5/1/06

Fidel Castro became the central figure in the Cuban Revolution only because of an overly favorable news article, according to Anthony DePalma, a New York Times correspondent and author of “The Man Who Invented Fidel.”

DePalma, who spoke at De Anza College on April 25, said that Herbert Matthews of the New York Times was “overwhelmed by the image [and] by the romantic thought of this rebel” when he interviewed Castro in 1957.

During the interview, Castro marched his soldiers in a circle around Matthews and fooled him into believing that Castro had hundreds under his command, said DePalma, when in reality Castro had only dozens of troops with him.

The resulting articles, which revealed to the world that Castro was alive, made Castro the “central and most important person” of the Cuban Revolution, said DePalma.

Three months before the revolution, the New York Times published an article saying Castro had died after his yacht was attacked by the Cuban government.

After Castro overthrew the Cuban government and refused to reinstate democracy, Matthews became a scapegoat for anti-Castro sentiments and the neutrality of his article was disputed, said DePalma.

Though many believed that Matthews lied to the American public in order to help Castro, DePalma said there was “no indication that [Matthews] deliberately misled because he was a communist sympathizer.”

Instead, Matthews had what DePalma called a “weakness for strong characters,” and was not “sufficiently skeptical” with Castro’s claims.

Consequently, the New York Times thought that Matthews was too close to Castro and did not run some of his later pieces.

More recently, journalists have been criticized for taking too many of the Bush administrations claims about Iraq and weapons of mass destruction at face value.