery.
As for the performance itself, it was the same one that Castro had given in other cities for the previous week, and anyone who had read the papers or watched television was quite familiar with the script. Still, the evening must be counted as a success for impresario John Samuels, 2L of Galveston, Texas, of the producer Law School Forum, for the audience got mainly what it wanted -- the chance of seeing the Cuban hero in person, if not at as close a range as might have been desired.
The theatrical metaphors seem apt to describe the final Forum of the year, for surely there was more entertainment than enlightenment in the appearance by the Cuban Prime Minister to discuss "The Cuban Revolution." Reports of an attempt to assassinate Castro intensified concern for his welfare and heightened the cloak-and-dagger atmosphere of the security arrangements. The audience seemed much more interested in the ceremony of Castro's presence than in hearing the particular things he would have to say.
The wide-open questioning that typifies the usual Forum was not possible because of physical limitations, and the eight questions that were put seemed sterile -- particularly as there was lacking an element of give-and-take between Castro and the questioner. The questions systematically covered the range of topics on which Castro is usually interrogated -- save for any reference to possible Communist influence in his personal or official family.
Castro did a manful job of putting his thoughts into the English language, over which his mastery was not complete, and many of his utterances came in spasmatic phrases. In the course of his remarks, however, Castro did have these things to say:
The ideals of the Cuban revolution were "humanism," which means "not theoretical democracy but real democracy" including the right to work, the right to read and write, the right to spend and the right to eat. "We want not bread without freedom or freedom without bread."
He said Cuba would not be ready for elections until economic conditions could be improved, until the unemployment of 700,000 persons could be alleviated, until the people could learn to read and write so as to make use of a free press, and most of all until political parties could be formed. "You know the old political party disappeared with the revolution. Public opinion has to organize a new political party," he said.
Castro was applauded when, in an impassioned voice, he said the trial of war criminals was fully justified because of the "assassinations" and brutalities that had been committed. He stated that only the "worst" of the offenders had been tried, and that this procedure had averted mass killing and looting that usually follow in the wake of an upheaval. Castro claimed that Cuba's was the only "majority" revolution in Latin America in recent years.
Asked about the re-trial of 24 acquitted defendants, the Prime Minister said this was because the people, as well as a defendant, had the right of appeal.
Asked about "confusion" between "your advocacy of nationalization and profit-sharing and your later statement that this was too radical for Cuba," Castro quickly retorted, "There is opposite. Possibility you are not well informed." He then went on to explain that he supported not profit-sharing but higher salaries and wages for Cubans, and greater government control over public service companies, not industry. He discussed recent edicts concerning the Cuban Telephone Co., subsidiary of AT&T, and explained them as revocation of unfair Batista decrees. He also asserted that the telephone company had engaged in corruption and favoritism during the prior regime. "We need money for new factory for industrial development and to find employment for unemployed. So you can be quiet and not worry about nationalization," he assured.
Castro reaffirmed his believe the principle of non-intervention. "We proved it is possible to fight dictators. Our example gives courage to other people in their conflict for their own freedom. Our help his moral help, spiritual help, but not intervention because we can't destroy the principle of non-intervention."
Castro called his visit a success in promoting understanding with the American people. He drew perhaps his greatest response in a concluding remark that he invited American students to Cuba this summer, and would take steps to provide inexpensive accommodations for them. -- Borden