MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Fidel Castro’s “no but yes”: comments on Cuban model were “misinterpreted”

The Cuban revolution leader says his reply “means exactly the opposite”

Fidel Castro said his recent comment that communist-led Cuba's economic model does not work was misunderstood, and that what he really meant was capitalism does not work.

Castro, speaking at the University of Havana, said his words had been misinterpreted by his interviewer, US journalist Jeffrey Goldberg of the Atlantic Monthly magazine, who quoted a US analyst saying they indicated Castro now supports a smaller state role in the island's Soviet-style economy.

Goldberg wrote in a blog on Wednesday that he asked Castro, 84, if Cuba's model was still worth exporting to other countries.

“The Cuban model doesn't even work for us anymore,” Castro told him. Castro confirmed that he said those words “without bitterness or concern.” But, he said, “The reality is that my response means exactly the opposite.”

“My idea, as the whole world knows, is that the capitalist system now doesn't work either for the United States or the world, driving it from crisis to crisis, which are each time more serious.”

Castro's words to Goldberg had been interpreted by some as a rejection of communism, by others as an indication that he supports economic reforms being implemented by his younger brother, President Raúl Castro.

President Castro, who took office in early 2008, has introduced modest changes aimed at increasing productivity while preserving the communist system installed by Fidel Castro after he took power in a 1959 revolution.

Goldberg, who interviewed Castro two weeks ago in Havana, wrote in a Tuesday blog that Castro had criticized Iran for anti-Semitism and renounced his own actions during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis when he urged the Soviet Union to launch nuclear weapons on the United States.

“After I've seen what I've seen, and knowing what I know now, it wasn't worth it at all,” Castro told Goldberg of his recommendation to the Soviets.

Castro said Goldberg did not understand the irony in his comments and that had the US threatened to invade Cuba, he would have recommended a nuclear strike to prevent it.

The irony referred to what he described as a betrayal by Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, who he said gave military secrets to the United States while “saturated by intoxicating substances.”

Castro summoned Goldberg to Havana to discuss his recent article about the danger of conflict between Israel and Iran, with possible US involvement, over Iran's growing nuclear capabilities.

Since emerging in July from four years of seclusion following intestinal surgery, Castro has repeatedly warned that nuclear war could break out if the United States and Israel try to enforce international sanctions against Iran for its nuclear activities.

Despite his clarifications, Castro said he still thinks Goldberg is a “great journalist.”
“He does not invent quotes. He transfers and interprets them,” he said.