Archive for the ‘Fidel Castro’ Category
Things can only get better…..
Early one December morning in 1956 a battered motor launch called Granma – named after its original American owner’s grandmother – bumped ashore in the swampy mangroves deep in Cuba’s sleepy south-east.
Few of the 82 bedraggled, unshaven men blinking uncertainly in the tropical light foresaw the dawn of a communist Cuba. Even their supremely self-confident leader, Fidel Castro, could not have imagined that he was destined to outlast communism as well as to outlast nine and out-manoeuvre ten American presidents.
He nearly didn’t. Fidel Castro was not a communist. He was just one among many rebel leaders. And his revolution almost blundered into failure before it had even begun.
Castro’s previous record was not encouraging. He already had one disastrous rebellion against the Cuban dictator, Fulgencio Batista, under his belt during which had been captured and nearly shot. Reprieved and briefly imprisoned before being amnestied, Castro had fled to Mexico where he met a young Argentine doctor called Ernesto Guevara and began plotting his second rebellion.
The Granma itself arrived from Mexico two days late, delayed by bad weather, amateur navigation and a man overboard. Someone had also forgotten to pack the seasickness pills. When they finally arrived – at the wrong spot – the rendezvous party with their supplies had given up and left.
