National Press Club in History: What Fidel Castro told the Club

Just three months after Fidel Castro’s forces marched victoriously into Havana, the charismatic 32-year-old Cuban leader made a goodwill tour in Washington, including a stop at the National Press Club. It was a pivotal moment in history. Castro had some sympathy in the United States for overthrowing a brutal dictatorship, and he was launching reforms that improved the lives of average Cubans.

But where would this go? Would Castro truly create a democratic government, as he insisted he would? Or would he look to Nikita Khruschchev and the Soviet Union for support and as a role model for a communist dictatorship?

All of that hung in the balance on April 20, 1959, as Castro came to the podium.

“I know you are fighters for news,” he said, speaking in English. “I am not afraid of any questions. I tell what I think, and I do what I tell.”

He said he was not in the United States to seek financial help, disparaging foreign leaders coming with hat in hand for U.S. aid. “Many men come here to sell their souls to the United States. I come only for understanding.”

He even sounded like a proponent of a free press, saying, “Only real public opinion is when men and women can hear, can speak and can write.”

Club President William Lawrence of the New York Times, bore down on Castro with questions about his sincerity of establishing a free government. Why had he decided to postpone elections for four years? After a brutal dictatorship, the country needed time to develop democratic institutions, Castro answered. What did he think of Khruschchev? “We are against all kinds of dictators. We do not wish communism,” Castro said, insisting he had not had an offer from Russia and had not asked for one.

Of course, none of this turned out to be true.

As Alan Gevinson, who analyzed the speech for the Library of Congress, wrote, “Historians now know that three days later, on April 23, Khrushchev approved a petition sent to him from Raul Castro, Fidel’s brother and commander of the Cuban army, to send Spanish communist military advisors to help maintain control over the Cuban army.”

As Castro’s ties with the Soviet Union increased, relations between the United States and Castro deteriorated quickly, settling into an adversarial relationship that continues today, after a temporary thaw during the Obama administration. No high-level Cuban leader was allowed back to Washington until 1994 when Ricardo Alarcon, president of the Cuban National Assembly, spoke at the Club.

You can listen to Castro’s speech in its entirety, as well as see other photos and Gevinson’s commentary here.

This is another in a series provided by Club historian Gil Klein. Dig down anywhere in the Club’s 110-year history, and you will find some kind of significant event in the history of the world, the nation, Washington and the Club itself. Many of these events were caught in illustrations that tell the stories.