FIDEL CASTRO INTERVIEW: PART 2

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01070R000301620003-5
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 10
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 6, 2010
• Sequence Number: 3
• Publication Date: February 12, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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RADIO TV REPORTS, INC.
4701 WILLARD AVENUE, CHEVY CHASE, MARYLAND 20815 [phone]
PROGRAM
The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour
STATION
WETA-TV
PBS Network
DATE
February 12, 1985 7:00 P.M. CITY
Washington, D.C.
ROBERT MACNEIL: Tonight we have part two of our
newsmaker interview with Cuban President Fidel Castro. It is the
first major American television interview Castro has given in six
years. It was recorded last weekend in Havana.
Last week White House spokesman Larry Speakes said that
one of the obstacles the Reagan Administration sees to improved
relations with Castro is what Speakes called violations of human
rights in Cuba. I asked Castro about that.
[Castro speaks through a translator]
FIDEL CASTRO: Which are the violations of human rights
in Cuba. Tell me which. Invent one. Do we have disappeared
people here?
Look, if the United States...
MACNEIL: Well, let me give -- you asked. I'll give you
an example of what is said. For instance, human rights organi-
zations, like the Amnesty International, estimate that you have
up to 1000 political prisoners still in your jails here.
Do you have political prisoners still in jail in Cuba?
CASTRO: Yes, we have them. We have a few hundreds
political prisoners. Is that a violation of human rights?
MACNEIL: In democracies it is considered a violation of
human rights to imprison somebody for his political beliefs.
CASTRO: I will give you an example. In Spain there are
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many Basque nationalists in prison. They're not political
prisoners? What are they? Because you also have to analyze what
is a political prisoner and what is not a political prisoner.
Now then, those that committed crimes during Batista's
time, did we have the right to put them into trial or not? Okay.
Those that invaded Cuba through [unintelligible]. Did we have
the right to try them? Oh, no. Those thata became CIA agents,
those that placed bombs, those that brought about the deaths of
peasants, workers, teachers. Do we have the right to put them
into court or not? Those who, in agreement with a foreign power
like the United States and backed by the United States and
inspired by the United States, conspires in our country and
struggles and fights against our people and its revolution
--because this revolution is not of a minority. This is a
revolution of the overwhelming majority of the people. What are
these people? What are they, political prisoners?
Those that have infiltrated through our coasts, those
that have been trained by the CIA to kill, to place bombs, do we
have the right to put them to trial or not? Are they political
prisoners?
They are something more than political prisoners. They
are traitors to the homeland.
MACNEIL: Is there anybody in jail simply because his
political beliefs are -- he dissents from you politically?
CASTRO: No one. Not because of political beliefs, nor
because of religious beliefs, that are in prison.
MACNEIL: After Jesse Jackson came here last summer, you
released 26 political prisoners. Are you going to release more
of the kinds you were describing a moment ago?
CASTRO: Of course we cannot be willing to release them.
It's a bit under 200, actually, on that situation. These are
people who are potentially dangerous. We're not going to release
them and send them to the United States for them to organize
plans against Cuba, or for them to go to Nicaragua or Honduras or
Central America as mercenaries, or as a guerrilla for any
country, to prepare attacks, so that when I visit these coun-
tries, as they have done on other occasions, organizing a true
human hunt. That's the psychology instilled in them by the CIA
and the U.S. authorities.
MACNEIL: The other human rights question that is raised
by the United States is that you don't have a free press. Your
revolution is now 26 years old. It's very stable. In your
recent speeches you've told of how successful it is. Why
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wouldn't you feel confident about allowing a press to have a full
expression of ideas and discussion and opposition?
CASTRO: Well, you are right. We do not have a press
system like that of the United States. In the United States
there is private property over the mass media. The mass media
belong to private enterprises. They are the ones who say the
last word.
Here, there is no private property over the mass media.
There's social property. And it has been, is, and will be at the
service of the revolution.
Here, we do not have any multiparty system, either, nor
do we need it. The political level of our people, the informa-
tion level of our people is much greater. In surveys that have
been made in the United States, an astonishingly high number of
people do not know where Nicaragua is, where the countries of
Latin America are. They don't know what countries belong to
Africa, what countries belong to Asia. There is an incredible
ignorance, astonishing. That does not happen here.
Your system might be wonderful. But we -- at least the
results of ours are better, undoubtedly.
MACNEIL: May I raise a point? Your system, which you
say works very well, it does presuppose that the leadership of
the country, you, are always right, that you are infallible. Is
that not so?
CASTRO: No, it does not presuppose that, because we're
not as dogmatic as a church -- although we have been dogmatic.
And we have never preached the cult of personality. You will not
see a statue of me anywhere, nor a school with my name, nor a
street, nor a little town, nor any type of personalilty cult,
because we have taught our people to -- we have not taught our
people -- we have not taught our people to believe, but to think,
to reason out. We have a people that thinks, that thinks. It's
not a people that believes, but rather that reason out, that
think. And they might either agree or disagree with me. In
general, the overwhelming majority has agreed, has been in
agreement.
Why? Because we have always been honest. We have
always told the truth. These people know that from the govern-
ment a lie has never been told to them.
And I ask you to go to the world, tour the world and go
to the United States and ask if they can say what I can say, that
I have never told a lie to the people.
And these are the reasons why there's confidence. Not
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because I have made -- have become a statue or an idol, but
rather simply because of the fact that they trust me.
And I have very, very few prerogatives in this country.
I do not appoint ministers nor vice ministers nor directors of
minstries nor ambassadors. I don't appoint anybody. That's the
way it is. We have a system, a system for the selection of the
cadre based on their capacity, etcetera. I have less power, a
hundred times less power than the President of the United States,
who can even declare war, and nuclear war.
MACNEIL: But doesn't the system mean that the revolu-
tion is always right?
CASTRO: You, when you made your independence wars, you
did not even free the slaves, and said that you were a democratic
country. You, for 150 years, did not even allow a black man to
participate and be part of a baseball team or a basketball team,
to enter a club, to go to a white children's school. And you
said it was a democracy.
None of those things exist here, neither racial discri-
mination nor discrimination due to sex. It is the most fair,
egalitarian society there has ever been in this hemisphere. So
we consider that it is superior to yours. But you believe that
yours is the best, without any discussions whatsoever. Although
there might be multimillionaires and people barefooted, begging
in the streets, without any homes, people unemployed, and you
believe it's perfect. Because you believe things, things that I
don't think that that type of society is perfect, really.
I think that ours is better. We have defended a better
and more just society. We believe in it. Now, we make a
mistake. But whenever we make a mistake, we have the courage to
explain it. We have the courage to admit it, to recognize it,
acknowledge it, to criticize it.
I believe that very few -- there are mighty few people,
like the leaders of a revolution, who are able to acknowledge
their mistakes. And I first of all acknowledge it before myself,
because I am first of all more critical with myself than with
anybody else. But I'm critical before my people, critical before
the world, the U.S., everybody.
But don't worry. If this analysis had not been correct,
the revolution would not be in power. The revolution would not
be in power.
MACNEIL: How do you measure that? How do you, as the
leader of this country, know that for so sure, when you don't
have the vehicles for public expression and open discussion of
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issues that the democracies have, for example? How do you know
that the people feel that way?
CASTRO: We have a party with almost half a million
members. They're everywhere, in every factory. We know more
than the United States about the things that happen there.
MACNEIL: But isn't the dynamic, isn't the dynamic of a
one-party state that the instruction and information goes
downwards. And if people disagree with it, they don't dare say
so? And so dissent which may exist doesn't come back up the
system.
CASTRO: Actually, we know what there is and we know the
way our people think much better than what the President of the
United States knows about the way the U.S. people think. You
should have no doubt whatsoever about that. We have many ways of
knowing this. The facts prove it.
Let's suppose that people might not agree with the
revolution. How could we have millions of people organized to
defend the country? How could we have an armed people?
Tell the South Africans, the South African friends that
they give the weapons to the blacks in South Africa. Tell your
friend Pinochet to give the weapons to the people of Chile. Tell
your friends in Paraguay or in Haiti to give the weapons to the
masses, to the people. Tell many of the friends that you have in
Europe, you who speak of democracy.
And the first and the most important form of democracy
is for the citizens to feel part of power and part of the state.
And how do we prove this? We have an armed people, men and
women, millions of people. If they would not be in agreement
with the government, they could solve things rapidly. We would
not be able to stay in power for 24 minutes. Do you want more
proof of that?
MACNEIL: I have seen it reported that, increasingly,
Cuban troops are refusing to go for service in Angola, that the
families of troops who are there and have been there are getting
more and more unhappy over the Angolan experience. Is that true?
That you're feeling public pressure to end this?
CASTRO: For revolutionaries to fulfill an international
mission is something that is considered a great honor, and that
should not make anyone feel strange about it, when people have
motivation and when people have ideals. Of course, that implies
sacrifices. It implies sacrifices from families, as they
separate from their relatives for a certain period of time. In
some cases, it means risks, undoubtedly, and it means sacrifices.
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But our people can carry on these missions because they
are prepared to do so.
MACNEIL: How many have been killed in Angola?
CASTRO: That question has already been asked by a
journalist, and I told him I was not going to answer the ques-
tion. Because our rule has been that we would not publish the
number, that the enemy should not have that information. And we
are maintaining it secret. Someday all of that might be pub-
lished.
The family knows when there's a loss. They are informed
about it immediately.
MACNEIL: But isn't it a matter of public interest and
the concern of the Cuban public as a whole, the cost in lives of
your activity in Angola?
CASTRO: No, no. They know well that this is a policy
that is followed and that it is a correct one, because we base
ourselves on the confidence and the support of the revolutionary
policy by the people.
MACNEIL: Tell me an example of a mistake you feel you
made and admitted.
CASTRO: In politics we have committed few mistakes,
fortunately. We have been quite wise in the decisions we have
made.
In the economic field we made mistakes, and these were
mistakes that resulted from our ignorance because, in general,
revolutionaries have ideas, very noble ideas: to have education,
to have health for all, to have work, to have jobs, to have
development. That is, very noble ideas, but very general.
MACNEIL: You said in your speech to the National
Assembly, "We do not become capitalists." Do you begin to lean a
little capitalist?
CASTRO: On the contrary, totally the contrary. I'm
increasingly happier, mentally, spiritually, philosophically, of
capitalism [sic]. Every day, I'm more convinced about the
advantages of the socialist system over capitalism, more con-
vinced about the fact that capitalism has no future. Well, I say
no future on a long-term basis. I'm not saying that capitalism
will disappear in ten years. But the present capitalist system
is no longer the capitalist system of the past century.
MACNEIL: Aren't you allowing creeping private enter-
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prise, to permit free markets where vegetables and food and
things can be wold by the people who -- to open new supermarkets
where goods, consumer goods which are otherwise scarce are priced
at full market prices and not at supported prices? Is this not
creeping private enterprise?
CASTRO: When you asked about mistakes, I said that in
politics we had not. But you did not allow me to continue,
because you asked me other things. But that item was not dealt
with .
In the development of the economy, where at the begin-
ning we did not have any experience, and where we even had an
attitude of certain disregard for the experiences of other
socialist countries, actually, we were a bit self-sufficient.
Actually, this is something that has happened to many revolu-
tionaries. At times they believe that they know more than the
rest.
In the economic field we made mistakes, which we call
idealistic mistakes. In essence, these were of wanting to jump
over historic stages and trying to get to a more egalitarian
society, even more egalitarian. We had gotten to the point of
distributing almost to depending on the needs of the people, not
according to their work, the amount and quality of their work.
When we came to the point of understanding that that had
negative effects, that our society was not yet a society with the
necessary communist culture and consciousness, we rectified
things.
But it's not that we are leaning to capitalism. The
more I analyze today's world, Third World, and even the problems
of the industrialized countries, unemployment has not been
solved. In Europe unemployment is growing yearly. And you can
plan, and they can plan how many unemployed they can have in 1990
and the year 2000.
The deeper I think and the deeper I meditate, the least
capitalist I feel.
MACNEIL: Can we move to defense? In the last year or
so, you have greatly increased, as you said, your military
capacity. You said on January 2nd you've increased your weapons,
the number of weapons by three times. You have roughly a quarter
of a million men on active duty, 190,000 reserves, a million
people as militia -- 190,000.
My question is, my question is, why does Cuba need this
very large armed force?
CASTRO: Of course, I will rectify something. Armed
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forces and reserves are more than half a million. Militia,
territorial troops, over one million. We have tripled the number
of weapons, but we have multiplied many times our resistance
capability by changing the conception.
In the past, the conception was the army and the reserve
are the ones to defend to country. The conception is all of the
people today defend the country, in every corner, in every city,
in the countryside, in mountains. And they're actually or-
ganized. The idea is that every citizen in this country is
armed.
CASTRO: No. After Grenada we intensified it. Yes.
The Nicaraguans also. The Grenada thing did not weaken us. It
actually made us feel stronger and multiplied our determination
and our will and our readiness to become stronger and fight.
You asked why so many weapons? The United States, our
adversary, being such a powerful country, the country that
harasses us, the country that blockades us, the country that
threatens us by invading us, through an invasion, they don't
understand why we make this effort? The country that is in-
vesting in peace [sic] $313 billion, one-third of the budget,
taking that away from ill people, from aged? We don't do that.
At least we don't do that. And they don't understand that us,
being neighbors of the United States and feeling threatened by
facts and the words of the United States, that we make an effort
to defend ourselves? Actually, do we have to explain that?
MACNEIL: You had an invasion scare last fall, last
autumn. You had exercises. You had people, including children,
digging air raid trenches. Have you relaxed now? Are you now
not fearing an American invasion?
CASTRO: Look, we were relaxed, we are relaxed, and we
will always be relaxed. We have been for 26 years relaxed.
That's one thing.
Another thing. The measures we have taken to defend
ourselves, we are not going to wait for a government of the
United States to decide to attack the country for us to then
start perparing ourselves? We have prepared ourselves, we are
preparing ourselves, and we will continue preparing ourselves
always.
So, hypothetically, if the United States were to become,
let's say, in the world -- not a socialist country, let's say a
Marxist-Leninist country and more communist than the U.S.S.R. and
China, we, here next to the United States, would not disregard
our defenses. It is a philosophical principle.
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If one day...
MACNEIL: So one of your -- excuse me for interrupting.
So one of your motives for seeking or suggesting improved
relations with the United States is not so that you can relax
your military investment.
[Technical difficulties]
CASTRO: Do you ask if I feel any frustration? No. I
have no frustration. I feel no frustration whatsoever.
I can tell you this directly. We have done more than
what we dreamed of doing. Many of the things we're doing now, we
had some general idea, but not as precise and concrete as we have
now. I can tell you that reality has surpassed our dream, in
what we have done. And we're not speaking about the future.
It's not the same as at the beginning, that we spoke of
our good intentions, but rather we now speak with a revolution
that has been made after 26 years. And it has certain advantages
not to speak of things that we were intending to do, but rather
to speak of things that have been done.
MACNEIL: Finally, let me ask you a couple of personal
questions, if I may.
you die?
Do you want to go on being the President of Cuba until
CASTRO: It depends on how many years I live. If I'm
told that I can be now, I would say, yes, I think I can be. If I
could not do my job, because of the experience I have now, I
would also tell you that.
I think that I am useful. I don't think I am indispens-
able. Nothing opposes my philosophy more than that. I believe
we have done a lasting work that goes beyond us, beyond all of
us. And if it were not so, why have we worked so much? If it
were not so, we would have failed.
But our work is not a work of stone, is not of materi-
als, but of consciousness, of moral values. And that is lasting.
Either being President or not being President, I'm fully
hopeful that the others will be better. And the sooner a new
generation that is better than us comes, a more capable one to
replace us, the better. If we live three, four, five years,
maybe ten, I don't know. But the day when I do not feel, really,
because of my physical capabilities or mental capabilities, that
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I could fulfill my duty and do my work, I will be the first to
say it. If I live many years, you can be sure that I will not
die as the President of this country. And the first that would
not want that, for sure, it's me. If I want my mind to maintain
itself clear and illuminated, it's precisely to come to that very
minute, to that very minute in which I'm able to notice that I
have already done my work, and that others can do it.
So, if I tell you now that I will resign, I'm a solier
of the revolution and I think I can still struggle. But I have
no personal affection for honors and power or force, or the force
in power.
You have a President that is older. Maybe at that age I
do not have the physical or mental capabilities to do my work.
MACNEIL: Tomorrow night Fidel Castro predicts violent
political explosions in Latin America. And we have an official
U.S. response from Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Kenneth
Dam.
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