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Friday, September 18, 2015

CASTRO IN NEW YORK CITY

JFK+50:  Volume 5, No. 1717

FIDEL CASTRO ARRIVED IN NEW YORK CITY 55 YEARS AGO TODAY

New York City (JFK+50) Fifty-five years ago today, September 18, 1960, Cuban premier Fidel Castro* arrived here in New York City.

The Premier and his party motored to the Shelburne Hotel in midtown NY but stormed out when they learned that the management wanted a $10,000 cash advance to cover potential damages resulting from the group's stay.

Castro ended up at the Theresa Hotel in Harlem where he would meet with Malcolm X and Langston Hughes.  The next morning, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev arrived to meet the Cuban leader for the first time.

On September 26, Fidel Castro headed the Cuban delegation at the United Nations and gave a four hour speech to the General Assembly in which he criticized the imperialistic policies of the United States in Latin America, Asia and Africa.

SOURCES

"Fidel Castro's Wild New York Visit 55 years ago," by Evan Andrews, September 18, 2015, www.history.com/

"Fidel Castro," www.biography.com/


*Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz was born in Biran, Cuba.  His father had fought in the Cuban War for Independence on the side of Spain and in the Spanish-American War.  Castro, who was raised in wealth, studied law at the University of Havana.

In the late 1940s, Castro moved politically to the left as he supported the views of Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin.  FACR, who led in the overthrow of Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista, served as prime minister (1959-1976), president (1976-2008), and 1st secretary of the Communist Party (1961-2011).


Fidel Castro
Photo by Ricardo Stuckert (2003)
Agencia Brasil Image