World

'I Couldn't Run Away'

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

September 7, 2000 / 5:22 PM EDT / CBS

Cuban President Fidel Castro abandoned the dry formality of the United Nations Millennium Summit Saturday for New York City's Riverside Church. There, as CBS News Correspondent Jacqueline Adams reports, he wowed some 2,400 flag-waving supporters with a four-hour defense of his communist revolution.

And he offered a glimpse at "The Handshake" — his brief but much discussed encounter Wednesday with U.S. President Bill Clinton Wednesday at a summit luncheon.

To hear him say it, it was a matter of doing the dignified thing.

"I couldn't run away to prevent passing by that point," Castro said of how he found himself in a line of leaders being greeted by Clinton. "With all dignity and courtesy I greeted him. He did the same, and I moved ahead in line. It would have been extravagant and rude to do any other thing. The whole thing lasted less than 20 seconds."

A 40-Year Spat

The tense relationship between the U.S. and Cuba dates back virtually to the Jan. 1, 1959 Cuban revolution.

While the U.S. initially recognized the new government, according to the State Department, "bilateral relations deteriorated rapidly as the regime expropriated U.S. properties and moved towards adoption of a one-party Marxist-Leninist system."

The U.S. declared an embargo on Cuba in October 1960 that has existed ever since.

In April 1961, the U.S tried to overthrow Castro by backing the failed "Bay of Pigs" invasion.

In 1962, the U.S. almost went to nuclear war when it learned the Soviet Union had placed nuclear missiles in Cuba.

The two countries did set up "interests sections" in each other's capitals in 1977.

However, the 1980 Mariel boatlift and Cuba's 1996 downing of U.S.-registered civil aircraft—allegedly over international waters—continued to strain relations.

According to the State Department, "The fundamental goal of United States policy toward Cuba is to promote a peaceful transition to a stable, democratic form of government and respect for human rights."

(Source: State. Dept., Information Please)

The speech was something of a warm homecoming for Fidel. It was the first time Castro had publicly mentioned the event at the summit, a gathering of about 160 world leaders. The news was especially encouraging to Americans who support the normalization of reations between the two countries.

More than 2,000 people greeted him, at one point singing "Happy Birthday" to him in belated recognition of the passing of his 74th year in mid-August. Castro was clearly moved by the affection shown him by the Americans who surrounded him.

"It is only because of miracles that I have survived all these years," he told the crowd, alluding to the many assassination attempts against the communist leader during his 41 years in power.

"I came to Harlem because I knew it was here that I would find my best friends," he added.

This trip, though, polls have shown that a majority of Americans, and many in Congress, also oppose that embargo. Among those in the church were U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters of Los Angeles and U.S. Rep. Jose Serrano of New York, and the Rev. Dr. Lucius Walker Jr. of Pastors for Peace, all longtime opponents of the 38-year-old U.S. embargo against Cuba.

Waters called for an end to the embargo during her speech.

The Riverside Church is an institution in Harlem, where it played a major organizing role in the civil rights movement of the 1960s. It was from this pulpit that the late Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke out against the Vietnam War and was one of South African leader Nelson Mandela first stops in America after his release from prison a decade ago.

There, Castro met with black leader Malcolm X, and met separately with then-Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev. Gamal Abdel Nassar of the United Arab Republic also paid his respects to Castro at the hotel, which has since been torn down.

Castro returned to Harlem during his last visit to New York in 1995, when he addressed the U.N's General Assembly.