Fidel Castro, in poor health since an intestinal ailment nearly killed him in 2006.
The bearded Fidel Castro took power in a 1959 revolution and ruled Cuba for 49 years with a mix of charisma and iron will, creating a one-party state and becoming a central figure in the Cold War.
Transforming Cuba from a playground for rich Americans into a symbol of resistance to Washington, Castro outlasted 11 U.S. presidents in power.
1)Dwight Eisenhower (Republican, 1953-61): Provided arms to dictator Fulgencio Batista, who was battling Castro's rebels. Prepared the invasion of the Bay of Pigs and broke off diplomatic ties with Cuba in January 1961.
2)John F. Kennedy (Democrat, 1961-63): Gave the green light for the invasion of the Bay of Pigs in April 1961. Put in place the US embargo against Cuba in February 1962 before the Cuban missile crisis erupted that October. Was working to promote a rapprochement when he was assassinated in November 1963.
3)Lyndon Johnson (Democrat, 1963-69): Reinforced the embargo and tried to prevent the sale of Cuban nickel to Soviet bloc countries. Approved CIA plots to assassinate Castro and supported anti-Castro guerrilla groups.
4)Richard Nixon (Republican, 1969-74): Boosted anti-Castro activity, including the arrests of Cuban fishermen. Also worked against sale of Cuban nickel to Soviet satellite states.
5)Gerald Ford (Republican, 1974-77): In office as attacks against Cuban missions abroad multiplied and an attack on a Cuban airliner left 73 dead. Authorized the first trip of US businessmen to Cuba and eased the embargo.
6)Jimmy Carter (Democrat, 1977-81): Further eased the embargo. Opened a US interests section in Havana and allowed a Cuban interests section to open in Washington. Allowed Cuban exiles to travel home. Signed maritime boundary treaty. In office during Mariel boatlift of Cuban emigrants to United States. Visited Cuba as an ex-president in 2002 and again in 2011.
7)Ronald Reagan (Republican, 1981-89): Relations take a turn for the worse, and easing of embargo rolled back. Creation of the Cuban-American National Foundation, the main exile organization, and the anti-Castro stations Radio and TV Marti. First immigration deal signed in 1984.
8)George H. W. Bush (Republican, 1989-93): Reinforced embargo with the Torricelli Act, as the Soviet bloc crumbled. US subsidiaries in third countries banned from dealing with Cuba.
9)Bill Clinton (Democrat, 1993-2001): Put into force Torricelli Act and approved Helms-Burton Act, which again tightened embargo. In 1994, 36,000 Cubans fled for the US in makeshift boats and rafts. A new immigration agreement was signed and Clinton backed anti-Castro activists.
10)George W. Bush (Republican, 2001-09): Increased financial aid to anti-Castro groups and strengthened embargo again. Limited travel to Cuba by exiles, and the money they could remit to relatives at home. Approved food trade with restrictions. Raul Castro officially took helm during his tenure.
11)Barack Obama (Democrat, 2009-present): Lifted restrictions on trips by exiles and amount of money they could send home. Opened a "dialogue" on immigration and said lifting of embargo must be preceded by democratic opening and respect for human rights.
In December 2014, Obama and Raul Castro announced simultaneously that the nations would normalize relations. The two countries Cuba reopened embassies in each other's capitals in July 2015.
Obama made a historic visit to Cuba in March 2016, the first by a serving US president since 1928.
He fended off a CIA-backed invasion at the Bay of Pigs in 1961 as well as countless assassination attempts.
His alliance with Moscow helped trigger the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, a 13-day showdown with the United States that brought the world the closest it has been to nuclear war.
Wearing green military fatigues and chomping on cigars for many of his years in power, Castro was famous for long, fist-pounding speeches filled with blistering rhetoric, often aimed at the United States.
At home, he swept away capitalism and won support for bringing schools and hospitals to the poor. But he also created legions of enemies and critics, concentrated among Cuban exiles in Miami who fled his rule and saw him as a ruthless tyrant.
Fidel Castro governed the Republic of Cuba as Prime Minister from 1959 to 1976 and then as President from 1976 to 2008
(after Cuban President Fulgencio Batista's overthrow in 1959, Fidel Castro assumed military and political power as Cuba's Prime Minister)
Under his administration Cuba became a One-Party Communist State; industry and business were nationalised and State Socialist Reforms implemented throughout society.
In 2006 Fidel Castro transferred his responsibilities to Vice-President Raúl Castro, who formally assumed the presidency in 2008.
Fidel Castro led Cuba for five decades and was the world's third longest-serving head of state, after Britain's Queen Elizabeth and the King of Thailand. He temporarily ceded power to his brother Raul in July 2006 after undergoing intestinal surgery. The handover of power became official in 2008.
Raul Castro always glorified his older brother, he has changed Cuba since taking over by introducing market-style economic reforms and agreeing with the United States in December to re-establish diplomatic ties and end decades of hostility.
Six weeks later, Fidel Castro offered only lukewarm support for the deal, raising questions about whether he approved of ending hostilities with his longtime enemy.
In his final years, Fidel Castro no longer held leadership posts. He wrote newspaper commentaries on world affairs and occasionally met with foreign leaders but he lived in semi-seclusion.
His death - which would once have thrown a question mark over Cuba's future - seems unlikely to trigger a crisis as Raul Castro, 85, is firmly ensconced in power
Facts About Former Cuban Leader Fidel Castro
Fidel Castro led Cuba for five decades and was the world's third longest-serving head of state, after Britain's Queen Elizabeth and the King of Thailand. He temporarily ceded power to his brother Raul in July 2006 after undergoing intestinal surgery. The handover of power became official in 2008.
Fidel Castro holds the record for the longest speech ever delivered to the United Nations: 4 hours and 29 minutes, on Sept. 26, 1960, according to the U.N. website.
One of his longest speeches on record lasted 7 hours and 30 minutes on Feb. 24, 1998, after the national assembly re-elected him to a five-year term as president.
Fidel Castro claimed he survived 634 attempts or plots to assassinate him, mainly masterminded by the Central Intelligence Agency and U.S.-based exile organizations. They may have included poison pills, a toxic cigar, exploding mollusks, and a chemically tainted diving suit. Another alleged plan involved giving him powder that would make his beard fall out and so undermine his popularity.
Despite the plots, a U.S.-backed exile invasion at the Bay of Pigs and five decades of economic sanctions, Castro outlasted nine U.S. presidents, from Dwight Eisenhower to Bill Clinton, stepping down while George W. Bush was in office
Fidel Castro had nine children from five women. His eldest son Fidel Castro Diaz-Balart, who is the image of his father and is known as Fidelito, is a Soviet-trained nuclear scientist born in 1949 out of his brief marriage to Mirta Diaz-Balart. Daughter Alina Fernandez, the result of an affair with a Havana socialite when Castro was underground in the 1950s, escaped from Cuba disguised as a tourist in 1993 and is a vocal critic. Castro has five sons with his common-law wife since the 1960s, Dalia Soto del Valle. He also has a son and a daughter born to two other women with whom he had affairs before coming to power.
Fidel Castro used to chomp on Cuban cigars but gave them up in 1985. Years later he summed up the harm of smoking tobacco by saying: "The best thing you can do with this box of cigars is give them to your enemy."
Fidel Castro's Key Dates
- 1926: Born in the south-eastern Oriente Province of Cuba
- 1953: Imprisoned after leading an unsuccessful rising against Batista's regime
- 1955: Released from prison under an amnesty deal
- 1956: With Che Guevara, begins a guerrilla war against the government
- 1959: Defeats Batista, sworn in as prime minister of Cuba
- 1961: Fights off CIA-sponsored Bay of Pigs invasion by Cuban exiles
- 1962: Sparks Cuban missile crisis by agreeing that USSR can deploy nuclear missiles in Cuba
- 1976: Elected president by Cuba's National Assembly
- 1992: Reaches an agreement with US over Cuban refugees
- 2008: Stands down as president of Cuba due to health issues
How Fidel Castro was Seen by his Allies, Enemies
"Castro is not just another Latin American dictator, a petty tyrant bent merely on personal power and gain. His ambitions extend far beyond his own shores." - Former U.S. President John F. Kennedy, from "The Quotable Mr. Kennedy," edited by Gerald C. Gardner, 1962."Fidel, for me, is a grand master. A wise man should never die; a man like Fidel will never die, because he will always be part of the people." - Former Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, in a January 2007 speech.
"Fidel Castro had Americans murdered illegally, and that was wrong, too. And I'm proud that we have a blockade against people who kill innocent Americans." - Former U.S. President Bill Clinton, in 1996, after Cuba killed four U.S. citizens when it shot down two civilian planes belonging to a Cuban-American group that had agitated against the Castro government and had repeatedly flown into Cuban air space.
"From its earliest days, the Cuban revolution has been a source of inspiration for all those who value freedom. We admire the sacrifices of the Cuban people in maintaining their independence and sovereignty in the face of the vicious imperialist and orchestrated campaign to destroy the awesome force of the Cuban revolution. Long live the Cuban Revolution! Long live comrade Fidel Castro!" - Former South African President Nelson Mandela, in a July 1991 speech.
"I remember Herbert Matthews' reports on Castro before he came to power, calling him a democrat and the hope of Cuba. And to some of you who are really too young to remember this, even people around our country were calling him the George Washington of Cuba, and George rolled over in his grave." - U.S. President Ronald Reagan, on March 5, 1986.
"Fidel Castro is there to win. His attitude in the face of defeat, even in the most minimal actions of everyday life, would seem to obey a private logic: he does not even admit it, and does not have a minute's peace until he succeeds in inverting the terms and converting it into victory." - Nobel laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez, writing in Granma on the eve of Castro's 80th birthday
"The best thing that Fidel Castro left us is the lesson that we don't want any more Fidel Castros in Cuba. The lesson is that a man like that ends up absorbing the whole nation, ends up seeing himself as the embodiment of the homeland, and ends up simply taking away our nationality. The lesson of Fidel Castro is no more Fidel Castros. Some people admire him, but they admire him for what they think he was, not for who he really was. Staying in power that long is no merit." - Dissident blogger Yoani Sanchez, to Reuters in May 2014.
"Whatever we may think of him, he is going to be a great factor in the development of Cuba and very possibly in Latin American affairs generally. He seems to be sincere. He is either incredibly naive about communism or under communist discipline -- my guess is the former, and as I have already implied his ideas as to how to run a government or an economy are less developed than those of almost any figure I have met in 50 countries." - Richard Nixon, who was then the U.S. vice president, in a memorandum following a three-hour meeting with Castro on April 19, 1959.
"It didn't take much to prompt me to join any revolution against a tyrant, but Fidel struck me as an extraordinary man ... He had exceptional faith that once we left for Cuba (from Mexico) we would arrive. That once we arrived we would fight. And once we fought we would win. I shared his optimism. I had to, to fight, to achieve. Stop crying and fight." -- Ernesto "Che" Guevara, in a letter to his parents, 1955.
"A man of great charisma. He's brave, Fidel Castro. A politician, with an iron fist. He stays strong. He put his close friend in front of the firing squad. I would have given him a life sentence or expelled him from the country, but he had him shot." - Former Chilean military dictator General Augusto Pinochet, regarding Castro's treatment of General Arnaldo Ochoa, executed for treason in July 1989.
"He would tell us to place a canon here, move a tank over there. Where to attack, how to do it, with how many men, et cetera. He had it all at his fingertips. And most of the time he was right." - Defense Minister Leopoldo Cintra Frias, regarding Fidel's instructions in the Angola war, in Havana, 1996.
"At a time when almost the entire communist world marches towards democracy, Fidel Castro has gone against public opinion and refuses to accept any kind of change or anything that suggests perestroika or democracy ... A profound philosopher, he has made it clear that material things are transient, to such a degree that there are virtually no material things in Cuba." - Cuban dissident writer Reinaldo Arenas, in an essay written before his death in 1990 and published by Spanish newspaper El Pais in 2006.
Fidel Castro's Memorable Quotes About Communism in Cuba
* "Condemn me. It is of no importance. History will absolve me." -- Castro in 1953, when the young lawyer was defending himself at trial for his near-suicidal assault on the Moncada military barracks in Santiago de Cuba.
* "I began the revolution with 82 men. If I had to do it again, I would do it with 10 or 15 and absolute faith. It does not matter how small you are if you have faith and a plan of action." -- Castro in 1959.
* "I'm not thinking of cutting my beard, because I'm accustomed to my beard and my beard means many things to my country. When we fulfill our promise of good government I will cut my beard." -- Castro in a 1959 interview with CBS's Edward Murrow, 30 days after the revolution.
* "A revolution is not a bed of roses. A revolution is a struggle between the future and the past." -- Castro in 1959.
* "I never saw a contradiction between the ideas that sustain me and the ideas of that symbol, of that extraordinary figure (Jesus Christ)." -- Castro in 1985.
* "Just imagine what would happen in the world if the socialist community were to disappear ... if this were possible and I don't believe it is possible." -- Castro in 1989.
* "We do not know anything about this. We, gentlemen, to tell the truth, do not even know what to charge." -- Castro in 1990 on the development of international tourism In Cuba.
* "We have to stick to the facts and, simply put, the socialist camp has collapsed." -- Castro in 1991.* "There's nothing strange about it. I wish I had as many opportunities to welcome personalities as important as this one." -- Castro in 1994, explaining the reception, usually reserved for heads of state, given to Hugo Chavez upon his arrival in Havana a few months after he was released from prison for leading a failed 1992 coup. Five years later, Chavez was elected president of Venezuela and became Castro's closest ally.
* "These changes (the opening to international tourism, foreign investment, some small business and family remittances)have their social cost, because we lived in a glass case, pure asepsis, and now we are surrounded by viruses, bacteria to the point of distraction and the egoism created by the capitalist system of production." -- Castro in 1998.
* "One of the greatest benefits of the revolution is that even our prostitutes are college graduates." -- Castro to director Oliver Stone in 2003 documentary "Comandante."
* "I realized that my true destiny would be the war that I was going to have with the United States." -- Castro's opening quote in "Looking for Fidel," Stone's second documentary on the Cuban leader from 2004.
* "Here is a conclusion I've come to after many years: among all the errors we may have committed, the greatest of them all was that we believed that someone ... actually knew how to build socialism. ... Whenever they said. 'That's the formula,' we thought they knew. Just as if someone is a physician." Castro in 2005.
* "I'm really happy to reach 80. I never expected it, not least having a neighbor, the greatest power in the world, trying to kill me every day," he said on July 21, 2006 while attending a summit of Latin American presidents in Argentina.
* "I will neither aspire to nor accept ... the positions of President of the State Council and Commander in Chief ... It would be a betrayal of my conscience to accept a responsibility requiring more mobility and dedication than I am physically able to offer." Castro, in February 2008, announcing his resignation as president.
* "We are not a developed capitalist country in crisis, whose leaders are going crazy looking for solutions amidst depression, inflation, a lack of markets and unemployment; we are and we must be socialists." -- Castro writing in one of his "reflections," or newspaper columns in 2008.
* "The Cuban model doesn't even work for us anymore." -- Castro in 2010 during an interview with U.S. journalist Jeffrey Goldberg. Castro later said his comment was taken out of context
Fidel Castro welcomes General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev during the official ceremony for Gorbachev's arrival in Havana, on April 2, 1989
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