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, bedevilling 11 U.S. Presidents, died on Friday. He was 90.
His death was announced by Cuban state television.
In declining health for several years, 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 from the earliest days of the insurrection and remained Minister of Defence and his brother’s closest confidant, has ruled Cuba since then, although he has told the Cuban people that he intends to resign in 2018.
Fidel Castro had held onto 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 moment he triumphantly entered Havana on January 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. — The New York Times News Service
