Summary
Dressed not in his green fatigues but in a white Adidas track suit with red and blue stripes, Fidel Castro posed for photographs - apparently over the weekend, though it's hard to be sure - holding up a copy of the official newspaper Granma to prove he had survived to his 80th birthday. "Absolved by History," said the front-page headline, and it was hard to read the phrase as anything but the perfect, almost inevitable, exit line.
Castro's first attempt at revolution was a raid on Santiago's Moncada barracks July 26, 1953. Bad planning and amateurish execution led to failure, and Castro was captured and put on trial. Before going to prison, he gave a famous courtroom speech in which he made what seemed a hopelessly quixotic prediction: "History will absolve me."See the full content of this document
Extract
Castro Claims His Own Absolution
So now, half a century later, an old man claims his absolution. The invocation of that historical touchstone would be enough by itself to suggest that Castro believes his era is at an end...
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