U.S.-Cuba history: Fidel at Harvard

It was April 1959. Fresh off a revolution, Fidel Castro showed up in America on an unofficial goodwill tour. Not wanting to give Castro an audience, President Eisenhower spent the week at Augusta National Golf Club in Georgia. Hesitantly, Vice President Nixon met with the young revolutionary. The meeting left them resenting each other.

Castro didn't seem to mind the snubs from D.C. Wherever he went, the new leader of Cuba was met with throngs of press and admirers. Nowhere was this more clear than in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

On the last day of the tour, after visiting Princeton and Yale, Castro stopped at Harvard. The Crimson keeps the text from the original news announcement online, which highlights the risk of an assassination attempt on the Cuban leader.

Despite the risk, Castro spoke to thousands of students in front of the Dillon Field House. There would be no assassination attempt, and Fidel was left to deliver a speech in his typical style: long, exuberant, and critical of the U.S. For the most part, Harvard students loved it.

But that was a different time. Fidel had not yet embraced communism. In fact earlier in his tour, Castro told the National Press Club in D.C., "We are against all kinds of dictators...that is why we are against Communism."

He was also still promising free and fair elections in Cuba. During the speech, a Harvard Law student asked Castro a question: "The postponing of elections in Cuba has been explained by the need for special powers to fulfill your revolutionary reforms. Don't you feel you would have even greater powers if the people were allowed to speak through the polls?"

Castro responded that Cuba simply needed some time to get settled. Democratic elections were coming.

And yet, they never did.

One interesting anecdote from the speech: at one point Castro revealed to the crowd that he had applied to Harvard years before — and was rejected.

I imagine that as he looked out over the mass of students, clinging to every word of his speech, the sting of rejection was no more.