A personal appreciation of Congressman Lincoln Díaz-Balart (1954–2025)
Lincoln Díaz-Balart had quite a name to live up to — well, three names (one of them hyphenated): He was “Lincoln Rafael Díaz-Balart.” I will get into a little family history. I hope not to make anyone dizzy with names.
Lincoln’s paternal grandfather was Rafael José Díaz-Balart. He admired President Lincoln greatly. He named one of his sons “Rafael Lincoln Díaz-Balart” — and that boy would name a son of his own “Lincoln.”
More names. Lincoln’s paternal grandmother, América, admired Emerson greatly. So, the other son in that family was “Waldo.”
Lincoln Rafael Díaz-Balart was conscious of bearing the name “Lincoln” (as well as the other two names). He knew a lot about our 16th president. His office was decorated with Lincoln memorabilia. There was also, I recall, an image of José Martí, the Cuban independence leader. Chiefly, there were photos of Cuban political prisoners. Lincoln Díaz-Balart thought of them all the time.
It was he who made me aware of a statement by Martí — one I have quoted many times, about Russian dissidents such as Vladimir Kara-Murza, for example: “When there are many men who lack honor, there are always others who have within themselves the honor of many men.”
Lincoln Díaz-Balart was a member of the U.S. House from 1993 to 2011. He passed away on Monday, at age 70.
He was a friend of mine, I’m grateful to say. We talked and corresponded for many years — mainly about freedom, democracy, and human rights. In Cuba, sure, but everywhere else, too. Lincoln was a universalist. He did not want human rights for a select few.
Lincoln was born in Havana in 1954. He was four when Fidel Castro took power. The family was out of the country at the time. Otherwise, we would never have known the Díaz-Balarts. Castro forces looted and burned their home.
Rafael Lincoln Díaz-Balart had been a prominent politician. He was the majority leader of the House of Representatives. Before that, he had been a friend and roommate of Fidel Castro’s.
Castro married Rafael’s sister, Mirta. By the way, Rafael’s wife, Hilda, never liked Castro — even when he and her husband were close friends. In fact, she hated him. Castro and Mirta had one child, a son, Fidelito.
While in power, Castro would sometimes receive U.S. congressmen, and he enjoyed telling them, “Say hello to my nephew, would you?” Meaning Lincoln, of course. Occasionally, Lincoln would be asked about his “family” in Cuba — Fidelito and others. He would respond that his real family was composed of freedom-and-democracy activists, in prison and out. Those were his true Cuban “relatives.”
Mirta and Castro soon divorced. She remarried and had other children. Did she ever, truly, in her heart, break with Castro? Did any of Castro’s women (and there were many)?
Those interested in this subject might consult a book of mine, Children of Monsters: An Inquiry into the Sons and Daughters of Dictators.
In May 1955, the Cuban government issued an amnesty for Castro and his comrades. The amnesty was widely popular, broadly supported. A dissenter was Rafael Lincoln Díaz-Balart. On the floor of the House, he said,
Fidel Castro and his group have repeatedly declared, from their comfortable prison, that they will be leaving prison only in order to continue plotting new acts of violence and whatever it takes to achieve the total power they seek. . . .
They do not want peace. They do not want a national solution. They do not want democracy, or elections, or fraternity. Fidel Castro and his group seek only one thing: power, and total power at that.
Díaz-Balart called his onetime friend, and onetime brother-in-law, “a psychopathic fascist, who could choose to align himself with communism only because fascism was defeated in the Second World War.”
He ended his speech with this:
I believe that this amnesty — so imprudently adopted — will bring days, many days, of mourning, pain, bloodshed, and misery to the Cuban people, even though these very people do not see it that way now. I ask God that the majority of the people and the majority of my fellow representatives present here be the ones who are right. I ask God that I be the one who is mistaken — for Cuba’s sake.
He was not mistaken. In later years, some people called him prophetic. As Lincoln explained, “He wasn’t prophetic. He just knew him.”
Once, I talked with both Lincoln and his brother Mario, who had joined Lincoln in the U.S. House. (Mario was elected in 2002, and still serves in the House.) Sizing up Castro’s Cuba, Lincoln said, “It’s a mixture of medieval feudalism and Al Capone.” Mario added, “With a touch of One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest thrown in.”
In another conversation, Lincoln spoke further with me about this matter of Castro, fascism, and communism. Castro went to a Jesuit high school in Havana, Belén, and was taught by Spanish priests. They were excellent teachers, and they were also very anti-communist, for good reasons. Castro’s heroes were Primo de Rivera, Hitler, and Mussolini.
That was not in fashion after 1945. So . . .
Whether the boot is black or red, who cares? It’s still a boot stamping on the human face.
Like many other Cubans, the Díaz-Balarts found refuge in Miami. Rafael and Hilda had four sons, who flourished: the congressmen, Lincoln and Mario; Rafael (another Rafael), a businessman and civic leader; and José, a television broadcaster. By some, they were dubbed “the Cuban Kennedys.”
Their father said, “They’re 100 percent American and 100 percent Cuban.” For many, this would not add up. But for the Díaz-Balarts, in my opinion — and that of many others — it does.
Lincoln was a Democrat. Then came the ’80s, when the Democratic Party moved left on foreign policy and a Republican president, Ronald Reagan, was defending freedom, democracy, and human rights. His first U.N. ambassador was a Democrat: Jeane Kirkpatrick. Lincoln admired Kirkpatrick a great deal. He saw the world as she did.
Kirkpatrick switched her party registration to Republican in April 1985. So did Lincoln. So did his wife, Cristina, and his brother Mario.
Years after his retirement from politics, Lincoln said to me, “One of the best things about serving in D.C. was being able to become her friend.” We were reminiscing about Jeane.
He had a political career, Lincoln did: the Florida House and the Florida Senate, then the U.S. House. But he was a bookish, intellectual man, always reading, always inquiring. When we talked, it was seldom about politics — the daily tumble of politics. It was about ideas.
In Congress, Lincoln dealt with the issues that all congressmen deal with, but he placed a special emphasis on Cuban affairs. He made no apologies for it. “How can you do otherwise,” he said, “if you know what’s going on?”
He talked about Cuba with anyone who would listen. He wanted his fellow Americans to know the truth about his native land, about which there are many illusions. Celebrities and academics would troop down to Havana to sit at Castro’s feet, cooing over him. Lincoln said to me, “For the life of me, I just don’t know how Castro can seem cute after forty years of torturing people.”
As you can tell, this must have been in 2000 or so.
Over and over, he named the names of Cuban political prisoners on the House floor. (Jeane K. had done this on the floor of the United Nations. In particular, she named the names of Soviet political prisoners. They heard about it, and it mattered to them.) Lincoln Díaz-Balart was, and is, a hero to Cuban dissidents. Many have told me so.
They also speak glowingly about Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a retired congresswoman, and a precious handful of others.
Lincoln wanted the American media to do more — to do more about Cuba, to rouse themselves. In an impassioned speech, he said, “I ask the press, the media, to please cease treating Cuba’s pro-democracy activists as though they did not exist.”
To say it once more: Lincoln Díaz-Balart wanted freedom, democracy, and human rights for everyone. Not just Cubans or Americans. (The same is true of Ileana Ros-Lehtinen.) He cared about political prisoners in China, Russia, Syria — wherever. His highest term of praise was “freedom fighter.” He applied it to the activists and prisoners, of course — but also to politicians and writers who lent a hand.
“He’s a freedom fighter!” he’d say with pleasure and gratitude. “She’s a freedom fighter!”
He admired Reagan, and George W. Bush, and Jeb Bush, his fellow Floridian. In the course of extolling Jeb to me once, he said, “And he speaks excellent Spanish, too — fluent.”
Lincoln’s father passed away in 2005. “He taught me how to live and taught me how to die,” Lincoln told me. In 2013, he and Cristina had to bear the unbearable: the death of their son Lincoln Jr. at the age of 29.
It was in 2011 that Lincoln retired from Congress. There was an event in Miami — a lunch, as I recall — in honor of Lincoln. Much of the Florida political establishment was there. I remember Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a Democrat, and Marco Rubio, the Republican.
Lincoln had asked me to come down and introduce him. Being an opinion journalist — very opinionated, and open about it all — I said, “Of course, an honor.” Which it was.
I think again of his father’s phrase: “100 percent American and 100 percent Cuban.” Lincoln was 100 percent devoted to the people he loved and 100 percent devoted to his ideals.
In the summer of 2021, protests broke out all over Cuba. Lincoln and I talked by e-mail. He said,
I am optimistic. The young people of Cuba have decided they will not become another lost generation. There is a deep unity now; it happened recently. It is unprecedented. Canel the Castro-puppet is totally despised. Freedom is inevitable. Un fuerte abrazo, querido amigo!
Un fuerte abrazo, Lincoln, mi querido amigo. Thank you for your marvelous work.
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