![]() ![]() “Undoubtedly all of this exercise you did at school prepared you for this role?” “Yes,” Fidel replies in the halting English learned at his Jesuit high school and several visits to New York City. Sullivan’s first questions are not the most hard-hitting: “Now, in school,” he chortles in his distinctively nasal voice, “I understand you were a very fine student and a very fine athlete. magazines openly described Fidel as a new Robin Hood, with Celia as his Maid Marian, robbing from the rich to give to the poor. The sheer improbability of his victory over the thuggish strongman Batista had bathed him in a romantic aura. But Sullivan is most interested in Fidel himself. Despite their unwashed appearance, Fidel’s followers are a far cry from the godless Communists depicted by the Cuban military’s propaganda machine, he adds in fact, they are all wearing Catholic medals and some are even piously carrying copies of the Bible. With his first breath, Sullivan assures CBS viewers that they are about to meet “a wonderful group of revolutionary youngsters,” as if they are the latest pop music sensation. The most efficient organizer of the Rebel Army, she had brokered the media event and now dedicated herself to keeping the male guerrillas, who were as excitable as schoolboys, from wandering across the set or talking. Fidel’s lover and confidante, Celia Sánchez, who often appeared by his side in press interviews, was this time standing off-camera, wearing specially tailored fatigues and balancing a cigarette in her finely manicured fingers. ![]() Clustered around the pair are a dozen equally shaggy young rebels who were known in Cuba simply as los barbudos, “the bearded ones,” all cradling weapons-“a forest of tommy guns,” Sullivan later said. (He was often parodied as a “well-dressed gorilla.”)įidel, by contrast, was already a fashion icon for rebellious American youth, his olive-drab uniform, martial kepi, and raffish facial hair instantly recognizable. Trying to look casual as he leans against a table, the thickset 57 -year-old yanqui impresario appears to have just walked out of a Brooks Brothers ad in his tailored suit and tie, his helmet of dyed hair neatly combed and brilliantined. and Cuba soon after, the chummy atmosphere of the conversation today seems closer to “The Twilight Zone.” On-screen, Sullivan and his guest could hardly look more incongruous. Given the animosity that sprang up between the U.S. The surprising story of Che Guevara, Fidel Castro, and the scrappy band of rebel men and women who followed them. ![]() It was the electrifying climax of history’s most unlikely revolution: a scruffy handful of self-taught insurgents-many of them kids just out of college, literature majors, art students, and engineers, including a number of trailblazing women-had somehow defeated 40,000 professional soldiers and forced the sinister dictator, President Fulgencio Batista, to flee from the island like a thief in the nightĬuba Libre!: Che, Fidel, and the Improbable Revolution That Changed World History Only a few hours after the interview, Fidel would make his triumphant entrance into the Cuban capital, his men riding on the backs of captured tanks in euphoric scenes that evoked the liberation of Paris. on January 8 in the provincial outpost of Matanzas, 60 miles east of Havana, using the town hall as an improvised TV studio. Finally, Sullivan cut to the main attraction: his friendly interview with Fidel at the very cusp of the rebels’ victory. A stand-up comic performed a cheesy routine about suburban house parties. The Little Gaelic Singers crooned soothing Irish harmonies. Four acrobats leapt and gamboled around the stage (two of them wearing ape costumes). Earlier in the hour, Sullivan had presented a more typical array of artistic offerings for the staid Eisenhower era. On this winter’s evening the avuncular Sullivan was hosting a Latin celebrity who had aroused intense curiosity across the United States: Fidel Castro, a charming 32-year-old lawyer-turned-revolutionary, known for his unkempt beard and khaki patrol cap, who had against all odds overthrown a bloodthirsty military regime in Cuba.įor America’s most beloved entertainment program, it was a rare excursion into politics. on Sunday, January 11, 1959, some 50 million viewers tuned their television sets to “The Ed Sullivan Show,” the trendsetting variety revue that had introduced them to Elvis Presley a few years earlier and would bring them the Beatles several years later. The world’s most notorious guerrilla leader was about to invade their living rooms, and Americans were thrilled.
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