Washington Union Station
PRR
Got one thing in common with Castro: beheld the grandeur of Penn Station!
New Haven
Excerpt from article by Gabe Pressman
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/fidel-castros-romance-new-york-gabe-pressman
Castro was leaving New York for Boston on a Saturday morning in late September. He was going to address a class at Harvard.
Interesting. I remember Gabe Pressman when he was a reporter for NBC News in New York back in the 60’s and 70’s.
As an aside, I worked in a place in New Jersey back in the 80’s that had a large clientele of Cuban exiles. “Wow,” they used to say concerning Castro, “And we thought Battista was bad!”
Thanks Wanswheel!
Firelock, thanks for remembering Gabe, WWII Navy vet, still alive, 92.
In 1963 in third grade we had a Halloween party. One girl dressed as Fidel complete with cigar. I always kinda liked that old troublemaker, bad as he was.
Still alive at 92? God bless 'im! A fine journalist and gentleman of the old school, sadly disappearing from today’s media. There are exceptions, but very few.
In a way, I think we’ve all got a sneaking admiration, whether we admit it or not, for the guy who thumbs his nose at the system and gets away with it. And when he becomes the system, well!
Not that he deserves the admiration, but as Mr. Spock used to say, “It is not logical, but it is often so.”
Wayne(Firelock76): Count Me as Not a Fan of Fidel and Co. In 1962 He cost me a trip to Parachute School at F.t Bragg…an ordeal, and flight to Rosey Roads, and back to New River…
Training Exercise, the ‘Brass’ said… A real pain in the ‘Tuchas’ We said…
Went to school in Fall of '63…At some point we had a ‘speaker’ who was a member of “The Brigade” that the CIA had trained…Also had a 1st Class Radarman who was in College with me, as well…He had ‘midwatch’ on the night in question,… one of his remarks was that there were so many ships (and aircraft) on his screen, “…one might have been able to walk to ‘Cuber’ from Florida…” I became No Fan of those cane cutters, and the Castro Bros. But DO Like Cuban Cigars, on occasion. [War Story for this Weekend] [sigh]
Don’t misunderstand Sam, or anyone else for that matter, I’m NOT an admirer of Castro, not by any means. I was just responding to 54Light’s post with a bit of understanding.
Look at Cuba, and you’ll see Fidel did a hell of a lot more harm than good. As those Cuban friends of mine said, they didn’t think anyone could have been worse than Battista and his thugs, but they had NO idea.
I can’t help but think Castro wanted the power so he could jump on the American gravy train, but when that didn’t pan out, well, there was always the Russians. Needless to say that didn’t work too well for him in the long run.
Castro is not just a murderous villain, he’s an Ivy League murderous villain.
CASTRO VISITS PRINCETON
Has Busy 15 Hours Here
Fidel Castro, former revolutionary leader and now Prime Minister of Cuba, breezed through Princeton Monday and Tuesday, making two speeches and causing consternation to Secret Service men and State Police. The still-bearded and tieless Castro was the guest of Dr. Roland T. Ely, Constitution Hill, who was largely responsible for his presence here.
Senor Castro’s speeches before the American Civilization Program conference at the University and before the students at Lawrenceville School went off as scheduled, but he added a brief, unplanned appearance. Following the Monday night ACP conference in the Woodrow Wilson School’s conference room, Senor Castro spoke to the crowd of students and supporters gathered outside.
It wasn’t planned that way, though. The Cuban leader and his party of 30 were herded out the back entrance of the conference room, and the entourage originally turned left on Washington Road from Prospect Street to avoid the crowd in front. But Senor Castro ordered the cars turned around, went back to the clamoring group and flaunted the careful security measures by alighting and speaking.
Wanswheel: [Now I’m going slightly off the reservation…) [:-^]
Sounds as if on his visit to Princeton and New Jersey Castro was reasonably tame(?) in 1959.
But when he came back to the Big City in 1960 Castro and ‘his crew’ were apparently, anything but…and not to mention, raucaus, as well:
From the NY Daily News Archives: (a headline and article):
“CUBAN BOSS ROCKED CITY ON 1ST VISIT BACK IN '60”
linked: @ http://www.nydailynews.com/archives/news/cuban-boss-rocked-city-1st-visit-back-60-article-1.890903
**FTA:"…**In his most memorable trip to New York, a young, macho Fidel Castro cut a boisterous, chicken-plucking swath through the city. It was September 1960, and the Cuban strongman was here for another historic gathering of leaders at the United Nations. Historians say no one, not even Castro in later years, ever topped his 11-day performance. The New York trip had come two years after Castro’s guerrillas had taken control of the island nation and the 34-year-old leader’s revolutionary rhetoric was unwelcome to American leaders. Since he was addressing the UN, there was little the outgoing Eisenhower administration could do - other than restrict his travel to Manhattan. First Castro had to find a hotel. The government prevailed on the sedate Shelburne Hotel at Lexington Ave. and E. 37th St. to accommodate Fidel and his 90-member entourage. “Yankee-hating Cuban Premier Fidel Castro was bedded down last night snug as a bug in a beard in the Hotel Shelburne,” the Daily News wrote. But after 24 hours, the enraged Castro stalked out, complaining about surveillance and m
Yes, he was tamed by Ed Sullivan, advised to behave like George Washington.
Well if those earlier pictures are any indication, he may have had an impeccibly starched cover, but didn’t know how to blouse his damn trousers!
Apparantly never broke starch on his damn utilities either! (That’s fatigues for you Army and Air Force guys!)
Castro at Princeton? Well, there’s the real world and then there’s the Ivy League.
There is an interesting perspective on Castro and the US in 1959-60 in David Talbot’s biography of the Dulles brothers.
Excerpt from The Brothers by Stephen Kinzer (2013)
Cuba holds a unique place in the American imagination. It lies so close to the United States and offers such rich resources and strategic advantage that it long seemed a natural candidate for annexation to the United States. Presidents since Thomas Jefferson have coveted it.
“I candidly confess that I have ever looked on Cuba as the most interesting addition which could ever be made to our system of States,” Jefferson wrote. “The control which, with Florida, this island would give us over the Gulf of Mexico, and the countries and isthmus bordering on it, as well as all those whose waters flow into it, would fill up the measure of our political well-being.”
In 1898 President William McKinley sent American troops to Cuba to help rebels overthrow Spanish rule. They succeeded. Immediately afterward, the United States Congress voted to renege on its pledge, enshrined in law as the Teller Amendment, to withdraw the troops after victory and respect Cuban independence. McKinley named an American military governor. Later the United States granted Cuba limited self-rule but landed troops whenever American interests seemed threatened. That happened in 1906, 1912, and 1917—when Secretary of State Robert Lansing d
Wasn’t there a Hitchcock movie partly based on Castro’s New York visit and his stay in Harlem? Can’t recall the title.
Oh yeah. I remember that the guy who played the dean in Animal House was in it.
Would you believe Dean Wormer in camo with a beard?
Of course, since this is a railroad forum, I have to show Mr. Vernon as Wormer in my favorite scene.
Wrong book.
DME- Thanks for that. A waste of a nice 1964 Lincoln Continental, but what are ya gonna do? He was in my favourite Mission Impossible episode where he has a beard and is playing some kind of Che Guevara guy and has the gold in a prison cell and the MI crew drills up from underneath and heats up the room, melts the gold and you know what happens after that.
