Fidel's Brother: The Raul I Know

(2 of 3)

Fidel is so overpowering. When you talk to him he looks at you directly, into your eyes. He makes good use of his pale, long fingers, very much like a pianist's, touching you to make a point. He speaks in a circular way, taking you on a fact-filled detour and then back to the main point. Once when I was interviewing him, he turned to his secretary and said, "She is from Galicia, but from a very different background from mine." He then started telling the story of Galicia--the Spanish region from which his father came--and ended by telling us about his family and how he became a revolutionary.

Raúl is more of an executive. He gets to the point and does not waste time. I was there in Granma province in 1994 when Raúl famously lost his cool as the local party leader recited a long and preposterous list of "successes" for the benefit of the visiting Defense Minister. I saw how, suddenly, Raúl could not take it anymore. He slammed his hand on the table and boomed, "F___! How come, if we are doing so well, the people complain of hunger?" Raúl immediately fired the offending official and sent a senior party official to Granma to address the province's problems.

I was allowed to follow Raúl once when he visited some garrisons. The aura of the severe official evaporated when he was with his troops. I use the word his deliberately: those really were his men. He cared for them. He knew their names and asked about their projects. At one garrison it was alternative medicine, growing plants and making extracts. At another it was special-operations training. He ate with the men and joked with them. He is a fine yarn teller, never too self-conscious to act a story out. He turns his head sideways when he listens to you and looks at you, not intensively like Fidel but more quizzically. Unlike Fidel, who takes no breaks from work for simple pleasures, Raúl likes a good time, enjoying cockfights and horses.

He has always respected the family. Even though he is the fifth of seven children and the third and youngest male (Ramón, 81 and an agricultural adviser, is older than Fidel), Raúl has always been the clan's peacekeeper. When Fidel in the 1960s expropriated Cuba's ranches, including his family compound in Birán, where his mother Lina Ruz still lived, she met the revolutionaries at the door with a Winchester rifle, which she knew how to use. It was Raúl who convinced her of the merits of the reform. Lina continued to live on the compound after the state took over its ownership.

Raúl has been married to Espín, a chemical engineer who studied briefly at M.I.T., for more than 45 years. His eldest daughter Débora has Espín's nom de guerre. The couple has two other daughters and a son. Raúl talks about his eight grandchildren with great pride. He has lived in the same modest house in Havana for as long as anybody can remember. His nephews and nieces go to him for advice.

Only in recent years have I begun to see the two brothers together at public events, as the younger Castro has become more visible. Raúl has played a major role in recent government battles--for instance, to get Elián González back from the U.S. in 2000 and to win the release of five Cubans convicted of spying in America the following year. When Elián was returned, however, it was Fidel who took center stage.