Style over substance: why Fidel Castro’s revolutionary chic was a fraud

I MET FIDEL CASTRO 40 YEARS AGO, AND HE WAS REALLY, really cool. I was part of an American delegation to Cuba led by Senator George McGovern; we met Castro at his brother Raúl’s farm. He showed up in an open Jeep, in a cloud of dust, wearing his famous combat fatigues. He took us to a nearby town, which he worked like a Boston ward heeler, smiling and shaking hands. People called him by his first name.