'He invited us out to Cuba. I bought him a cigar and he said thank you, even though he was unlikely to smoke a non-Cuban cigar'
We were on a class trip to Washington DC from St Louis, Missouri, in April 1959, and our hotel was just across the way from the embassy by Meridian Hill Park. Someone in our group suggested we head to the Cuban embassy and ask to see Fidel Castro, which we all thought was a great idea. It so happened that he was in town at the same time, looking for support and financial assistance, and the day before we were due to leave we headed to the embassy to try to see him. We waited for about an hour, but he never appeared, so we went to tour the Capitol for a while and came back later to ask again. His bodyguards told us to wait a minute and, because Castro often did things on impulse, he decided to come out. It was almost like, "Can Castro come out to play?" And the answer was yes.
We started walking with him, heading to the park across the street, chatting about politics and economics. We were with him for a couple of hours. We tried using our high school Spanish, but he spoke English fairly well so we gave up. He asked questions about us. I remember one particular exchange when he said that the girls in the group should be sure to know how to cook when they got older. I wonder how that would go over today.
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