The Autumn of the Patriarch

(from PODER magazine)

Cuba expert Brian Latell talks about the waning days of the Cuban Revolution, and what might happen after Fidel.

By Cathleen Farrell, Miami

While Hurricane Wilma was bearing down on Miami and South Florida, Brian Latell was talking about the winds of change in neighboring Cuba. “Fidel is seriously ill,” the former CIA analyst said. “He is declining physically and cognitively, and he is suffering from some serious, life-threatening illness.” That kind of talk goes over well in Miami, where discussing the demise of Cuba’s leader and speculating on the aftermath is a favorite parlor game.

On that sultry October afternoon, though, Latell, an expert without peer on Fidel Castro, was lunching with a group of journalists to discuss his new book, After Fidel. In it he tackles the question of what will happen to that island nation after Castro dies. While the unstartling conclusion is simply that, “after Fidel, anything is possible,” the book rewards the reader with insights into the dictator and the regime that Latell has gained from nearly four decades of study.

After Fidel is a fascinating study not only of Fidel but also of his younger brother and heir apparent, Raul. Like the good historian he is, Latell, who holds a PhD in Latin American history and taught at Georgetown, carefully distills the complex geopolitical reality of Cuba down to its most basic component: the key human actors in the drama.

He skillfully paints a detailed portrait of two brothers who appear to be mirror opposites: Fidel, charismatic, self-absorbed, megalomaniacal; Raul, cautious, unobtrusive, extremely private.

The book is also part memoir, says Latell, and the title employs a double meaning. “After Fidel also refers to my being after him, trailing him. As a young CIA analyst, I was given the task of getting under his skin, his beard, in his boots.”

Actually Latell has never met Fidel, never come face to face with him, but he is indisputably one of the world’s experts on the Cuban dictator. “I have a dubious distinction—I’m somewhat embarrassed to admit it,” Latell says, laughing. “I have read every public word Fidel has ever spoken.” He began working on Cuba for the CIA in 1964, five years after Castro took power, two years after the U.S.-Soviet showdown over missiles in Cuba.

After Fidel has garnered a lot of attention, in part because it reveals heretofore undisclosed details about both Castro brothers. Latell’s main thesis is that the Cuban revolution has only one indispensable man besides Fidel: Raul Castro. “There is not and never has been a ‘third man’,” Latell says. There is no one else waiting in the wings to take over. Fidel is so paranoid that he trusts no one, Latell explains, no one, that is, except his younger brother Raul, over whom he exerts an extraordinary psychological control.

The best value-added dimension of the book is the information it provides about the enigmatic Raul. Most biographies of Fidel and all the standard histories of the revolution have neglected one of its most important factors, Latell maintains. “To my knowledge, there has never been anything more than a few hundred words written about Raul. Admittedly Raul is not quite as interesting as Fidel, but he is psychologically and emotionally more complex.”

The relationship between the two, the way they effectively share power, may foreshadow Cuba post-Fidel. (In several instances in the book, Latell refers to their conquest of power as the Castros’ revolution.) “To use a theatrical metaphor, if the Cuban revolution were a stage production, Fidel would be the director and Raul the producer.”

Latell believes that should Fidel die first, Raul would, as expected, indeed take power and be able to maintain the revolution intact for a time at least, forestalling the protracted period of chaos that many observers predict. “There are no leaders or group of leaders who could rally support and challenge Raul for leadership.”

On the other hand, given Fidel’s current physical and mental health, Latell says, “If Raul dies first, the revolution would hang by a thread.”

The congenial Latell, although a cool and cerebral analyst, is hardly detached from his subject. In the book and in conversation, he frequently refers to Fidel as a “psychopath” and demonstrates both fascination and revulsion for the man.

Interestingly, he speaks more warmly of Raul, although the younger Castro is known to have killed and ordered executions in cold blood. “Close family members, his sister Juanita—a wonderful person— and Fidel’s daughter Alina Fernandez—also a wonderful person—both say that Raul is the warmer of the two, the more human.” They even used the word “ compassionate”. (Juanita, says Latell, blames Fidel for “turning Raul into a monster.”)

Latell describes Fidel as having a “very constricted psychological scope and capability. He is very insulated, isolated.” Raul, on the other hand, has formed deep and lasting bonds with family members, friends, and colleagues. “Fidel has no sense of humor. Raul is very down-to-earth and has a real self-deprecating sense of humor.”

Yet, Latell notes, “Raul is lacking in so many of the extraordinary leadership qualities of Fidel. He is awkward in public speeches, he does not have direct contact with the masses.” Ironically, it is Raul’s more human qualities, Latell believes, that have enabled him to gain such firm control of the military and to consolidate his role in the revolution.

The world’s longest-serving defense minister—“a job he does exceptionally well,” says Latell— Raul Castro controls the country’s most powerful, wealthiest and best run institution whose many tentacles reach into every aspect of Cuban society. “In 47 years, there has never been a coup attempt, no organized unrest in the military,” Latell says. “There have only been two serious disruptions in the military, in 1959 and in 1989, and both were resolved in favor of the Castro brothers.”

How has Raul managed to maintain control of the military for so long? “In part, because he has had the same men with him since the 1950s,” Latell explains, “but also because he has established genuine friendships with these men, he knows them, he knows their families—something Fidel is incapable of.”

And yet, Raul’s power initially derived from his relationship with his brother. Since their childhood, Raul has been overshadowed by his illustrious, studious and charismatic older brother.

Growing up in what Latell describes as “the Cuban equivalent of the American wild west” in the eastern Cuban countryside, the boys were sent away to school at an early age. Fidel thrived, Raul did not, and was described by one teacher as “a sack of potatoes.” Fidel has a law degree from the University of Havana and was a student leader; Raul has little formal education. Fidel was their father’s favorite, Raul was barely acknowledged. (Latell furthers the discussion of Raul’s paternity by quoting a letter Raul wrote to Fidel referring to their older brother as “your brother”—not “our brother”—and he reveals the name of the man long rumored to be Raul’s biological father.)

In the 1950s Raul became an avowed communist, traveling behind the Iron Curtain and reading Marxist tomes. He was the ideologue of the two; Fidel was the more pragmatic, a Cuban nationalist. During the revolution Raul came into his own as his brother’s loyal lieutenant. (Raul calls Fidel “jefe”, not brother, according to Latell.)

Despite his lack of schooling Raul “is the organization man, with an extraordinary managerial style.” Yet his loyalty to his brother is unwavering, unquestioning and blind, so great is the psychological hold Fidel has on Raul. And that has been the essence and the success of their hold on Cuba.

While the book does not enter into the minutiae of a post-Fidel Cuba—after all, both leaders are geriatric revolutionaries so it’s a coin toss who could go first—Latell does suggest that relations between the U.S. and Cuba might be different under Raul.

“The roles have been reversed: Raul is now the more pragmatic of the two,” says Latell. “Fidel is more dogmatic, inflexible, radical.” Under Raul, would the current policy of estrangement still be sustainable? Latell suggests that Raul’s pragmatism might well allow him as leader to send emissaries to Washington, to put feelers out offering to share intelligence and to work together on counter-terrorism. “Would the U.S. say ‘no’?,” Latell asks.

Latell is reticent about expressing an opinion on U.S. policy towards Cuba. He says he does not want to detract from the discussion of his current book and, he adds, “I may write a book next year on U.S. –Cuba relations, but from the Cuban point of view.”

Fidel, Latell says, has never wanted good relations with the U.S. “His anti-Americanism is in his blood. Fidel hates the United States,” but “I don’t think Raul would have the same blood antipathy.” Raul has only spent 24 hours in the U.S. He rarely, if ever, receives American visitors, Latell says, but “Fidel understands us maybe as well as we do or better.”