Abstract

Uncivil Liberties

It used to be that whenever peasants in some Central American country started shooting back at the generals, the State Department said that Fidel Castro was exporting revolution. Drug problems in South Florida? Castro was to blame. Unrest in Africa? Castro did it. Everything was blamed on Castro. Mud slides in California. The fact that one can't buy a decent tomato anymore. Was there an exceptionally high pollen count in Massapequa, Long Island, one day? It was Castro, exporting sneezes. All of this gave Castro the sort of exalted status. In those days, whenever his own people seemed in a rebellious mood over something like the shortage of consumer goods, Cubans, who have always been known as snappy dressers, hated standing in line to buy those clunky Czechoslovak shoes, Castro could distract them by saying that Americans had finally got so mad at him that they were going to invade.