Castro: The Brute Facts

In Red Star Over Cuba: The Russian Assault on the Western Hemisphere (Devin-Adair, $4.50), Nathaniel Weyl traces the career of Fidel Castro from his “murky” beginnings, through his armed participation in the Bogota putsch (April 9, 1948), to his present role as the best-advertised Gauleiter of the Soviet empire. Drawing upon a wide range of documentation in English and Spanish, the author describes the “Supreme Chief” of the Cuban revolution, not as a dim-witted tool of astute advisers, but as “a seasoned and highly competent Soviet agent.”

The first six chapters, among them “The Saturnalia of Blood,” “The Student Assassins,” and “Apprenticeship in Murder,” demonstrate the manner in which the boy from Oriente was prepared for his part in the Marxist-Leninist conspiracy. The facts about the Castro brothers, Fidel and Raúl, were a matter of public record long before they followed Dr. Ernesto “Che” Guevara into Havana in January 1959. All anyone needed, to know the character of the principal demagogues, was the ability to read.

JT

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Joseph F. Thorning

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In Red Star Over Cuba: The Russian Assault on the Western Hemisphere (Devin-Adair, $4.50), Nathaniel Weyl traces the career of Fidel Castro from his “murky” beginnings, through his armed participation in the Bogota putsch (April 9, 1948), to his present role as the best-advertised Gauleiter of the Soviet empire. Drawing upon a wide range of documentation in English and Spanish, the author describes the “Supreme Chief” of the Cuban revolution, not as a dim-witted tool of astute advisers, but as “a seasoned and highly competent Soviet agent.”

The first six chapters, among them “The Saturnalia of Blood,” “The Student Assassins,” and “Apprenticeship in Murder,” demonstrate the manner in which the boy from Oriente was prepared for his part in the Marxist-Leninist conspiracy. The facts about the Castro brothers, Fidel and Raúl, were a matter of public record long before they followed Dr. Ernesto “Che” Guevara into Havana in January 1959. All anyone needed, to know the character of the principal demagogues, was the ability to read.