LETTER FROM FIDEL TO FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT, NOVEMBER 6, 1940

  
Here is the first page of a letter that is the property of the US government held in US Archives (ARC#30240 Record), written by Señor Fidel Castro at age 14. The letter is transcribed after the photocopy of the page pasted below. It would be interesting to discuss the implications of this letter with a psychiatrist, to see if it foretells his future behavior. Perhaps he hated America so much because FDR failed to send him the $10 he so clearly needed to have. Interesting, too, that he offered to take FDR to see an iron mine in Oriente Province, the seat of the M-267 movement, to make Cuba's natural resources available to the United States for ship building prior to the US entry into World War II. Finally, it is particularly interesting that Fidel lied about his age. In 1940 when the letter was written, he was 14, not 12 as he stated.

I suppose the combination of failing to earn $10 or sell iron ore to the US, coupled with his failure to conquer Hollywood six years later (see prior blog), must have contributed to his alienation and descent into the antithesis of capitalism. 

Part of the joy of writing is the research and the discovery of historical artifacts that did not make it into the history books when I was in school. By the way, the letter was discovered in 1974 among 8 billion documents that had been overlooked at the National Archives.

Part of the joy of writing is the research and the discovery of historical artifacts that did not make it into the history books when I was in school. By the way, the letter was discovered in 1974 among 8 billion documents that had been overlooked at the National Archives.

Source

Transcript

Santiago de Cuba

Nov 6 1940

Mr Franklin Roosvelt, President of the United States.

My good friend Roosvelt I don't know very English, but I know as much as write to you. I like to hear the radio, and I am very happy, because I heard in it, that you will be President for a new (periodo). I am twelve years old. I am a boy but I think very much but I do not think that I am writing to the President of the United States. If you like, give me a ten dollars bill green american, in the letter, because never, I have not seen a ten dollars bill green american and I would like to have one of them.

My address is:

Sr Fidel Castro
Colegio de Dolores
Santiago de Cuba
Oriente Cuba

I don't know very English but I know very much Spanish and I suppose you don't know very Spanish but you know very English because you are American but I am not American.

(Thank you very much)

Good by. Your friend,

(Signed)

Fidel Castro

If you want iron to make your sheaps ships I will show to you the bigest (minas) of iron of the land. They are in Mayari Oriente Cuba.