Castro's Cuba, Cuba's Fidel

Book excerpt: "Mr. Lockwood's exciting book...holds many surprises for the reader who has seen the Cuban reality up to now only through the distorting prism of propaganda.... [During Mr. Lockwood's latest, 14-week visit to Cuba in 1965] he had 'a seven-day marathon conversation' with [Fidel], the transcription of which, with excellent photographs, constitutes the heart of the book.... A first-rate psychological document, this book is also an historical one in that it contains information necessary to the understanding of several conversional questions, such as the priority given agriculture in the development of the Cuban economy, the dissension between Moscow and Havana, or even the intellectual road by which Castro came to Marxism. Moreover, it provides particulars up to now unknown." Claude Julien, 'The New York Times Book Review' "Lockwood gives us crowds, posters, individual studies, Fidel in every possible mood; the cities, farms, country towns - most of Cuba is in the photographs.... Lockwood's text consists mainly of excerpts from several interviews he got from Fidel in 1965.... In one way or another Fidel touches on all the events of crucial importance from the beginning of the insurrection until 1965, and the interviews thus become an explanation of the revolution that we badly need." Jose Yglesias, 'The New Republic' "The author's questions [to Fidel] are tough and penetrating and they elicited the same kind of answers.... The lively record deserves and encourages serious study." K. G. Jackson, 'Harper's Magazine' "Given the paucity of scholarly work on contemporary Cuba and the difficulty of visiting the island, the photographs, interview materials, and interpretations of this gifted journalist must go high on the reading list of anyone, professional or lay person, who maintains a serious interest in Cuban affairs and in that most dramatic and important of twentieth-century Latin American leaders, Fidel Castro." Richard Fagan, 'Hispanic American Historical Review'