Fidel Castro Interview
Jun 1963 by Lisa Howard
page 1 [
original
document]
June 25, 1963
Mrs. Lisa Howard's Interview with Castro
Mrs. Lisa Howard, CBS
Mr. Edwin M. Martin, Assistant Secretary, ARA
Mr. John King, ARA/P
Mr. Crimmins
Mr. Hurwitch
Mrs. Howard came in at her request to give us some further
background
on her conversations with Castro in Cuba. She made a
number of
points of some interest:
1. In the course of her eight hours of talking with
Castro, she
did a great deal of talking, telling him what was wrong with
his
revolution and why it was condemned by even progressives in
the United
States and elsewhere. She said that he was an
astonishingly good
listener. In the circumstances, this is
understandable. She
said he took these criticisms thoughtfully and seemed
sincerely
concerned and worried about the deficiencies that she
pointed that
anxious even to learn more about the things he had ____
unable to see.
He never defended the course of the revolution in
traditional Marxist
dogmatic terms. He talked primarily in terms of the
condition of
the poor, their lack of opportunities for education, health
and
advancement rather than in terms of class struggle. He
seemed
particularly upset by the charges of terrorism and
apologized that he
could not be everywhere and the Cubans did many things very
poorly.
They apparently discussed Albert Canus at some length and
found
themselves both very sympathetic with his outlook on the
condition of
the human race. She pointed out that Cannus had
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original
document]
broken with communism in 1955 over Algeria and that a
general
psychological approach in all his recent works, which they
discussed,
was very far from orthodox communism.
2. The questions which she asked at her interview were
not shown
to anyone in advance, and she deliberately made them
tough. She
thought he answered skillfully and, at the end, while
commenting on
their toughness, he did not reproach her. She thought
the
calmness with which he took these leading questions was
evidence that
he was not really an emotionally unstable person.
3. During the course of the conversation she ___ the
definite
impression that he was sincerely desirous on working out an
accommodation with the United States. He went through
the usual
line about how the United States had forced the breach
initially by its
action on sugar quotas. He expressed great interest in
knowing
what kind of person Kennedy was and seemed to feel that it
would not be
difficult for them to reach common ground. It might be
added that
he, knowing that she had spent a couple hours interviewing
Khrushchev,
also tried to find out from her what kind of person she
thought he was,
which she found amusing. She is obviously a strong
proponent of
the accommodation and even showed me a number of newspaper
stories on
her interview trying to prove the United States public was
not so
opposed to the idea as the Administration thought.
They really
did not bear on the problem.
4. At a cocktail party after her conversation with
Castro she was
telling Foreign Minister Roa about the ___oriticsm that she
had made to
Fidel of his revolution. At the end he leaned over and
whispered
rather enthusiastically, "Did you really tell him
that? I am
glad."
Last Friday, June 21, she got a phone call from Vallejo who
was present
during most of her conversation with Fidel – 5 hours of
which took
place in a night club, starting at 12:30 a.m. – in the
course of which
he told her that they were about to send two notes to the
United States
and hoped they would not stir up any fuss or get any
publicity.
He also said that their desire for an accommodation was
still as strong
as it had been when she was there in April.
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document]
She wondered whether it would be desirable for her to keep
in touch
with the Cubans and perhaps go back. I said this was
entirely up
to her but that, if she did keep in touch, it would be
interesting to
know what they had to say. She asked very pointedly
whether we
had had any discussions with Fidel about an
accommodation. I said
he had not approached us officially, and we had not
approached
him. She thought this was too bad.
End of Page
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