Word: cuban
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...Cuban official close to Castro says the President was immensely "impressed in personal terms" and that a "mutual sympathy" developed between these two formidable men. They discovered common bonds in their goals. "Notwithstanding their philosophical differences," says this official, "they are two strong believers in the capacity of the human being to improve, to be a better man, to build a better society." For the aging revolutionary, there is no greater sin than quitting. In John Paul II he saw a man who has stuck by his principles, no matter what the opposition. He liked the Pope's resolute style...
Nonetheless, the Cuban government knows these five days are fraught with risk. The Pope has been as hard on Marxist repression as on "savage capitalism," and his critique of Castro's human-rights record in full view of 3,000 foreign journalists could sting. Instead of spotlighting a "normal" country at its most open, benign moment, the way Castro hopes, the press might fill their dispatches with lurid stories of teenage prostitutes and an oppressed, despairing citizenry...
...Cubans are pretty smart about how they're playing this," says a senior State Department official in Washington. "They are unlikely to have gone ahead with the visit unless they thought they could control it." Castro is betting that he will reap significant rewards. His aides may bristle at the word, but legitimacy is something Fidel has always sought. Just appearing on the same stage with the Vicar of Christ lends a powerful measure of respectability to the Cuban Comandante. At the same time, the regime will seek to replenish the threadbare rhetoric of the revolution by emphasizing the moral...
Ricardo Alarcon, president of the National Assembly of People's Power, met with TIME correspondents last week in Havana to talk about the Pope's visit, Castro and Cuba. Excerpts: TIME: A lot of Cuban people expect that the Pope's visit will alter U.S. policy toward Cuba. You don't really think that's true...
TIME: Would you permit a bigger role for the church in Cuban society...