The passionate reporter: how Castro got his job through the NY Times
I had previously heard something vague about the NY Times having lauded Fidel Castro when he first came to power, but I didn’t know the details. Most people are ignorant (as I was) of the story of Times reporter Herbert Matthews, but it demonstrates—as does the Walter Duranty saga—how long the paper has been churning out misleading verbiage promoting Leftist causes while disguising the agendas of Leftist leaders. What’s even more disturbing (and familiar) is the reluctance of the reporters involved to recant, even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
You can find the Matthews story here and here. It’s a cautionary tale of reporter hubris, naivete, and the persistence of stubborn and self-serving blinders. The occasion of both articles was a 2006 book about Matthews written by Anthony DePalma (another former Times reporter, by the way), entitled The Man Who Invented Castro.
Matthews, who had admired and supported Mussolini in his early days and then switched to the Republican cause in Spain, scored a journalistic coup when he trekked into the mountains of Cuba to interview Castro, proving that Batista had lied when he prematurely (very prematurely, as it turns out) reported the death of the young revolutionary. Matthews’s motivation for admiring Castro—according to this Reason piece by Glenn Garvin, and Matthews’s own words—was emotion:
Only a fool, Matthews wrote, would argue that a reporter “should have had no feelings or emotions or even bias about a story like the Cuban Revolution.” And a reporter’s heart should be pinned on his sleeve, or at least his copy. “One of the essentials of good newspaper work is what F. Scott Fitzgerald called ”˜the catharsis of a powerful emotion,’”…” Matthews said. “A catharsis is the escape hatch of the emotions that a drama arouses.”
Ron Radosh concurs that, according to De Palma’s book, Matthews seems to have been motivated mostly by feelings:
“I feel about Cuba somewhat as I did about Spain,” he confessed. “One . . . wants to share . . . if only as a sympathizer, what the Cubans are suffering.” Thus Matthews, in his own words, became “the man who invented Fidel.” Of course, as DePalma notes, that was simple bragging. Castro did not need Matthews to create him; he needed Matthews as a propaganda and publicity tool in Cuba.
And that’s exactly what Castro got, right to the end of Matthews life. Once it became crystal clear (contrary to Matthews’s repeated and fervent claims) that Castro actually was a Communist, the Times—to its mild but belated credit—finally stopped publishing Matthews’s apologia for the dictator, now that it had grown embarrassingly obvious how wrong Matthews and the Times had been.
But it was a bit late. The damage had been done—not to Castro’s reputation, which Matthews had made, but to the cause of anyone who might have opposed him when it might have mattered.
The title of my post, “Castro got his job through the NY Times,” is a reference to a William Buckley column on the subject that was famous in its time:
In those days, the Times had an ad campaign showing average citizens who had obtained jobs through its classified section. A soon-to-be-famous cartoon appeared in National Review, featuring a caricature of Castro with the caption, “I got my job through the New York Times.” Writing in The American Legion magazine, NR’s founder, William F. Buckley Jr., charged that Matthews had done “more than any other single man to bring Fidel Castro to power.” Matthews, he asserted, had been guilty of “ferocious partisanship” when he displayed the future tyrant as “a big, brave, strong, rebellious, dedicated, tough idealist.” The headline of Buckley’s article was that of the cartoon.
Radosh goes on to say:
Matthews, DePalma writes, “exulted in Castro’s triumph, for it could be said he had a hand in it.” All pretenses to journalistic objectivity were gone. He had now “chosen the winning side in an ideological battle.” For the rest of his life, Matthews remained true to his original mythical portrait of Castro as democrat, despite the vast amount of evidence to the contrary. He was pleased that he had helped bring down a “murderous regime”; the fact that Castro’s new government had within Matthews’s lifetime proven itself to be far more oppressive and violent than the Batista regime had ever been somehow evaded him.
Sound familiar? Apart from the historical interest of the Matthews/Castro case, I find the above paragraph particularly fascinating in psychological terms. Matthews is an excellent example of the oft-noticed tendency of those who have staked their reputations on a certain perception, and later are confronted with evidence that negates it, to deny that evidence and persist in their folly. In other words, a mind is a very difficult thing to change.
This is especially true in a case such as that of Matthews, of whom it could be said that he suffered from “Castro Arrangement Syndrome.” Not only was his reportage about Castro the highlight of his career, but it was a very emotional cause as well. To have admitted error would have been to realize that he’d been wrong in both respects, and had been taken in and deceived by a tyrant.
To the end of his life, Matthews denied Communist sympathies, although I think that probably was more of a semantic quibble than anything else. My guess is that Castro himself may have regarded Matthews as an especially useful idiot—so useful that, in 1997, on the fortieth anniversary of the Matthews/Castro interview, the government of Cuba erected a plaque at the mountain site of the encounter to commemorate the glorious historical occasion.
[ADDENDUM: The UN loves Castro almost as much as Matthews did.
And as far as Castrophilic reporters go, it’s not just Matthews—not by a longshot.]
People get in rickity boats to escape Cuba, but supposedly it is a paradise. Or when you point out it is not a paradise- they blame it on the US Trade embargo- as if it is a blockade. Every other nation on the planet can trade with Cuba, but it is the US’s fault for not trading with them. As for Mexico, they are poor because we trade tooo much with them- or so we hear. lol
My parents both emigrated from Cuba during the early ’60s, fleeing from Castro’s Communist regime. I’ve always been amazed by the way in which certain types of individuals can been beguiled by the appeal of Marxist and Communist ideology, and the so-called “revolutions” that occur in their names. I’ve known some in college.
I’m sure some of it has to do with the attraction of something that appears to offer an answer to some of the supposed wrongs of our society. I also think that this attraction may be particularly strong among certain personality types. Or perhaps among those for whom, for some reason, there has been some dissilusionment with the reality of the United States as it really is. It must be terribly tempting to believe that over the horizon (or 90 miles from Key West, as it were) there was something which offered a different way… something better.
I understand that certain Christians were critical of the left for its attempt to “immanentize the eschaton,” in other words “trying to make that which belongs to the afterlife happen here and now (on Earth)” or “trying to create heaven here on Earth.” See this Wiki article.
Human beings are capable of imagining a utopian society where all is beautiful, and all belong. The reality of such utopian ideals can be disastrous. The reality is that human beings have shown themselves utterly incapable of carrying such ideals out. Human nature just doesnt have it in itself to create heaven on earth.
My family has experienced the hard way what was brought forth by that mirage. The revolution put an ego maniac in charge, and armed his arrogant minions with the ability to do what they will. People lost their homes and their businesses, and had their lives ruthlessly interrupted. Many lost their lives or were imprisoned.
I recommend the book “Guerrilla Prince,” by Georgie Ann Geyer… an excellent book about the dictator Fidel Castro.
I also recommend two movies: if youre a conservative, theres the recent “The Lost City”, directed by Andy Garcia, which tells the Cuban tragedy from what is probably more of a conservative perspective.
If you are, or know anyone on the left, there is the excellent, anti-Castro, “Before Night Falls,” which tells the true story of writer Renaldo Arenas, who was imprisoned by castro. An excellent movie which should force any recalcitrant left-winger to re-evaluate his views.
Duranty. Matthews. Stalin. Castro. Ya know, if I didn’t know better, I’d say this looks a little FISHY.
“An excellent movie which should force any recalcitrant left-winger to re-evaluate his views.”
Aerosmith had a great line from a song: Dream on, dream on, dream until the dream comes true.
Lets face it, when one of the big heroes is Che Guevera and they accept what he actually did what do you think that video is going to show?
Since those crimes are against Castro and the Utopia they got what they deserved. They may try and rationalize (or how I would refer to “sugar coat”) it, but in the end that is what it comes down too.
Then there are the “useful idiots” that have chosen who to believe and will simply dismiss it as propaganda and *obviously* blown out of proportion – uncle Fidel wouldn’t do that don’t ya know! They live in a fantasy world so deep no amount of reality can intrude (though, to be fair, if you ever could get it too they would probably do the right thing).
Everyone else is already convinced Castro sucks, hurt Cuba, and Che was a thug who deserved a bullet to his vitals so it’s just another data point. I know just as many leftist who do not support Castro, I just do not know any Conservatives who support him (though I’m willing to bet there are some).
Hitler, Chavez, and Castro all had unsuccessful coup attempts before assuming power. How much better the world would have been if all three had been executed for their coup attempts. Mercy at times is not mercy. Calderan Venezuelan President who pardoned Chavez is still living, in his 90s. One Venezuelan blogger wrote that he wanted Caldera to live until he was 150,to longer live with the consequences of having pardoned Chavez.
Renaissance and Decay has a lot of data comparing pre and post 1959 Cuba. One stat of note is that in the first 40 years of Fidel in power, milk production in Cuba increased only 12% or so, comparing to doubling and tripling and more in most other countries in Latin America. Guess the CIA was offing all those cows.
It’s usually the intellectuals who possess sufficient intellect to rationalize the brutality, tyranny, and sadism which always goes along with regimes of this sort.
Luckily I was never an intellectual. I fervently believed in the promise of communism until 1968 when the tanks rumbled into Prague.
The world had just seen the answer to “Communism with a human face.”
Since then the Prague nightmare has happened again and again and again. Each time the intelligentsia has chided us to get over our reactionary resistance.
William Ayers is designing curricula for America’s children. His pal is having them think really, really hard how they can help the cause.
J.L. – nice comment.
I return, as ever, to one of my favorite themes, explaining why the left continues to defend communists, or at most, regrets with a sigh that it couldn’t have all gone better.
While there is intellectual attraction to the ideals of communism per se, its primary attraction is that it is not capitalism. If there were other alternatives on the market, they might easily choose one of those instead. It is quite personal. They deeply resent that we live under a system that does not reward them with both money and status for being the clever folks they are. Worse, the system rewards rubes and yahoos for economic activity they find beneath them. On that basis alone, the narcissistic injury of not being regarded as important as they think they are, they conclude that something must be deeply wrong with the American system.
What they really want is something akin to the old European nobility, where folks such as themselves have an independent income (meaning an income entirely dependent on the labor of others) to pursue whatever suits their fancy. They promise that some of them will spend it on elevating pursuits, and so advance civilization. So long as they don’t have to “go into trade.”
They have no awareness of this, and find such suggestions risible. Yet it leaks out in their words and actions frequently.
Sometimes, the personal is political.
An excellent movie, “For Love Or Country,” about Castro’s Cuba is one about Arturo Sandoval’s escape from that paragon of freedom. Also his first album in this country was “Flight To Freedom.”
Also check out Paquito D’Rivera.
strcpy:
Youre right. Some people never learn. Change my sentence to: ““An excellent movie which should force at least some recalcitrant left-wingers to re-evaluate his views.”
Assistant Village Idiot:
I appreciate your analysis.
One of the errors with the way leftists think is that each arrogantly presume that they will be among those on top after the “revolution.” They mistakenly think that they will be among the elite. What a shock these people must experience when they are not in the elite, and find themselves hunted down when their protests and viewpoints are no longer humored.
Dennis:
I’ll check out your recommendations. I have a strong interest in material of this type. Thanks!
AVI:
“…While there is intellectual attraction to the ideals of communism per se, its primary attraction is that it is not capitalism…”
I’d add that another principal attraction is that communism is a nice, tidy system that covers all the bases. There are no loose ends, nothing left to chance. Of course, it’s totally unrealistic, fails to account for deviations from the norm, can’t adapt to new conditions, and invariably harms the countries that practice it. But the intellectuals somehow rationalize it all and still love it.
Another “complete” system that fails the real-world test is extremist Islam. Everything is focused on maintaining the conditions present during the Prophet’s lifetime; “innovations” are “haram” (forbidden), and all human activity must conform to the patterns of life existent in 7th Century Arabia. Yeah, buddy, there’s a real formula for success. Western intellectuals haven’t been as attracted to Islam as to communism (probably because of that pesky “God thing” that Islam has going for it), but they still refrain from criticizing it with the same force that they do capitalism and democracy.
IIRC, The NYT also originally considered Gov. Wallace as a great white hope: this means that Wallace, except when it came to race, conformed to the liberalism of that era.
also, IIRC, The Times initially favored Hitler.
If emotions are all that matters to the reporter, then the emotions of millions who have been enslaved and abused would ultimately culminate in the public hate fest and lynching of Matthews. As his own philosophy would validate.
It is the simple fact that propagandists like Matthews do not suffer what they preach, that they can speak about the power and goodness of emotions. Because the emotion of vengeance never touches upon them in a negative fashion.
Kill all the lawyers in lawfare, while keeping your own alive. Kill all the propagandists in an info war, while keeping your own propagandists alive.
That is the trick to the Great Game.
Matthews is an excellent example of the oft-noticed tendency of those who have staked their reputations on a certain perception, and later are confronted with evidence that negates it, to deny that evidence and persist in their folly. In other words, a mind is a very difficult thing to change.
There is a very simple solution to that. Get Castro and execute him, and make Matthews watch as we cruelly shatter his delusions. Even the most powerful doublethink in the universe cannot resurrect a dead person. Praise Castro all they wish, when Castro is safely dead and buried.
I once read a book extolling Fidel and hs utopian Cuba, where literacy was close to 100%, healthcare was universal, and all the Cubans were “happy,” according to a leftist propagandist. I actually believed that tripe until I read Armando Valladeros’ excellent book “Against All Hope,” exposing Fidel’s brutal island prison, a Cuban “Gulag Archipelago.” Thank God for the survivors who speak out at great personal risk to counter the propaganda.
Thank God for the bloggers and radio talkers and the few honest journalists who counter the NYT and MSM. I am trying to research Hugo Chavez and how he managed to take control of Venezuela. The parallels to Obama are striking.
“the oft-noticed tendency of those who have staked their reputations on a certain perception, and later are confronted with evidence that negates it, to deny that evidence and persist in their folly.” See e.g. David Halberstam on Vietnam being a civil war or John Kerry and friends on the South Vietnamese people not caring whether the country was communist or not.
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I recall dimly a claim that at one point the NY Times referred to Fidel as “Dr. Castro.” Whether it was a medical degree the paper conferred on him, I don’t know. Does anyone remember this, or was it a rumor or a rumor?
Sorry, “rumor OF a rumor.”
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Fidel Castro still have some good legacies despite his not so good repuation.,~;