Word: raãºl
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...first time I met Raúl Castro, in 1972, I confess that I did not pay any attention to him at all. I was visiting revolutionary Cuba with a group of young "internationalists"; I was green and wanted to change the world. Fidel was the one that I wanted to see. First I met Vilma Espín, who had joined the revolution before marrying Raúl. That she was from a well-to-do family and had thrown away everything for the cause made her a dashing character in my eyes. She was then and remains today head of Cuba's Women...
...next time I visited Cuba was in 1983 as a journalist. Attending a social gathering, I saw Raúl and Vilma again. At first sight, Raúl, wearing his green fatigues, seemed serious and stern as he went through the official greetings required of him. But later I saw him talking to people and laughing. That is when I realized how different he seemed from my first impression. You could see how he was enjoying the jokes and the bantering. He intrigued...
...Raúl is more of an executive. He gets to the point and does not waste time. I was there in Granma province in 1994 when Raúl famously lost his cool as the local party leader recited a long and preposterous list of "successes" for the benefit of the visiting Defense Minister. I saw how, suddenly, Raúl could not take it anymore. He slammed his hand on the table and boomed, "F___! How come, if we are doing so well, the people complain of hunger?" Raúl immediately fired the offending official and sent a senior party official to Granma to address...
...allowed to follow Raúl once when he visited some garrisons. The aura of the severe official evaporated when he was with his troops. I use the word his deliberately: those really were his men. He cared for them. He knew their names and asked about their projects. At one garrison it was alternative medicine, growing plants and making extracts. At another it was special-operations training. He ate with the men and joked with them. He is a fine yarn teller, never too self-conscious to act a story out. He turns his head sideways when he listens...
...always respected the family. Even though he is the fifth of seven children and the third and youngest male (Ramón, 81 and an agricultural adviser, is older than Fidel), Raúl has always been the clan's peacekeeper. When Fidel in the 1960s expropriated Cuba's ranches, including his family compound in Birán, where his mother Lina Ruz still lived, she met the revolutionaries at the door with a Winchester rifle, which she knew how to use. It was Raúl who convinced her of the merits of the reform. Lina continued to live on the compound after the state...