Both before and after Fidel Castro came to power in January 1959, the major media in America promoted the bearded one as a champion of the Cuban people, a genuine freedom fighter, and a modern-day Robin Hood. The same media also claimed that Castro was not only not a Communist but was decidedly anti-Communist. It was not until Castro himself announced that he was a Communist that the American media was willing to acknowledge the truth.

The New York Times set the tone for the pro-Castro propaganda by publishing a series of three articles by Times correspondent Herbert L. Matthews based on Matthews’ clandestine visit with Castro on February 17, 1957. At the time, Castro and a handful of fellow revolutionaries were holed up in the Sierra Maestra and did not pose much of a threat to the Batista government. But the Times series, which was launched on the front page of the paper’s Sunday edition to give it maximum exposure, catapulted Castro’s stature and (consequently) his prospects. Matthews boasted later that the Times is “the most powerful journalistic instrument that has ever been forged in the free world” and that those who work for it “use arms that, metaphorically speaking, are the equivalent of nuclear bombs.”

On the other hand, John Birch Society founder Robert Welch warned that Castro was a Communist as early as September 1958, four months before Castro came to power and 39 months before Castro admitted he was a Communist. Welch did so in a small publication called American Opinion, a predecessor to THE NEW AMERICAN. But Welch’s warnings about Castro and his background were derided, when they were mentioned at all, as wild statements. Yet time has shown, in this instance as well as in others, that it was the major media and not the JBS founder who had made the wild statements.
— Editor

“[Castro] has strong ideas of liberty, democracy, social justice, the need to restore the Constitution, to hold elections.”
— Herbert L. Matthews
New York Times, Feb. 24, 1957

“Señor Castro’s men, the student leaders who are on the run from the police, the people who are bombing and sabotaging every day, are fighting blindly, rashly, perhaps foolishly. But they are giving their lives for an ideal and for their hopes of a clean, democratic Cuba....

“Communism has little to do with the opposition to the [Batista] regime.... [T]here is no communism to speak of in Fidel Castro’s 26th of July Movement....”
— Herbert L. Matthews
New York Times, Feb. 25, 1957

“Now the evidence from Castro’s whole past, that he is a Communist agent carrying out Communist orders and plans, is overwhelming. The evidence from his method of operation is even more so. He is using against Batista almost exactly the same tactics, at any cost in human misery, employed by [Chinese Communist] Mao Tze-tung against Chiang Kai-shek in 1945 and 46. Of course, for the record, Castro says he is not a Communist, and reminds you that writers in the New York Times say he is not a Communist. This is standard procedure at this chapter of Dictator’s Progress. We remember how emphatically Mao Tze-tung and his good friends among the New York Times writers insisted that Mao was not a Communist either.”
— Robert Welch
American Opinion, Sept. 1958

“… if you have any slightest doubt that Castro is a Communist, don’t. If he is successful, time will clearly reveal that he is an agent of the Kremlin.”
— Robert Welch, Dec. 8, 1958

Welch made this prediction at the founding meeting of the John Birch Society. His presentation was later published as The Blue Book of The John Birch Society. — Ed.

“The criminal irresponsibility of so much of the American press has never been shown more clearly than on this very day. Fidel Castro, as murderous and cunning an agent of the Kremlin as Mao Tze-tung or [Hungarian dictator] Janos Kadar, is right now taking over Cuba. He has the blessing of our government. Our newspapers are full of headlines and news stories glorifying the event, with hardly a line to tell us of Castro’s Communist connections and support. Moscow is establishing a terrifically important Communist beachhead right at our shores, without the American people having any chance to learn this truth from their papers, radio, TV, or magazines of large circulation.”
— Robert Welch
“Dear Reader” letter, Jan. 1, 1959

This letter, written the day Batista fled Cuba, appeared in the January 1959 issue of American Opinion. — Ed.

“To begin with, there is nothing to indicate that Castro wants to be a dictator....

“It is said Castro plans to borrow heavily from the New Deal and Fair Deal programs of Presidents Roosevelt and Truman. His ultimate aim: To raise living standards and build up a broader middle class on the island.”
— Newsweek, Jan. 19, 1959

“We can thank our lucky stars that Castro was no Communist; the situation was made to order for them.”
— William Attwood
Look, March 3, 1959

“The Cuba of Fidel Castro today is free from terror. Civil liberties have been restored, and corruption seems to be drying up. These are large steps forward, and they were made against fearful odds.”
— Dickey Chapelle
Reader’s Digest, April 1959

“Castro is a Communist. To reach any other conclusion would require us to disregard the evidence, the tell-tale pattern which means more than the specific evidence, and all the laws of probability.”
— Robert Welch
American Opinion, April 1959

“… Castro’s vision has a capitalist base. He wants a country in which every farmer owns his own land. Nothing has so caught the imagination of Cuba as Castro’s land-reform program; organizations are raising money to buy tractors to give to the campesinos (countryfolk) to use when they have their own land. Here again, Castro is playing Robin Hood; he promises to take from the rich and give to the poor....

“Castro means well. Even those most dubious about the future of Cuba agree on that. Castro is honest, and an honest government is something unique in Cuba....”
— Newsweek, April 13, 1959

“This is not a Communist revolution in any sense of the word and there are no Communists in positions of control....

“The point of view among the most experienced and knowledgeable Cubans is as follows:

“There are no Reds in the Cabinet and none in high positions in the Government or army in the sense of being able to control either governmental or defense policies. The only power worth considering in Cuba is in the hands of Premier Castro, who is not only not Communist but decidedly anti-Communist....

“Dr. Castro is so sure of himself, so full of ideas, so fabulously energetic and so popular that to get in his way is like bucking a steam-roller....

“Premier Castro is avoiding elections in Cuba for two reasons. He feels that his social revolution now has dynamism and vast popular consent, and he does not want to interrupt the process. Moreover, most observers would agree that Cubans today do not want elections. The reason is that elections in the past have merely meant to them the coming of corrupt politicians seeking the spoils of power.”
— Herbert L. Matthews
New York Times, July 16, 1959

“… in Cuba, I think that Fidel Castro is a good young man, who has made mistakes but who seems to want to do the right thing for the Cuban people, and we ought to extend our sympathy and help him to do what is right for them.”
— Former President Harry Truman
Washington Post, July 31, 1959

“Does anybody really want it straight, today? The news and the editorializing, even in the anti-Communist press … make us wonder....

“[I]t is time for plain language in describing the dangers of our situation. Castro is a Communist. Period. He is not just pulled and tugged by Communist influences and steered by Communist advisers. Fidel Castro himself has been a conscious and dedicated agent of the Kremlin ever since his student days. His whole ‘revolution’ followed the Communist pattern, used Communist techniques, and was supported and managed by Moscow.”
— Robert Welch
American Opinion, December 1959

“I am a Marxist-Leninist and will be until the day I die.”
— Fidel Castro
Speech, December 2, 1961

In this five-hour-long televised address, Castro also announced that he had hidden his belief in Communism “because otherwise we might have alienated the bourgeoisie and other forces which we knew we would eventually have to fight.”   — Ed.

“It would have taken a genius of prophecy to know that Castro was a Communist when he took control of Cuba.”
— Former President Dwight Eisenhower
Press Conference, April 26, 1963

Eisenhower’s revealing comment was quoted by the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner the following day. Of course, Robert Welch did not need any clairvoyance in identifying Castro as a Communist. All that was necessary was a willingness to examine the evidence and to tell the truth. — Ed.

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