RATHER A TRIBUTE TO HIS PAL

Cubans, with their typical wit told me, "If you have a heart condition, high blood pressure or an ulcer don't watch Dan Rather's Castro show." I don't, so I watch; survived and decided to write about the experience with some humor. First, my apologies for being a Cuban American. And especially for not being a fan of Rather's pal: Castro. Being an anti-Castro Cuban is synonymous with caca to the liberal media, of course. However, there are millions of anti-Castroites trapped in Cuba.

As this sensitive-to-Cubans show started, Rather pointed out, "here he is adored, cherished like a grandfather, a walking national monument." Rather's guest, Mike Garvey, said, "I love the man. I would die for the man today!" I wondered why Garvey didn't stay in Cuba to live as an ordinary Cuban citizen. If he had, would he be so willing to die for his man today? Or would Garvey be dead like fellow American Comandante William Morgan who was executed in 1959 after realizing and raising objections to Castro's tilt toward communism?

This trick-or-treat show was a Rather display of clear admiration for Garvey's man. Rather's gleaming eyes and smiles, just like Walters' and Sawyer's before him, fawning for the man like a teeny-bopper-groupie.

Rather's Oct. 23, 1995 fawning-for-Castro interview on 60 Minutes probably helped pave the way for this recent spectacle (don't forget the brownie points for Rather's career) giving him the dubious distinction of being the American reporter who has interviewed Castro the most.

No, I won't forget the ending of that 60 Minutes interview: Rather following Fidel to his limousine and saying with arm raised, "Good bye, Mr. President. Take care." "Mr. President"? A man who has never been elected to anything?! "Take care"? So he can continue his blood bath oppressing the Cuban people?! Well, it appears that Rather's career is above the truth.

Rather stated that he got "unprecedented access to Cuba." Sorry to say that I did not see any new locations; just those ritually shown to foreign reporters and visitors willing to be fooled. True unprecedented access would have been unescorted viewing of: Villa Marista (previously a catholic school), after Castro: a detention center with notorious torture chambers; Castro's infamous jails with their punishment cells, concentration and labor camps; political prisoners in their tiny, filthy cells; dissidents and families of the thousands of people who "mysteriously disappeared," "committed suicide," or died of "unexplained accidents;" mass and unmarked graves; the harassed, threatened and detained independent Cuban journalists; slum neighborhoods, real schools and hospitals Castro doesn't want foreigners to see. "Unprecedented access to Cuba." Hardly.

I know, I know Mr. Rather. If you do that, you and CBS will loose access to Cuba. A rating coup over the other networks is paramount. I understand. When it comes to Cuba you have to compromise freedom of information. And being a pal of Fidel Castro is more fashionable still after 37 years of brutal tyranny. Anyway, the little Cubans are 3rd class citizens of the world. Freedom and fighting for it's good for Americans but not for Cubans despite that during the American revolution Cubans raised a million dollars for George Washington.

For Americans, Fidel "is still a caricature", I agree. But it is thanks to the US media, which has been ignoring the facts for 37 frustrating years and been totally superficial and insensitive. Rather said, "tonight CBS Reports takes you into the heart of the myth (which between you and me was created by Herbert Matthews' romantic article of Feb. 24, 1957 in The New York Times - oh sorry for interrupting) and the life of the man."

And Rather, questioning the man, "what are you trying to accomplish?" To my astonishment the man replied, "to set up a system of social justice, a system that would give people dignity." Rather smiled with admiration once more. How can Dan Rather take that seriously? If now they have "dignity," why did two million leave? Why during the Mariel exodus in 1980 did two million more request to go?

According to Brothers to the Rescue, by August 1993 of the 52,000 people who escaped in rafts from Cuba only 17,000 successfully arrived in the US. Why are they escaping? Considering the odds, Cubans have to feel mighty desperate and devoid of "dignity" to attempt these daring escapes. The exodus began after Castro. It is unprecedented in our history.

Then the show went on with all kinds of tired Castro propaganda and his versions of Cuba prior to his revolution. How can it be better now if before his revolution, for example: in 1952 Cuba was in 3rd place in per capita income in Latin America, and now is 18th! Rather did not mention that of course, it's not important.

Cuba was not a poverty stricken country before Castro, for example: in 1957 the annual per capita income was US$370, at a time when US$400 was considered the threshold of development. Cuba was the 2nd country in the world after the US with commercial TV (by 1958 there were 6 privately owned networks, one of them in color). Cuba had about 6 million inhabitants then with 1 TV set for each 25 people. On Oct. 10, 1922 at 4 pm, the first radio station PWX began broadcasting in Cuba, a few months after the first one in the US and the first in Latin America. By 1958 there were 270 radio stations. Cuba had 58 daily newspapers, 126 magazines; and 600 movie theaters (all privately owned). We were used to being in the forefront of development.

In 1899 Cuba's illiteracy rate was about 70% and in 1958 was 20% (ranking 3rd in all of Latin America). According to UNESCO, in 1940 Cuba was the only Latin American country where every single one of its 50,000 teachers had earned University and/or Normal School degrees and there were 30,000 elementary classrooms and a public enrollment of 1,300,000 students. Private education, represented by more than a thousand schools of all denominations, took care of another 200,000 students. I am from the countryside and always went to school with black children and had black teachers prior to Castro and we had public education (open to all Cubans) from kindergarten through university.

Before Castro there were 271,560 cars, 53,736 trucks and 5,617 buses for a population of about 6 million. Cuba was in 22nd place in the world in the number of physicians, with 128.6 doctors for every 100,000 inhabitants. In Latin America only Argentina and Uruguay had more physicians than Cuba. According to studies published by the University of California, in 1952-53, Cuba had 1 hospital bed for every 300 inhabitants (at that time Mexico had 1 bed for every 875).

There are on record thousands of statistics that disprove Castro's claims and paint a very different picture of Cuba prior to his regime. It is embarrassing that Rather is so busy that he can't take a look at the correct facts from other sources and never challenge Castro's outrageous distortions.

Batista, a mulatto who rose from poverty to army sergeant, lead a Populist revolution in 1933 and later on was democratically elected president. After his 4 year term was over, he left power. There is no such a thing as an honest politician and Batista became a corrupt one. Politicians in Cuba prior to Castro were neither more nor less corrupt than politicians in the US today. Batista's grave mistake was to take power in a (bloodless) coup on Mar. 10, 1952.

The overwhelming majority of Cubans never forgave Batista for violating the constitution. However, Castro abolished the Cuban Constitution in Feb. 1959, hardly a month after taking over! How would Rather and the rest of America feel if Clinton abolished the US Constitution and appointed himself ruler for life (specially being married to Hillary)? So calling Cuban American exiles Batista supporters is another outrage of Castro's propaganda echoed by the US media.

I should clarify something conveniently forgotten by the pro-Castro US media when referring to the Cuban revolution: Batista after 6 years and 8 months in power did what Castro hasn't after 37 years, and that is: elections. On Nov. 3, 1958, Batista had elections, and he did not run. Andres Rivero Aguero was elected and he would have been inaugurated on Feb. 24, 1959. If that election was honest or not, the fact remains that Batista was finally leaving Cuba for good.

The Cuban revolution was not an economic revolution. It was a political revolution to return to constitutional democratic government. In opposition to Castro's propaganda that Rather's show presents as credible, Castro's revolution was not supported by the poorest segments of Cuban society. They took almost no part in the struggle.

Castro's revolution was conceived, led, supported and financed by the huge middle class and some affluent sectors of the Cuban society on the island and abroad, for example: Batista-deposed-president Carlos Prio Socarras exiled in the US, gave Castro $100,000 and arms. In 1959, after Castro's triumph, Prio Socarras returned to Cuba to meet Castro. Soon Castro betrayed him and he realized the mistake he made by giving him money and support. He left Cuba and went back into exile in the US.

If Rather would have researched the book THE FOURTH FLOOR by former US ambassador Earl E. T. Smith, I don't think he would be able to state as he did that Batista was, "supported by the US government."

About painting Cuba as a Mafia paradise with gambling casinos and prostitution, I would like to ask Rather: What about Las Vegas, Atlantic City and the casinos at American Indian reservations? Or would Rather be politically incorrect by criticizing them?

About the oldest profession which has existed in all societies since the beginning of recorded history, I would like to ask Rather: Would it justify a communist revolution and losing all our freedoms and human rights to get rid of prostitutes? Would that be better for US citizens? Of course not Mr. Rather! Then, why is it all right for Cubans? Are they inferior to US citizens? Are they animals undeserving of freedom?

For Rather's information: gambling and prostitution were not the main attractions of Cuba. American tourism ranked 2nd or 3rd among Cuban industries. Havana was never a tropical version of Las Vegas or Atlantic City. By 1958, with a population of 1 million there were only a handful of casinos, mainly in hotels built in the 1950s. I remember well those hotels being built. I was there and the gambling paraphernalia was concentrated in the casinos only, not that vulgar display you see everywhere in the gambling cities in the US.

Brothels and street prostitutes were confined to certain areas. What you see in Castro's Cuba today with the herds of desperate prostitutes selling themselves to foreigners at the doors of the foreigners-only hotels and in foreigners-and-government-elite-only neighborhoods for a bar of soap, a bottle of shampoo, or a dinner at a restaurant, was an unthinkable scene in pre-Castro Cuba. And of course tourist apartheid, so common in Cuba today, did not exist. Cubans used to go any place their economic status would permit, just like in the US. So, Frank Ragano's statement, "...anything you want was there, it was available," to which Rather finished, "but not to most of the Cuban people," is not accurate. These implications in this show are very offensive to Cubans who grew up and lived there and know how life was. Rather should do a deeper research, but not in Castro's books.

Rather's narration is riddled with inaccuracies, for example: depicting a local University of Havana student demonstration as "Havana burned as workers rioted, taking the rebel message to Batista's back yard." Actually the Cuban revolution was fought more through deals with Batista's corrupt generals than in the streets, battlefields and Fidel-and-Dan's precious "holy" mountains.

During Batista's authoritarian regime 898 people were killed (Bohemia magazine, Jan. 11, 1959). But according to estimates of Colonel Ramon Barquin there were 968 from Batista's forces (about 40,000) and 1,527 from all government opposition groups. Castro propaganda claimed 20,000!

However, Castro started executing people without trial in Jan. 1959. According to Juan Clark's CUBA: MYTH AND REALITY (a book that took 20 years to research), on one evening in Jan. 1959, 71 people were executed without trial and thrown into a mass grave on San Juan Hill.

According to British historian Hugh Thomas, by Jan. 20, 1959, 200 were executed and by the end of 1959 the number was 485. Farmers and peasants fought against Castro's regime on the Escambray mountains from 1960 to 1966, resulting in the extermination of about 4,000 of them. Unconfirmed reports (the only kind Castro permits) sets the number at about 40,000 executed by 1986. This does not take into account those lost at sea and the 32,000 dead in wars in Africa and other places where Castro sent Cuban soldiers.

Batista granted amnesty to Castro in 1955 after he had been jailed (treated very well according to all records) for only 22 months after an impartial civil court gave him 15 years as the leader of the Moncada garrison attack in 1953. Also, other members of Castro's group and other political prisoners were released in a general amnesty in 1955.

That's nothing compared with the characteristic brutality of Castro's political jails through which about 750,000 Cubans have passed (including women and children). These jails harbored the longest held political prisoners in the world. Cubans have being paying a very high price for Rather's drug-trafficking pal (see Tri-Continental Conference held in Havana in Jan. 1966, where massive drug influx to the US was planned).

I would like to point out to Rather that before Castro there were 4 prisons in Cuba. According to Freedom House, a human rights organization, by 1986 there were 26 prisons and 57 concentration camps. According to Congressional records now it totals about 241. So Rather can draw his own conclusion as to who was more devastating to Cuba and its people.

That is why the obvious admiration Rather displayed for his pal Fidel is so insensitive and offensive to Cubans in exile and on the island. A Jewish victim of the Holocaust would feel exactly the same if Rather would display the same admiration for Hitler.

It is also offensive that Rather placed so much importance on the testimony of 3 American former teenagers, "Garvey, Ryan and Newman help shape world opinion." Did Rather mean that the touch-and-go-biased-opinion of 3 adventurous runaway American teenagers have more weight than millions of victims of Castro? Mr. Rather, come on, you have to be kidding!

Then we got Rather's pal Fidel saying, "...people fed up with corruption, racial discrimination, sex discrimination." Rather could have questioned that, but did not of course, it would have been the end of his palhood! But lets imagine Rather made an honest-reporter decision by asking: How many blacks are in Cuba in important decision-making positions today? Golly gee Mr. Rather, Batista had more blacks in his 1950s government than Castro today! Do you know that blacks are almost a majority in Cuba now? How come they are so absent from power? Batista himself was a mulatto after all! And why didn't you ask how many women are in important decision-making positions? No, you won't put him on the spot. That was very kind, but you are not equally kind to others.

Rather got to a touching moment when he asked, "Were you romantically involved, were you lover with Celia Sanchez?" And his pal replied, "Don't you think I should keep some thing to myself?" With a proud, Ratherly smile he said, "Yes, I do think you should keep some things to yourself and I respect your answer very much." How could Rather let that pass by, too?! Why couldn't he be the same combative Rather who drove George Bush crazy on national TV with his inquisitive questioning? Dan, Danny, darling, dear, what happened to your "courage"?!

One time Rather's second choice was the right one! In fact, taking Rather back to the Sierra Maestra mountains was "a funny act contrived by a master." A master of deception. That's how his pal Fidel has been characterized since childhood or beasthood. Many former close friends called him "the best actor alive." Poor Rather, he keeps fawning for him!

Then Rather is palling around with Fidel at Havana's University (founded in 1728 and before Castro, free to the poor) where his pal used to be a 45 pistol- carrying-gangster in his younger years and a fan of role models like Hitler and Mussolini, whom he used to imitate in front of a mirror their unique public speaking styles. Then flashing on the screen, heroic vintage photos of Fidel, romantic student of the past. Even the infamous one with his head bandaged - a hoax concocted by him in order to call the attention of the Cuban press and get his picture in the news.

The old broken record continues with visits to Moncada garrison and Granma Museum. Rather forgot to mention that many of his pal's former comrades from Moncada and Granma turned against him early on after realizing that he betrayed the democratic principles and was taking all the steps to impose a communist tyranny. Some were executed (like Humberto Sori Marin), "disappeared" (like Camilo Cienfuegos) or thrown in Castro's dungeons.

In spite of all that, I had to hear Castro compare himself to Jesus and to a saint while Rather admirably listened. No wonder Cubans with a heart condition, high blood pressure or ulcers refused to sit through this thing! Rather and his pal are damaging to your health!

Then the guilt trip tailored for Americans about the fiasco of Bay of Pigs and how Fidel and his revolution survived. Rather's pal as the legendary hero "David beating Goliath." The constant US aggressions and CIA plots to kill him propelled the innocent Rather's pal into the arms of the Russian empire!

The American liberal press was wrong in 1957 and is still wrong 37 years later. Here is the fallacy of the century: August 1955, after Fidel was freed by Batista and while in exile in Mexico organizing his revolution, USSR's KGB agent Nikolai Leonov had a meeting with him, his brother Raul (who was already a communist) and Che Guevara. The contact with Leonov was made by Raul Castro in a trip to the European communist countries in 1952. In Mexico in June 1956 it was discovered that Che Guevara had the visit card of KGB agent Leonov with whom they were holding meetings. Leonov was forced to leave Mexico. In April 1958, while Fidel was in the Sierra Maestra mountains, Cuban Communist Party members joined the rebels, one of them Carlos Rafael Rodriguez a former minister of Batista. Since May-June 1959, Czechoslovakia started training the new Castro secret police. In July 1959, Manuel Urrutia Lleo, the President that Fidel himself designated in January, advised against the communist tenor the revolution was taking. Fidel forced Urrutia Lleo to resign and named communist Osvaldo Dorticos Torrado as President and named himself as Prime Minister. In Oct. 1959 Castro sent Che Guevara to the communist countries to establish commercial ties. The same month Comandante Huber Matos resigned his post in a private letter to Castro. Matos was concerned by pervasive communist influences. Matos was immediately apprehended and sentenced to 20 years without trial. Comandante Camilo Cienfuegos, who was not communist either, demanded just treatment for Matos. Within hours Cienfuegos "mysteriously disappeared" without a trace in an "airplane accident." In Feb. 1960, Anastas Mikoyan, Vice Prime Minister of the USSR was received in Havana and opened the first USSR Industrial Exhibition in Cuba. And I can go on and on disproving the fallacy implied in Dan Rather's foolish follies.

The steps toward communism started before 1959 and afterward the climb to Stalinism (to which Fidel claimed "0" relation) began two years before the Bay of Pigs! So Rather's CBS Reports is out of touch.

Not mentioned either in Rather's fantastic show was the known fact as it appears in declassified records that during the Cuban Missile Crisis of Oct. 1962, on two occasions his wonderful pal Fidel asked the USSR Prime Minister Nikita Khrushchev for a nuclear strike against the US. Well, I guess that's not newsworthy.

Then to the communist Lenin school for the elite's sons where Rather spitted more pro-pal propaganda, "the educational system is a jewel in the society his revolution has built...He could have been Elvis, the affection, though now a warm Cuban ritual, seems genuine..." From being Rather profound: "Elvis," (fans take note) to funny: "genuine." It's funny Danny 'cause every Cuban knows those "genuine" displays for Fidel are a must from childhood on.

Survival in that highly controlled and repressive society is very complex. Indeed, more than eyes can meet. The most minimal deviation from Castro orthodoxy is written in your personal file. On it depends your entire future: where you live and work, what you eat, wear, buy, study, etc. It is an ever present system of collective blackmail hanging over the conscience of each individual. So those misleading demonstrations of loyalty to Fidel throughout Rather's show were just simply funny. They should have been explained. There is plenty of information in public records about it. I guess the American people don't have the right to know all the facts. That's unfair. Americans should demand Dan Rather's CBS Reports to declassify all already unclassified Cuban information.

Rather implied that Fidel has mellowed now. However, his pal finished his Lenin school "unannounced" visit with his motto "Socialism or Death!" just 3 months after Cuba shot down the two airplanes killing four Cuban Americans (two of them born in the US) in international waters. But Rather didn't even ask a question about that. Would Rather have been so kind if Pinochet in Chile or Cedras in Haiti had committed that crime?

Then the showcase hospital (for foreigners and communist elite only) he was escorted to, just as they do with every foolish foreign reporter or visitor. To add credibility, Rather had Dr. Benjamin Spock spitting what he knows about the wonderful hospitals open to "ALL CUBANS," as he emphasized. Well just like everyone else, Dr. Spock was fooled too. His comment doesn't have any veracity. It's pathetic to see somebody like Dr. Spock being a "useful fool," as communists commonly call his kind.

Then the broken record of the US embargo, called "blockade" by Fidel/Rather. The hardship, scarcity and rationing of all products started in Cuba after Castro, for example: July 4, 1961, cooking oil and shortening were added to the list of rationed items. Feb. 3, 1962, the Kennedy administration stopped all export to Cuba, except food and medicines. However, on Feb. 11, 1962, the rationing of medicines began! And on March 12, 1962, the rationing book was implanted in Cuba as the only way to obtain food, clothing and other items of necessity. Since the beginning this book was almost a joke because most of the time the items were not available anyway. It was not until March 24, 1962, that the Kennedy administration forbid almost all exports to Cuba, but this did not affect medical products, cultural, scientific and sport exchanges, nor the subsidiaries of US companies abroad.

Of course this hardship never affected Fidel and his elite, nor foreigners or diplomats who since the beginning had access to special stores off limits to regular Cubans. Apartheid started very early on.

Rather's pal said, "but many people have access to the hard currency one way or another." Rather added, "...but from the eager hotel worker to the young beggars, to the free lance prostitutes who hustle along the Malecon, the hunt for Yankee dollars is full time business just as before the revolution." Just as before the revolution?! Who told you that, Danny?! Cubans didn't have to hunt for dollars before Castro. One peso was equal to one dollar! That was an insensitive and insulting distortion of reality before your pal ruined my country!

Then the sugar fields where Rather said, "perhaps these workers are better off than their grandparents." In opposition to the bad image given to Castro exiles by the US media, Cubans were very progressive people and our 1940 Constitution (the one Rather's pal abolished, oh well) was the most modern and progressive of the Americas, even ahead of the US. For over two decades before Castro, previous governments had developed agendas based on social democratic programs.

There was a strong tradition of labor movement in Cuba. The unions were powerful and rich. For example: workers enjoyed a minimum of a month of paid vacation a year, three months of paid maternity leave, Christmas bonuses established by law, programs of retirements (many cases with 100% of the highest salary received), the unremovability of workers was almost an article of faith, being really difficult for employers to fire some of their employees. Havana's public transportation buses belonged to their drivers and the former Havana Hilton Hotel was owned by the waiters union. Fidel's versions of the past fail to mention those facts.

And for those sugar cane workers "much better off" now after Castro according to Rather's reasoning, used to share in the profits of the sugar harvest, called "the sugar differential rate" in addition to their salaries that were paid in Cuban pesos (equal, remember, to the US dollar). So how can they be better off now than they were 37 years ago?

By 1958 the majority of Cuban industrial and land properties were in individuals hands and not the domain of a few oligarchies like you still see in Latin America. The 1946 agricultural census counted 48,792 farm owners (not a handful of large landlords). This census didn't count the thousands of farmers leasing and sub-leasing parcels of land to grow their own crops. In 1957 Cuba ranked 3rd among Latin America in beef consumption with an annual slaughter of 522,000 head of cattle and 654,000 pigs. In 1958 the milk production was 800,000 metric tons and ranked 26th among the countries of the world with regard to daily calorie consumption (2,730 calories per person), and 5th in the Americas (including the US and Canada).

However, after Castro the daily diet to which Cubans have been restricted for almost 37 years of rationing is not only inferior to the diet of the 1950s, but also to the nutritional ration officially allocated to slaves in the colonial Cuba of 1842!

While showing more sugar cane workers Rather emphasized that Fidel, "as always was greeted with frenzy and love." How can that be logically possible if they in fact are worse off today and even without freedom? A Rather superficial perception that doesn't hold any water.

Then the unavoidable cigar factory. The old black laborers, perhaps in those repetitious poorly paid jobs for decades. But we are to believe that 3rd class citizens of the world are content Fidel lovers.

Then the nonsense of Castro's Hitler-inspired phrase "history will absolve me" (similar to the one Hitler used in his 1924 Rathaus coup trial) that he reused in his own defense in his 1953 trial for the Moncada garrison attack from which Batista pardoned him. History did not absolve Hitler and will not Castro either. And if Rather continues palling around with him, history will not be kind with Rather.

No, the token Cuban exiles reduced to sound bites and Rather gravely mentioning some negative aspects of his pal, who can be "brutal," didn't cut it. Without the benefit of specific visual samples, his weak attempt to balance, was just pitifully weak contrasting with the exulted and sympathetic visuals of Castro. His false myth and image didn't suffer a bit in this insulting-to-Castro's-victims charade.

Rather's conclusions: "America propelled Fidel Castro into the spot light and America has kept him there." That's the truth! But it will be truly a profound truth if rewritten this way, "the US media propelled Fidel Castro into the spot light and the US media has kept him there."

I feel sorry for Dan Rather, because his multi-million dollar salary doesn't automatically make him right or above reproach. And when his pal's reign is over and the Cuban Holocaust is exposed he will have to run for cover. He can not claim that he did not know. The information exists, facts, witnesses, victims are here.

The liberal US media refuses to acknowledge the crimes committed against a nation that wanted nothing more than to get rid of Batista and to return to a constitutional government with justice and freedom for all. Simply for wanting that, Cuban Americans have been maligned by the US media.

As a lady said of the US media at the end of a documentary I did collecting the personal opinions of Cuban Americans about the way the US media has covered the Cuban situation, "Cubans are not going to forgive and forget the US media."

So when everything is finally over I think Dan Rather cannot easily go back to Cuba. I would not be surprised if he is even declared "persona non grata." He might even be judged a collaborator. Because Castro, the affable pal in Rather's latest romantic tribute "The Last Revolutionary," is without any doubt in reality and will be remembered forever as "The Last Tyrant."

Cubans will do just as the Jewish victims of Hitler's Holocaust did and insist that the world be exposed to their ignored tragedy so people like Rather's pal, will never rise again.

End

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