Just days after his comments on the failure of communism set off shockwaves around the world former Cuban dictator Fidel Castro sought to clarify his remarks by saying they meant exactly the opposite.

From the New York Times

Fidel Castro said Friday that his recent comment that Cuba’s economic model did not work was badly understood and that what he really meant was that capitalism did not work. Mr. Castro, speaking at the University of Havana, said his words had been misinterpreted by his interviewer, Jeffrey Goldberg of Atlantic magazine. Mr. Goldberg wrote in a blog on Wednesday that he had asked Mr. Castro, 84, if Cuba’s model was still worth exporting to other countries. “The Cuban model doesn’t even work for us anymore,” Mr. Castro told him. Mr. Castro confirmed that he said those words “without bitterness or concern.” But, he said, “the reality is that my response means exactly the opposite.” He continued, “My idea, as the whole world knows, is that the capitalist system now doesn’t work either for the United States or the world, driving it from crisis to crisis, which are each time more serious.”

My advice to Goldberg is that the next time he talks to a world leader that he makes sure he reads between the lines and brings his secret decoder ring.

UPDATE:

Goldberg stands by his post.

From Reuters

A U.S. journalist who reported that Fidel Castro told him the Cuban economic model no longer works expressed surprise on Monday that the former Cuban leader is now saying his words were misinterpreted.

Jeffrey Goldberg, a correspondent for the Atlantic Monthly magazine, said Castro, 84, had made similar statements before and that economic changes under way on the communist-led island made it “a truism that the Cuban model isn’t working.”

Goldberg wrote in a blog last week that he asked Castro in an interview two weeks ago in Havana if the Cuban economic model was still worth exporting and he replied, “The Cuban model doesn’t even work for us anymore.”

Castro denounced Goldberg in a speech on Friday, saying he was not misquoted, but misunderstood.

“The reality is that my response means exactly the opposite,” he said. “My idea, as the whole world knows, is that the capitalist system now doesn’t work either for the United States or the world, driving it from crisis to crisis, which are each time more serious.”

But Goldberg said he believes he got it right.

“I don’t know how you can interpret that as its opposite,” he told reporters on a conference call from Washington. “Of course, I was somewhat surprised by his speech.”

Share This

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

About the author