ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, July 18, 1996 TAG: 9607180037
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 2 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: TOM SHALES
SOURCE: TOM SHALES
In summer, movies get sillier and TV gets more serious. Movie studios aim their big pyrotechnical blockbusters at kids who are out of school. Network executives, meanwhile, manage to find time on the schedule for documentaries they probably wouldn't have shown during the regular prime-time season, when millions more are watching and much more money is at stake.
We should probably be grateful networks continue to do documentaries at all, especially considering the popularity (and profitability) of multistory magazine shows in recent years. Today, ``CBS Reports: The Last Revolutionary'' offers an hour-long portrait of Fidel Castro that is comprehensive, shaded and satisfying in ways a short segment on a magazine show could never be.
Dan Rather, the great American anchorman, got back into his safari duds to travel to Cuba and interview the dictator who has managed to remain a thorn in the side of the United States for more than three decades. As he has in past interviews, Castro comes off not as despotic or ruthless but as wily, shrewd and even charming. He is almost 70, but acts 60.
Rather and the crew got ``unprecedented access to Cuba and to Castro,'' Rather says in his introduction. The encounter with Castro occurred in May, after Cuba had shot down an unarmed civilian plane over international waters, but Castro's comments on that incident were already used on ``The CBS Evening News'' and so are not included in the documentary.
But Rather does trace the history of Castro's Cuba and suggests it represents a series of colossal blunders by the U.S. State Department and other parts of the federal government. The Bay of Pigs fiasco was but one of them. Castro was not a communist when he staged his revolution in 1959 but became one after U.S. attempts to assassinate him, the program says. Castro was looking for a powerful ally and found one in Nikita Khrushchev and the U.S.S.R.
Even though the U.S.S.R. has now been split asunder and communism is largely and fortunately kaput, hard-liners in the United States continue to push for greater sanctions against Castro. When the Cubans shot down that plane, they unwittingly gave such factions a big boost. Ironically or not, American business interests - usually considered politically conservative - are pushing for normalization of relations.
They'd like to see a McDonald's in Havana as soon as possible.
Rather returns with Castro to the Bay of Pigs itself and they wander around the area together, Castro in his military fatigues. There are also interview segments filmed indoors, with Castro and Rather in suits and ties. Asked if he is anything like Stalin, Castro is insulted and replies, ``Neither that nor 100th of that.'' Asked earlier how he would like to be remembered, Castro compares himself to Jesus.
Which figure is he closer to? Viewers obviously can decide for themselves.
In addition to Castro himself, Rather talks with Castro's estranged sister, Juanita, whom Castro banished from the island when he decided she was untrue to the revolution, and Castro's older brother, Ramone. CBS also found three former American servicemen who deserted the Guantanamo base years ago to fight with Castro in the hills. They return to Cuba for hugs and reminiscences.
``I love the man. I would die for the man today,'' one of them says. We don't get any indication of what the lives of these men are like now, unfortunately. These oddballs may be worth a special report in themselves.
Rather does not glamorize Castro, nor does he smudge over the failures of his reign. ``There is no true freedom'' in Cuba, Rather says. But Castro has scored huge successes in education and medical care. Hundreds try to flee Cuba, yet millions stay.
When Barbara Walters interviewed Castro in 1977, she asked him when he thought relations with the U.S. might improve. He said, ``Maybe in [Jimmy] Carter's second term, between 1980 and 1984.''
We all know what happened to that plan. Rather's report has less optimism, but plenty of insight. It'd be very good use of one hour of your life to watch it.
LENGTH: Medium: 75 linesby CNB