June 2, 2009--Castro At Columbia

On New Years Day 1959, Fulgencio Batista left Cuba for the last time and Fidel Castro assumed full power. Though he had a lifelong interest in socialism and communism, the decidedly bourgeois Fidel was also attracted to capitalism and so, when he came to the United States that April, about four months later, on the 22nd to be precise, he was eager to visit with President Eisenhower to see if they could make a deal—to in effect become allies. Specifically, Castro wanted to work out an agreement whereby the US would continue to supply Cuba with the oil it required; and Cuba, in turn, even under the revolutionary Castro, would continue to be an ally, in effect to remain an economic vassal of the United States.

As a first stop on his way to Washington, Castro stopped off in New York and agreed to have a meeting with American journalists at the Columbia University School of Journalism.

To those of us of a progressive persuasion who were undergraduates, he was a hero. Not yet the icon he subsequently became, but a romantic revolutionary figure with whom we could politically and, more revealingly, emotionally identify.

Most of us were still pimply working class Jews from Brooklyn. The children of immigrants who were busy clawing our way toward assimilation and full middle class status either as protégées of Columbia’s ultimately assimilated literary Jew, Lionel Trilling, or more commonly as grubby pre meds whose dream in life it was to somehow manage to get admitted to NYU’s Medical School. At the time, Columbia’s own College of Physicians and Surgeons was “restricted”—officially they had a quota on the number of Columbia College pre med graduates they would admit, which was in truth more a way to keep as many Jews out as they could get away with.

And since most of us were destined to go to Downstate Medical School in, yes, Brooklyn, you can only imagine how eager we pre meds were to cut zoology lab (where we were in the midst of dissecting dogfish shark’s cranial nerves—amazingly like our own) and stand outside on that chilly April afternoon and wait for Castro and his entourage to arrive on campus.

We knew from where the police had deployed their barricades that it would be on that closed off portion of West 116th Street (the site of subsequent student demonstrations in 1968) between the imposing granite library temples—Butler and Low—that he would be deposited and then walk the few hundred remaining yards to Journalism Hall for the press conference.

We students were not alone. Joining us—or rather us joining them—was a group of local Cuban-American women. Though Columbia had a tense relationship with the surrounding Harlem community and it was rare for any of these ladies to even consider walking across our campus on their way to the Broadway subway, on that day it was more their campus than ours. And so we stood together, stamping our feet to keep warm, and with them, for the hours we waited (Fidel was even then known to be notoriously late), stoop-shouldered premeds and tiny Latinas, and sang, over and over and over again—

Welcome Fidel Castro, welcome to New York
Welcome Fidel Castro, welcome to New York
Welcome Fidel Castro . . .

By the time two hours of this cross-cultural camaraderie had passed we from Brooklyn had acquired their Cuban accent and so we sang—

Wel-cum Fidel Castro, wel-cum to New Jork
Wel-cum Fidel Castro, wel-cum to New Jork
Wel-cum . . .

You had to be there.

And then his motorcade pulled up, preceded by a phalanx of New York City police on motorcycles with lights and sirens blaring. First out of the lead limo was a slight but lithe kaki-clad man wearing a vaguely familiar looking beret. One of the woman whispered, “Ché, it’s Ché!”

Though he would become much more familiar to us years later when his image would be ubiquitously emblazoned over posters and ultimately tee shirts, Sam C____, the only true revolutionary among us--his father was a lifelong subscriber to the Daily Worker, had been at the notorious Paul Robeson concert in Peekskill, and had marched in support of the Rosenbergs--Sam, whispered, “It’s Ché Guevara. The mind of the Revolución.” He pronounced it the Spanish way. Sam was that brilliant. A Comp Lit major and a favorite of Trilling’s

Then just as the late afternoon sun broke through, from the car emerged the spectacular, backlit Fidel.

The women squealed in ecstatic delight and the pre meds danced and chanted—

Wel-cum Fidel Castro, welcome to New Jork . . .

Fidel, man of the people noticed us and came over to where we were squeezed behind the barriers. He bent over, reaching across the stanchions, to embrace his little ladies; and then strode over to us—in his combat boots he was a spectacular strider—and in perfect English, said, “It’s good to be back at Columbia. You know I was once a student here.”

I had no idea that he had been and asked, “We’re you also a pre med? I know that they call you Dr. Castro.”

“No,” he laughed, slapping me on my back—we were about the same height—six-four, “I’m a lawyer. In my country, lawyers also are called ‘doctor.’”

And with that his security people whisked him off to School of Journalism.

* * *

Years late I learned that he never got to see Eisenhower—Columbia’s former president and then America’s was busy playing golf on April 23rd and had Castro meet in his place with his vice president, Richard Nixon. And, as they say, the rest is history.