Burns gives a very appealing spin on Fidel Castro. I believe that his ideologies may have biased him a little on his description of Castro and how he handled himself. There seems to be almost no negative comment whatsoever about Castro whereas if someone else with a different ideological stance had written it, they might have portrayed a different image of Castro. Despite the somewhat biased description, I would have to agree that Castro has had a very positive influence on Cuba. I never knew that Castro was responsible for so many of the good things that have happened in Cuba. However I don’t understand how if he made things so wonderful, why people are always trying to leave Cuba and go to other places. I believe that the communist revolution in Cuba was the right idea for the times but that new reforms should be made in the government. I didn’t know that the U.S. was so closed to negotiations with Cuba either before there was even communist threat. The U.S. closed mindedness ended up backfiring and they lost economic trade with Cuba and what could be a good relationship to have since Cuba is so close to the U.S. I would like to learn more about Fidel Castro and how people thought of him in the beginning of the revolution as compared to now and why, if they have, have their ideas about him changed in any way. If he did so much for the country and it has improved so much I would like to understand why Cubans try to escape the grasps of Castro.

In Guillermoprieto’s Looking For History, she aptly describes Cuba’s inhabitants and the leaders that influenced them. She began with the story of Ernesto “Che” Guevara, an Argentine guerilla. He and his followers chanted “The first duty of a revolutionary is to make a revolution” (73). His influence was phenomenal and had a huge impact on the second half of the twentieth century throughout Latin America. Guevara was a different breed of man. Although his family had money, he chose not to bathe and was proud of it. He also was a very sickly child and often had to use an inhaler but once he was older he would not let something as trivial as that get in his way of achieving his goal. He had become the epitome of the macho man and exuded charisma and arrogance all while smelling badly. Guevara became a wanderer and decided to write almost religiously it would seem in his diary in order to capture everything that was going on. He would later publish whatever was in his diary and several books came about that way. From these diaries, we are able to learn about Guevara’s ideas and motives for his thinking. “Guevara never considered any alternatives to violence and radicalism, and perhaps it is true that in the Latin America of those years it required more self delusion to be a moderate reformer than to be a utopian revolutionary” (77). Guevara traveled to Guatemala where he admired the leader Arbenz and what he was doing for the country. He was extremely upset the U.S. coup and decided that “in politics only those willing to shed blood make a difference” (77). He next traveled to Mexico where he encountered Fidel Castro, who was trying to rise up against Batista. They instantly clicked and began planning together as comrades. “Guevara’s relationship to love, whether it involved his parents, his comrades, or his women, was uneasy, but his love of Fidel was wholehearted and transforming, because it opened the path to the life he was seeking” (78). He had a very high regard for Fidel and it seemed to be mutual. It was during this time that Guevara adopted the nickname of “Che” that his comrades had given him. What he learned from Castro and from the coup of Batista stuck with him in his mind and determined his new strategy for which he would follow henceforth. “A central flaw in his thinking for the rest of his life was to assume that what he learned about guerilla warfare in the process of overthrowing Batista amounted to a prescription—a necessary remedy for every form of social disease” (78-79). Guevara and his comrades went on one suicide mission after another until Castro had sent him into the Congo instead of letting him return to Argentina. Guevara was finally cornered in Bolivia after having suffered from sickness and starvation and was killed. “Guevara was born in Latin America’s hour of the hero. [He] stood out against the enflamed horizon of his time, alone and unique. But the living Che was not the perfect hero for his time and place” (85-86).

Guillermoprieto also describes the historic visit of Pope John Paul II to Havana. This was an extremely momentous occasion because allowing the pope to come to Cuba was a big step made by Castro. Unlike the majority of Latin America, Cuba was not a mainly Catholic country. Castro, in fact, was a self proclaimed atheist and governed the country that way and as a result much of the Cuban population would appear to be also. “Until 1991, Catholics were openly mocked, kept out of the ruling party, and denied the smallest privileges the regime had within its power to offer, Fidel stayed true to his initial insight that the most powerful weapon against the thirty-year embargo against his country—or “blockade,” as it is invariably referred to in Cuba—would be a visit by the pope” (91). Castro wanted to use the visit of the pope in order to show other countries that agreements could be made and things could change but on his terms. However, the pope made no concessions whatsoever to Castro. “In order to visit Cuba, John Paul has not softened his stand on any issue…No one within the Vatican or among the faithful will condemn him for traveling to a communist state—look at what a similar trip produced in Poland!” (92) In fact, Castro was the only one who had to give in to the needs of the pope. “[The] Cuban Communist Party modified its statutes in 1991 to admit confessed Catholics. And the pope’s masses are being broadcast live. Fidel has everything to lose: his own faithful, who learned their atheism at his knee, may well feel betrayed and disaffected” (93). Although there was a large attendance at the mass, it appeared that many of the Cuban citizens went about their daily life as if nothing extraordinary was taking place. They walked around the streets, went out to eat, or they just stayed at home. The pope’s visit was definitely one of controversy among the people. A heated issue is brought up but not by the pope but rather the bishop of Santiago, Pedro Meurice. “…a growing number of Cubans who have confused the fatherland with a single party, the nation with the historical process we have lived through during the last few decades, and culture with an ideology” (98-99). These words caused Fidelistas to walk out during the speech, Catholics to cheer, and in the streets away from Santiago there was silence. Guillermoprieto continues to cover the story of the pope as she wanders around talking to people seeing how all of this has affected their lives. She engages in intimate conversation with many of the people she encounters. “I come to feel that the demise of the Soviet Union must have been an event as inconceivable and shattering as the arrival of the Spaniards on Mexico’s shores was for the Aztecs. And I can see why one would want to avoid thinking about the future, because, no matter what happens, the future looks terrible for people like my friends—men and women between the ages of forty and sixty who were brought up by the revolution and given a new life through it” (100).

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