The Last Days of Fidel Castro

‘ A good and glorious death,” wrote Miguel de — Unamuno, “justifies and ennobles an entire life, however bad and infamous it may have been, while a bad death spoils even the best of fives.”

The signs are that Fidel Castro is preparing for a good death, and he is not the kind of man to deprive his personal decisions of public significance: he intends to take a lot of people with him when he goes. The slogans in Havana—“The Banners of Socialism Will Not Be Sur-rendered without a Fight,” “Defense for Production, Production for Defense,” “Marxism—Leninism or Death”-have a certain manic necrophilia about them. One cannot help noticing that not many heroes of the Cuban revolution died in bed of old age or bronchopneumonia.

About the Author

Anthony Daniels

Mr. Daniels, a retired doctor who worked in several parts of the world, is the author of Mass Listeria, a book about health scares.

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‘ A good and glorious death,” wrote Miguel de — Unamuno, “justifies and ennobles an entire life, however bad and infamous it may have been, while a bad death spoils even the best of fives.”

The signs are that Fidel Castro is preparing for a good death, and he is not the kind of man to deprive his personal decisions of public significance: he intends to take a lot of people with him when he goes. The slogans in Havana—“The Banners of Socialism Will Not Be Sur-rendered without a Fight,” “Defense for Production, Production for Defense,” “Marxism—Leninism or Death”-have a certain manic necrophilia about them. One cannot help noticing that not many heroes of the Cuban revolution died in bed of old age or bronchopneumonia.