This database includes speeches, interviews, etc., by Fidel Castro from 1959 to 1996. All texts are in English
http://lanic.utexas.edu/la/cb/cuba/castro.html1975 INTERVIEW CONFIRMS CIA ASSASSINATION ATTEMPTS
-DATE-
19750710
-YEAR-
1975
-DOCUMENT_TYPE-
INTERVIEW
-AUTHOR-
F. CASTRO
-HEADLINE-
CONFIRMS CIA ASSASSINATION ATTEMPTS
-PLACE-
SANTIAGO DE CUBA
-SOURCE-
MEXICO CITY INFORMEX
-REPORT_NBR-
FBIS
-REPORT_DATE-
19750711
-TEXT-
FIDEL CONFIRMS CIA ASSASSINATION ATTEMPTS
Mexico City INFORMEX in Spanish 2201 GMT 10 Jul 75 LF
[Text] Havana, 10 Jul (INFORMEX)--Exonerating the late President John
Kennedy and his brothers Robert and Ted, Cuban Prime Minister Fidel Castro
today confirmed that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) made numerous
attempts on his life. Castro--speaking to correspondents of the Western
press in Santiago de Cuba where he is accompanying Jamaican Prime Minster
Michael Manley--said there have been some 60 attempts on his life. He
stressed that one of the plots to which he was subjected was perpetuated
when he visited Chilean President Dr Salvador Allende in 1971. He explained
that at that time an attempt was made to kill both heads of state with arms
hidden in movie cameras. He reported that an attempt to assassinate him was
made in 1961 with a poisoned chocolate milkshake, but the poison had lost
its potency when frozen.
Castro also said the CIA made attempts on the lives of other officials such
as Carlos Rafael Rodriguez, currently vice prime minister for foreign
affairs. Regarding the late President John F. Kennedy and his brothers,
Castro said he had no reasons to assert they were aware of the plans of the
espionage agency.
1984 INTERVIEW NEWSWEEK INTERVIEW
-DATE-
19840210
-YEAR-
1984
-DOCUMENT_TYPE-
INTERVIEW
-AUTHOR-
F. CASTRO
-HEADLINE-
NEWSWEEK INTERVIEW
-PLACE-
BOHEMIA VERSION
-SOURCE-
HAVANA BOHEMIA
-REPORT_NBR-
FBIS
-REPORT_DATE-
19840413
-TEXT-
FURTHER DETAILS ON CASTRO NEWSWEEK INTERVIEW
Havana BOHEMIA in Spanish No 6, 10 Feb 84 pp 46-57
[BOHEMIA version of 9 Jan 84 NEWSWEEK interview with
Question: The Reagan administration insists you are a Soviet puppet and
henchman. How do you answer that accusation? What exactly is your
relationship with the USSR?
Answer: Anyone who has observed the history of our revolution and
understands its origin will see that our revolution is a truly autonomous
revolution. We did it ourselves. We did not even have relations with the
USSR when our revolution triumphed. Therefore, the interpretation of our
revolution's doctrine was our own interpretation; the style and the road we
followed were truly ours. It was fortunate for us, though, that the USSR
existed. What would have happened if the USSR had not existed? What would
have happened to Cuba when the sugar quota was suspended? The country would
have died of starvation. What would have happened when the oil supply was
suspended, when the spare parts for all the U.S.-made equipment could not
be acquired, when the United States imposed the blockade? We would not have
been able to survive if we had not found a market for our sugar, if we had
not had access to fuel and oil for our country, if we had not had access to
the armaments we needed for defense against the threats of an
invasion--like Playa Giron--assassination attempts and acts of sabotage. It
was a privilege for us to find a friendly country to help us confront all
those difficulties. Never, in 25 years, have the Soviets tried to interfere
in our affairs, in our policy or in our conduct. They have been very
respectful. Not even when we were critical of some concepts were they
tempted to hurt us economically. They were always very respectful. They
never publicly criticized us. Relations between the USSR and Cuba have been
exemplary. They were based on a policy of independence and mutual respect.
Don't forget that while we were fighting against U.S. imperialism under
particularly difficult conditions, the USSR maintained relations with the
United States and traded with the United States.
Reagan's statements don't bother me since he is an absolute liar. It is a
traditional accusation against us. We are not willing to become enemies of
the USSR and sacrifice the excellent relations we have with them in order
to demonstrate that we are not Soviet puppets. We do not have any puppet
complex. We consider ourselves solidly independent, masters of our country,
our destiny and our policy.
1988 INTERVIEW INTERVIEW WITH MARIA SHRIVER
-DATE-
19880228
-YEAR-
1988
-DOCUMENT_TYPE-
INTERVIEW
-AUTHOR-
F.CASTRO
-HEADLINE-
INTERVIEW WITH MARIA SHRIVER
-PLACE-
HAVANA
-SOURCE-
HAVANA TELEVISION SERVIC
-REPORT_NBR-
FBIS
-REPORT_DATE-
19880303
-TEXT-
Castro Interview With NBC Reporter Shriver
FL291408 Havana Television Service in Spanish 0134 GMT 28 Feb 88
[Interview with President Fidel Castro by NBC reporter Maria Shriver on the
night of 24-25 February in Havana; questions in English with Spanish
translation; answers in Spanish with English translation--recorded]
[Shriver] Let me switch gears a moment. Back in the early sixties there
were reports about many assassination plots against you. Who do you hold
responsible for those?
[Castro] You've asked a difficult question. I believe Kennedy had bad
advisers. Someone advised him badly. That's my opinion. Or perhaps
people who interpreted some remark by Kennedy. I don't know if Kennedy
might have said once: We have to get rid or Castro. Perhaps Kennedy said
it in political terms. We have to get rid of Castro politically. But
maybe some people thought that meant getting rid of Castro physically.
Those were the first reports we heard. However, the assassination attempts
began before the Kennedy administration. The CIA started the dirty war in
the Eisenhower years. Kennedy did not start the dirty war against Cuba.
Eisenhower, the CIA, the Pentagon started it a long time before Kennedy
came to office. What has been historically proved is that there were plans
to physically eliminate Cuban leaders, myself included, during the Kennedy
administration. That was confirmed. What hasn't been confirmed is that
Kennedy gave the order. What hasn't been confirmed is that Kennedy had
that intention. The talk is about interpretations of things (?that are not
certain). I want to tell you...
[Shriver, interrupting] What do you think?
[Castro] I find it difficult to believe that Kennedy might have assumed
that responsibility. It doesn't fit the image I have of him, his
character. It doesn't fit. I feel there might be a problem of
interpretation and there might have been actions taken by people who wanted
to resolve the problem along those lines. Anyway, we must consider the
following, as I was telling you this afternoon: Kennedy inherited the
Giron invasion. It was not his idea. He did not organize it. After the
Bay of Pigs he was very angry. In a way, he felt humiliated. We were not
to blame for that. What we did was defend ourselves. So all this anger
might have created an atmosphere conducive to plans of this nature.
Independently of what might have happened, it does not change my opinion of
Kennedy. I have a positive opinion of Kennedy. He was an intelligent,
truly brilliant man. After Roosevelt, he was the only president of the
United States who had a Latin American policy; the Alliance for Progress.
It was an intelligent policy seeking to check the spread of the Cuban
revolution. The trauma produced by the Cuban revolution, the fact that a
revolution had taken place so close to the United States, awakened the fear
that there might be objective conditions for revolution in Latin America.
Kennedy did not conceive a repressive strategy. Instead, he came up with a
strategy of social reform to check revolution in Latin America. He spoke
of agrarian reform, fiscal reform, education and health programs--many of
the things that we have done. He offered economic aid--$20 billion. Latin
America did not owe a single cent then. The problems of Latin America are
bigger now. It has double the population, $400-billion debt. It is a
volcano where problems are accumulating. There's no policy for Latin
America. Kennedy was the last president to have a policy for Latin
America.
1988 INTERVIEW CASTRO INTERVIEW WITH NBC REPORTER SHRIVER
-DATE-
19880228
-YEAR-
1988
-DOCUMENT_TYPE-
INTERVIEW
-AUTHOR-
F. CASTRO
-HEADLINE-
CASTRO INTERVIEW WITH NBC REPORTER SHRIVER
-PLACE-
CUBA
-SOURCE-
HAVANA TELEVISION SVC
-REPORT_NBR-
FBIS
-REPORT_DATE-
19880303
-TEXT-
Castro Interview With NBC Reporter Shriver
FL291408 Havana Television Service in Spanish
0134 GMT 28 Feb 88
[Shriver] Let me switch gears a moment. Back in the early sixties there
were reports about many assassination plots against you. Who do you hold
responsible for those?
[Castro] You've asked a difficult question. I believe Kennedy had bad
advisers. Someone advised him badly. That's my opinion. Or perhaps
people who interpreted some remark by Kennedy. I don't know if Kennedy
might have said once: We have to get rid of Castro. Perhaps Kennedy said
it in political terms. We have to get rid of Castro politically. But
maybe some people thought that meant getting rid of Castro physically.
Those were the first reports we heard. However, the assassination attempts
began before the Kennedy administration. The CIA started the dirty war in
the Eisenhower years. Kennedy did not start the dirty war against Cuba.
Eisenhower, the CIA, the Pentagon started it a long time before Kennedy
took office. The assassination plans began before Kennedy came to office.
What has been historically proved is that there were plans to physically
eliminate Cuban leaders, myself included, during the Kennedy
administration. That was confirmed. What hasn't been confirmed is that
Kennedy gave the order. What hasn't been confirmed is that Kennedy had
that intention. The talk is about interpretations of things (?that are not
certain). I want to tell you...
[Shriver, interrupting] What do you think?
[Castro] I find it difficult to believe that Kennedy might have assumed
that responsibility. It doesn't fit the image I have of him, his
character. It doesn't fit. I feel there might be a problem of
interpretation and there might have been actions taken by people who wanted
to resolve the problem along those lines. Anyway, we must consider the
following, as I was telling you this afternoon: Kennedy inherited the Giron
invasion. It was not his idea. He did not organize it. After the Bay of
Pigs he was very angry. In a way, he felt humiliated. We were not to
blame for that. What we did was defend ourselves. So all this anger might
have created an atmosphere conducive to plans of this nature.
Independently of what might have happened, it does not change my opinion of
Kennedy. I have a positive opinion of Kennedy. He was an intelligent,
truly brilliant man. After Roosevelt, he was the only president of the
United States who had a Latin American policy: the Alliance for Progress.
It was an intelligent policy seeking to check the spread of the Cuban
revolution. The trauma produced by the Cuban revolution, the fact that a
revolution had taken place so close to the United States, awakened the fear
that there might be objective conditions for revolution in Latin America.
Kennedy did not conceive a repressive strategy. Instead, he came up with a
strategy of social reform to check revolution in Latin America. He spoke
of agrarian reform, fiscal reform. education and health programs-many of
the things that we have done. He offered economic aid-$20 billion. Latin
America did not owe a single cent then. The problems of Latin America are
bigger now. It has double the population, a $400-billion debt. It is a
volcano where problems are accumulating. There's no policy for Latin
America. Kennedy was the last president to have a policy for Latin
America.
I do not have a bad personal opinion of Kennedy. I am not telling you this
because you are a relative. If you have read other interviews, my
statements, you will see that I have always spoken of Kennedy with respect.
As I was telling you this afternoon, I must acknowledge that he did not
commit the worst of mistakes. That would have been sending the Marines to
Cuba. That is, I must acknowledge that he acted calmly, serenely, and that
he did not make that big mistake. He might have erred in not stopping the
invasion, because he did not yet have enough authority, enough experience.
He did not stop it. That could have been his mistake, but he avoided a
much bigger mistake. He could have sent the Marines in.
[Shriver] There are theories that have existed for years that you knew
about the assassination plots in the early sixties, that you held President
Kennedy responsible, and that you, in turn, were involved in his
assassination. Did you have anything to do with it?
[Castro] I believe... [changes thought] I can't answer that question
because I can't accept such an accusation or doubt. Therefore, I will not
stoop to deny it. What I can tell you is the following: News reached us
daily of CIA assassination plans before and after Kennedy. I can even tell
you the following: First, to plan an action against the president of the
United States was an irresponsible, insane action. I believe it would be
farfetched to think that a responsible leader, a revolutionary who is aware
of his responsibilities, would come up with such madness because this would
be political madness. It's not just a question with ethical, moral
implications. It's a question with serious political implications. A
leader of a small country who would plan the elimination of the president
of the United States would be acting irresponsibly. It can never be said
that the leaders of the Cuban revolution have acted irresponsibly. They
are firm, brave, determined, but never irresponsible. I can tell you that.
Second, the day Kennedy was assassinated, I was meeting with a Kennedy
envoy. He was a French journalist, (Jean Daniel), who had spoken at length
with Kennedy. That was months after the October crisis. Kennedy was still
feeling the trauma of the grave danger experienced in those day. So,
Kennedy wanted to get in touch with me. He sent me a message with this
journalist. He told me he had a message from Kennedy. That same evening I
took him with me to Varadero, so we could talk at our leisure there.
We were talking. He was telling me all about Kennedy's conversation, when
we heard the news of Kennedy's assassination on the radio. What I can tell
you is that I felt very bad. Kennedy's death hurt. I saw in Kennedy an
intelligent, capable adversary. I felt an emptiness the day Kennedy was
killed. I was really hurt. I must tell you in all honesty. It seemed to
me that it was a death with no dignity, an unfair death. Time passed and
strange, odd things occurred. Oswald's murder. Oswald in jail, Oswald
killed. I later read a book-I think it was Sorensen's--about the death of
the president. It was Sorensen, wasn't it? Yes. A long book. I read a
thousand pages, because I wanted an explanation.
Now, when Oswald's name came up, someone reported that an individual with
the same name had tried to visit Cuba and had asked for a visa at the
Mexican Embassy. It was a routine request. I never knew anything about
it. The Foreign Ministry was informed. We were denying all those visas
because we were mistrustful. Here's an American wanting to come to our
country. What is he coming for? Who is he coming? Unless it was someone
well known, we were not granting visas. So this individual went there. He
asked for a visa but he was denied a visa. No one thought about it again.
But then the name started to appear. On top of it, this man was married to
a Soviet woman. So, imagine! What if this man had come to Cuba on a
routine visit and then had gone back to the United States and assassinated
Kennedy? They would have tried to implicate us. I sometimes ask myself if
someone, diabolically, did not plan all this, someone half mad, someone
mentally ill. He might have been manipulated. No one can tell, no one can
tell if it was an individual reaction. It seems that he was the one who
shot him. It seems. It might have been the act of an individual.
However, there are people like this who can be manipulated. There are
people who act on their own. This young man who tried to assassinate
Reagan apparently acted alone. It was said that he was in love with an
actress, that it was a case of unrequited love. He wanted to be famous.
He almost killed Reagan. This kind of madman can exist anywhere.
Now, the most probable thing is that if we had heard that someone was
planning to assassinate Kennedy, we would have alerted the U.S.
Government. We would have warned them about the danger. That's the most
probable thing. It did not happen that way because we never heard about
it. But I don't want to talk about our conduct in that respect, how we
interpret our obligations. If we hear that someone is trying to
assassinate Reagan, you can rest assured that we will alert Reagan. You
can be assured that we will alert Reagan, because I feel a responsible
government cannot hear of such a report, learn of such a report and not
warn somebody. You can rest assured. And I believe the U.S. Government
knows it. I think there cannot be any sane, serious person in the United
States who can believe that Cuba had anything to do with Kennedy's death.
Not even Batista. We were the enemies of Batista. We could have killed
Batista. However, we are politically against tyrannicide; we never
practiced tyrannicide. We never believed that the death of a man would
change a society. Therefore, we had the strength to attack the Moncada
Barracks with 160 men, to wage war. We could have ambushed Batista and
killed him. There's not a single indication in the entire history of the
revolution that the 26 July Movement, which we organized and led, had
planned to assassinate Batista. And yet Batista had killed thousands of
our comrades. Therefore, in philosophical terms, we have never
contemplated tyrannicide. Never. If we did not do it with Batista
here--it would have been easy-why do it with a president of the United
States. Men have their ideas, convictions, history. That cannot be
ignored.