Word: cuba
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...President has only shown that he and his advisers write excellent speeches that impress everyone except the Commies, because when the chips were down in Laos and Cuba, exactly nothing happened...
...seventh book. The Cuban Story (Braziller; $4.50), Herbert Matthews recalls his 1957 interview as a singular journalistic achievement. It is about all that Newsman Matthews can be proud of in his continued coverage of Cuba. Dazzled from the start by the dashing revolutionary ("I was moved, deeply moved, by that young man"), Matthews fell into the trap that everywhere awaits the unwary reporter: he let emotional bias suspend his judgment. In his eyes. Castro became a hero of whom Matthews can still write today, as he does in The Cuban Story: "I could never bring myself to condemn Fidel Castro...
Once in power. Castro promptly confirmed the suspicions that had bothered many reporters-but not Herb Matthews. After bathing Cuba in blood-551 drumhead executions in four months-Castro edged steadily leftward, toward the shadow of Moscow. What had been a tyranny under Batista remained one under Castro. But even as other newsmen, among them Ruby Hart Phillips, the Times's Havana correspondent for 24 years, reported these facts, Matthews stuck by his adopted rebel. Castro "insists he wants friendship" with the U.S., wrote Matthews in March 1959, "While welcoming American investments, he says he would prefer American loans...
...Pushed. With little alteration. Matthews sang Fidelity for four years. His misplaced loyalty continued to color the Times's editorials on Cuba (which, curiously, still remain a Matthews responsibility). Those who saw Castro's Cuba in a harsher light he branded as "distorted, unfair, ill-informed and intensely emotional"-accusations more accurately leveled at Matthews (who once admitted that "I would never dream of hiding my own bias or denying...
Intended as a ringing defense of his own reporting on Cuba, his book only demonstrates how wrong Matthews was then, and how wrong he is now. The reporter who adopted a rebel has now become Castro's apologist: "Let me repeat that I am not making a moral judgment in saying that given the problems he faced, internally and externally, given the character of the Cuban people, and given his determination to make a radical, social revolution. Fidel came up with a logical answer." Besides, says Matthews. Castro did not necessarily turn left; he may have been pushed: "Historians...