(3 of 3)
Irritation grew as Castro's freewheeling ways came into the open. "What can you do with a man who disclaims responsibility and actually has all of it?" demanded a Cabinet member. "I can't even have a private interview with him. Pretty soon he's going to be really running this government or not running it at all. Privately, Prime Minister Jose Miro Cardona submitted his resignation, demanding that Castro join the Cabinet or stop dictating the show. Castro drove to Miro's home and patched things up. Castro's choice as successor "if I am killed": his brother Raul, 28, chill-eyed commander in Santiago, where 100 have been shot.
"Leader of America." At week's end, with an entourage of 35 bearded bodyguards, Castro flew off to Caracas for another spell of the mass worship he adores. Roaring over the city at 500 ft. in a Super Constellation, Castro broadcast his excited impressions over a hookup linking the plane's transmitter to Radio Continente in Caracas: "I am speechless from the panorama. As we fly over the mountains I get the impression that I am in the Sierra Maestra." Venezuelans, who loyally supported the Castro cause during the long fight against the tyrant Batista, yelled their cheers.
His eyes glazed and happy, Castro found 100,000 people waiting in the main plaza, received the title "Illustrious Son of Caracas." "If you call yourself the leader of America," said Wolfgang Larrazabal, who was Venezuela's President all last year, "I am ready to recognize you as such." Castro, whose ego is easily big enough to include the hemisphere, said that Cuba, unlike Venezuela, had won a "true revolution," disintegrating the army and punishing the guilty. He seemed ready to play spiritual leader to similar upheavals all over Latin America.
He pulled out all the old crowd-pleasers that were growing a bit jaded back home. He called the world press coverage of the executions "the most criminal, vile and cowardly campaign ever conducted against any people." At the Havana Hilton, Floor 23 emptied, the elevators and switchboards began running smoothly again. For a few hours there was peace in Cuba.