BIOGRAPHY AND PERSONALITY OF A FAMOUS LEO: FIDEL CASTRO

Revolutionary icon Fidel Castro permanently gave up the Cuban presidency on Tuesday (Feb. 19, 2008), ending five decades of ironclad rule of the island marked by his brash defiance of the United States.

In a message published by the online version of the Cuban Communist Party newspaper Granma, the 81-year-old Castro said he would not seek the presidency again when the new parliament meets Feb. 24.

"I neither will aspire to nor will I accept -- I repeat -- I neither will aspire to nor will I accept, the position of president of the Council of State and commander-in-chief," Castro wrote.

"It would betray my conscience to take up a responsibility that requires mobility and total commitment that I am not in physical condition to offer," he said.

Castro did not say who he thought should be his successor as president, though most analysts believe his brother Raul, 76, is the obvious choice.

Castro handed over power to his brother in July 2006 when he announced that he underwent intestinal surgery. Since then, he's been seen only in photos and videotape.

Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz was born on August 13, 1926 (although some say he was born a year later), near Birán in Cuba's eastern Oriente province.  His father, Angel, was a wealthy landowner originally from Spain.  His mother, Lina, had been a maid to Angel’s first wife.

One of five children, Castro was educated in Jesuit schools.  He grew up in wealthy circumstances amid poverty.  A peasant rebellion in Oriente during Castro’s formative years is thought to have influenced his political leanings. 
Castro offered free legal services to the poor after earning a law degree from the University of Havana.

In 1952, at the age of 25, Castro ran for the Cuban parliament. But just before the election, the government was overthrown by Fulgencio Batista, who established a dictatorship.

Castro was one of about 150 fighters who attempted to overthrow Batista in 1953.  An attack on a military barracks landed Castro in prison, but made him famous throughout Cuba.

Castro was released in 1955 under an amnesty. He went to Mexico and spent time in the United States, working with his brother Raul and Argentine revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevara to prepare for second attempt to overthrow Batista.

Castro returned to Cuba on Dec. 2, 1956, by boat with a band of 81 insurgents. Most of were killed.  The survivors, including the Castros and Guevara, fled into the Sierra Maestra Mountains along the southeastern coast.  There, they mounted a full-scale attack in 1958, forcing Batista to flee the country in January 1959.  Castro became prime minister.

The U.S. quickly recognized the new Cuban government, but tensions arose when Castro, as prime minister, set about far-reaching reforms.  He nationalized factories and plantations, ending U.S. economic dominance of the island.  He also began to establish closer ties with the Soviet Union.

On January 3, 1961, Washington broke off diplomatic ties with Cuba.  On April 16, 1961, he formally declared Cuba a socialist state.  On the following day, a group of Cuban exiles, trained by the Central Intelligence Agency and armed with U.S. weapons, invaded at the Bay of Pigs. 

The attempt to overthrow Castro ended in disaster.  But the U.S. imposed a full economic embargo in February 1962.  The policy continues to this day.

Cuba’s increasing reliance on Soviet aid brought the world to the brink of nuclear war in October 1962.  When Soviet Union installed nuclear weapons on the island, President John F. Kennedy demanded their removal and quarantined the island, located just 90 miles off U.S. shores.  The Soviets backed down and removed the weapons.

Castro was also the target of CIA assassination attempts (638 in all, according to Cuban intelligence) over the years.  He took great delight in the fact that none of them ever succeeded.

In December 1976, Castro became president after the office of prime minister was abolished.

Castro has been credited with opening 10,000 new schools, erasing illiteracy and building a universal health care system.

But former liberties were whittled away as labor unions lost the right to strike, independent newspapers were shut down and religious institutions harassed.  Hundreds of thousands of Cubans have fled Castro's rule, many settling just across the Florida Straits in Miami.

Castro has used migration as a safety valve to resolve social pressures.  In 1980, he let 125,000 people flee to Florida by boat through the Mariel port, west of Havana.  And after the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union sent Cuba’s economy into a tailspin, he opened Cuba's borders again, and an estimated 30,000 people took to the sea.  Castro was also forced to open up to foreign capitalists and allow limited private enterprise. 

Tensions with the U.S. continued well into the 1990s.  In February 1996, Cuban MIG fighters shot down two small U.S. planes in the Florida Straits belonging to the Cuban exile group Brothers to the Rescue.  Four crew members were killed.

Then in 1999, Castro launched an anti-U.S. campaign for the return of Elian Gonzalez, a six-year-old Cuban boy rescued at sea after surviving a shipwreck that killed his mother.  Gonzalez returned to Cuba in 2000 after his father flew to the U.S. to claim his son.

During Castro's nearly 50-year hold on power, his government was also often at odds with the Roman Catholic Church. But in January 1998, Castro welcomed Pope John Paul in the first pontiff to Cuba. 

Beginning the late 1990s, the state of Castro's health became a subject of much discussion. While numerous health problems had been reported over the years, the most significant news came on the night of July 31, 2006.

A letter from Castro was read on Cuban television announcing that Raul Castro, Fidel's brother, would be the country’s leader temporarily. Fidel had surgery for gastrointestinal bleeding.
During the recovery period, Raul served as Cuba’s president. Raul had been Fidel’s second in command for many years and had officially been selected as Fidel’s successor in 1997. Since his surgery, the public has only seen Fidel him in photographs or video footage meeting allies.

Castro is believed to have eight children with four women.  He married Mirta Diaz-Balart in 1948, but they were divorced six years later.  Their son, Fidel Castro Diaz-Balart (born in 1949) once served as head of Cuba's atomic energy commission.

Castro also had a son, Jorge, with Maria Laborde in 1955 and a daughter, Alina, by socialite Natalia Revuelta in 1956.

Castro met longtime companion, Dalia Soto del Valle, in 1961 during his literacy campaigns.  She was a secretary in the Sugar Workers’ Union.  They have five sons: Alexis, Alexander, Alejandro, Antonio and Angel.