ABSTRACT
Fidel Castro is one of the few surviving Cold War enemies of the United States. He has witnessed as adversaries ten US Presidents: Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush the Elder, Clinton, and Bush the Younger. There is a sense in which Castro's premature celebration of a half century of rule is quite accurate. For the year 1958 was one in which his guerrilla movement held increased ground in the sparsely populated regions of Cuba, and even more significant, a time in which the decay of the Fulgencio Batista regime became apparent. The fixation of dictators with self importance is hardly a recent phenomenon. But it is the case that figures as dissimilar in background as Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin and Fidel Castro have prepared autobiographical volumes, with varying degrees of success. The weaknesses of the Cuban regime are seen through an extremely narrow window of Castro's strong criticisms of corruption, bribery, speculation, and money laundering.
