INTERVIEW WITH FIDEL CASTRO

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000201040012-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 6
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 1, 2010
• Sequence Number: 12
• Publication Date: March 17, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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RADIO N REPORTS, INC.
4701 WILLARD AVENUE, CHEVY CHASE, MARYLAND 20815 [phone]
PROGRAM 60 Minutes STATION W D V M- T V
CBS Network
DATE March 17, 1985 7:00 P.M. CITY Washington, D.C.
Interview with Fidel Castro
DAN RATHER: With the change of leadership in Moscow,
last week was a momentous one in the communist world. We spent
part of it in Cuba with Fidel Castro, the only leader in the
Soviet bloc who chose not to attend the funeral of Konstantin
Chernenko and to forego the opportunity to meet with Chernenko's
successor, Mikhail Gorbachev.
What Fidel Castro chose to do instead was to appear on
U.S. television, on a broadcast he knows President Reagan
watches.
With his official interpreter sitting in with us, for
three hours we talked, and then we walked all around Havana.
Here, then, some of that talk, some of that walk, and then back
to the interview.
What are the chances that this new generation of Soviet
leader will make the Soviet Union less adventuresome in Latin
America?
FIDEL CASTRO: Adventuresome?
CASTRO: What are the adventures of the Soviet Union in
Latin America? Nicaragua? El Salvador? Do they have soldiers
in Nicaragua? Does the Soviet Union have anything to do with El
Salvador? Come on. This is a. myth.
RATHER: You say its a myth?
CASTRO: Yes, definitely. It's a myth, totally.
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RATHER: Mr. President, the President of the United
States believes it.
CASTRO: Well, what we can we do? At times I have said,
talking with some North Americans, that there are many beliefs in
the United States, and at times there are few ideas. And what is
asserted once is considered as an august truth.
I can assure you that the Soviet Union has had absolute-
ly nothing to do, ever, with El Salvador.
Now, in the case of Nicaragua, it's the same.
RATHER: What am I to say? The President of the United
States, the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, the
National Security Council Adviser, when I get back they're going
to say, "Listen, he gave you propaganda, nothing but propaganda.
That he and the Soviets are deeply involved in Nicaragua, deeply
involved in El Salvador."
CASTRO: That I'm making propaganda?
Look, I will say something. I believe that there is a
misunderstanding concerning Cuba's positions. If the starting
point of the idea that we are anxious to improve relations with
the United States, that is a mistake. If the starting point is
the idea that it is necessary for us really to improve situations
with -- the relations with the United States, that we have
economic needs, political needs, or needs of any other type, that
is a mistake.
I will tell you the truth. It seems to me that the
President of the United States is being ill-advised. I'm not
going to say that the's ill-advised in every case, but in some
things I think it is obvious that he's ill-advised.
If not, the President of the United States would not
have ever compared the volunteers of Lafayette with the mercenary
criminals of Somoza who are waging the dirty war against the
Nicaraguan government. The Sandinistas are defending their
homeland against a foreign aggression.
RATHER: If you hold to this position, President Reagan
holds to his position, sooner or later there's going to be a
bloodbath.
CASTRO: I will ask a question, for the improvement of
relations between the United States and Cuba. Nixon established
relations with Mao Tse-tung. And I ask, Nixon's ideas, were they
the same as those of Mao Tse-tung?
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So that we do not, we do not have to have the same
ideology, nor the same points of view -- that is, the United
States and Cuba -- for us to improve relations.
RATHER: A philosophical question, if I may. Let me use
a hypothesis and get your reaction to this. You studied philoso-
pher.
RATHER: Well, this will not take a doctorate in
philosophy to answer.
You have made of Cuba one of the most dependent nations
on earth. You may not like it, there's no joy in it, perhaps,
for you, but you depend on the Soviet Union for money, for food,
for medical supplies, for military hardware, for your very
survival.
Now, with that hypothesis, is it worth it for Marxism to
CASTRO: I agree with you, but on the inverse. Because
we are the most independent country of the world because we do
not depend, not even in the slightest, on the United States. And
what country, at present, depends less on the United States than
us?
RATHER: More of what we talked about. after some of that
trip around Havana.
One of the first things you notice about Fidel Castro is
how little security he has. Few leaders anywhere move among
their own people with such relaxed confidence. Some of this may
be because the best of the opposition has left Cuba or is in
jail. But Castro is popular with his own, and the light security
around him is part of the proof.
Talking, at length and passionately, is one of Castro's
trademarks. Another is his curiosity. The man constantly asks
questions about home life and families, recipes and local gossip.
It's all done with jokes and good humor.
"What's your favorite TV show?" he asks a woman. He
grimaces at her reply. "That's a lousy program," he says, "and
she likes it best."
Havana seems a little cleaner, a little brighter than it
was a few years ago. But the overall economy may be even
tighter. You can see it on the streets. Plenty of buses, mostly
from the East bloc, a few from Japan, but very few private cars.
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In an economic system able to survive only through heavy infus-
ions of Soviet money, private cars are strictly a luxury, partly
because fuel is too precious to waste on them.
We stopped in Old Havana, all that's left of Cuba's long
colonial past. Castro was eager to show it off. Some of the old
buildings are being refurbished and archaeological sites restor-
ed. In one of the old buildings that once was a governor's house
and church, we talked of religion and the Pope. Castro was
raised a Roman Catholic. Now, he says, he criticizes the Pope
when the Pontiff supports the status quo, praises him when he
speaks out for the poor. The church in Cuba is free, Castro
insists, as long as it doesn't meddle in politics.
And he had a question for me about my questions on his
relationship with the church.
CASTRO: You're talking to me about soul. I want to ask
you whether you're playing the priest here and whether you're
asking for my confession. What's the difference between a
confesser and a journalist?
RATHER: Ahh, the journalist is an honest broker of
information only.
CASTRO: Then I prefer the confesser. Because the
confesser, when he's asking for your sins, doesn't publish them
on TV.
RATHER: You look to be a healthy man. You've certainly
been vigorous in this interview.
RATHER: But let me tell you what I hear. I don't make
this up. A doctor, New York heart surgeon, there's a report that
he came down to examine you in Cuba last year. Is this true?
CASTRO: Me?
RATHER: Yes.
CASTRO: A U.S. doctor?
RATHER: Yes, a U.S. doctor.
CASTRO: Never.
RATHER: How about an eye doctor? There are reports
circulating that...
[Confusion of voices]
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RATHER: Well, in the case of the eye doctor...
CASTRO: Eye doctor?
RATHER: Eye doctor. The report was that you even
checked in to Columbia Hospital.
CASTRO: Look, this might be a double or someone. Where
does that come from?
RATHER: You came to power as a young man in your
thirties, 32. You're now 58.
CASTRO: Right.
RATHER: When you look in the mirror in the morning, you
see gray in your beard and in your hair.
CASTRO: Yes.
RATHER: Does it bother you? Do you say to yourself,
"0oh, I'm getting old. I'm really getting old"?
CASTRO: Look, I will tell you what happens, which is
something interesting. I, myself, have asked: when will I get
used to the idea that I am really getting old? I have not let
myself get full with the glory or self-sufficiency, lack of
modesty, that of feeling superior to others. I have not let
myself follow the question of the conception of what is called
the drug of power, the drug of dominance. I never speak of power
because I never relate power to myself.
RATHER: You observe President Reagan. You've never met
him, have you?
CASTRO: Through television.
RATHER: What do you think of him?
CASTRO: On this judgment? On his policy? Or what?
RATHER: Number one, what do you think of him as a man,
as a person? And number two, what do you think of him as a --and
his policies?
CASTRO: I will start with the first, with respect to
policy. Well, we have great differences and total disagreements
because of his conceptions on socialism, because of. his crusade,
his idea of a crusader. That it's an aberration. That is, that
it is something that must disappear from the face of the earth.
I think these are things that belong to other times. It's not
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something realistic or rational.
Some people make criticisms, comments that whether
Reagan had not -- had only read a book, or one book, that Reagan
despised intellectual work, or that Reagan was not intelligent.
Really, I don't believe that. I don't believe it.
The differences I have with him are political differen-
of ideas. the
ces, differences
great difference
RATHER: Through all of those hours of talk, I kept
thinking, "Why is Fidel Castro doing this, and why is he doing it
now? Is he genuinely worried about the new generation of Soviet
leadership and what it will do?"
Frankly, I don't know. But I did come away with the
impression Castro really believes that maybe, just maybe,
President Reagan will decide to try with Cuba what Richard Nixon
did with China. And without changing his ideology, Fidel Castro
wants to give that the best chance he can.
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