FOR WANT OF A TEN DOLLAR BILL

Fidel Castro attended the prestigious

Jesuit-run Colegio Dolores

in Santiago, Cuba. When he was twelve

he wrote a letter of congratulation

to President Roosevelt on his landslide

re-election – ‘My good friend Roosevelt’.

He asked for a ten-dollar bill – not to spend

but because he had never seen one –

and he offered to show Roosevelt

the iron mines at Mayari for his ‘sheaps’

(crossed out and replaced with ‘ships’). The White House

acknowledged the letter but did not enclose

a ten-dollar bill, and made no mention

of the mines. ‘Los americanos son

unos imbéciles’, he told a friend.

In 1959 when the USA

was not unsympathetic towards

what it saw as liberal nationalists

attempting to oust the embarrassing

Batista and his Mafia buddies,

Castro led a Cuban delegation

to Washington to seek support and not –

he was emphatic – money. Eisenhower

chose to play golf that day, and left his VP,

Richard Nixon, in charge. Trickie Dickie,

in effect, gave the Cubans a telling off.

Fidel Castro was enraged, perhaps, in part,

having been reminded of those childhood

humiliations of nineteen years before.

And the rest… as they say.