Was it something he ate?Fidel Castro let slip a couple of strange admissions to Jeffrey Goldberg while they were having lunch the other day. One of them was the brutal dictator's second-guessing himself on the Cuban missile crisis back in 1962. Maybe he shouldn't have urged Khrushchev to shoot nuclear weapons into the United States after all.
And secondly, Castro suggested that Cuban-style Communism wasn't working very well anymore. That's certainly a no-brainer (well, except for dolts like Oliver Stone and Sean Penn), but it is nevertheless a pretty shocking confession from the fellow who is still head of the Communist Party.
Could it be that Fidel Castro had a bit too much wine with his filet of sole? After all, there has been no further comment about any of this from Castro or the Cuban government since that luncheon.
Or could it be that the bearded thug finally realizes he's getting ready to meet the God he's stridently denied and is therefore dropping a few "true confessions" in hopes they will mitigate his decades of telling lies?
Or could it be that Castro is playing the Western media as he has done since the revolution? After all, Cuba is in quite dire straits and the Brothers Castro are desperately looking for economic deliverance. And they consider the removal of the U.S. trade embargo as a key part of their plan. So what's a few sly admissions over dessert...or letting a few of the government's political prisoners go...if it helps the Obama administration justify to the rest of America why the tired old coots in Havana should get U.S. trade and tourism?
Call me a cynic, Monty, but I'll choose door number three.