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(Photos © Roberto Salas/Thunder's Mouth press and Beyond Words Publishing)

A revolution in pictures

Book remembers 'Fidel's Cuba' during days of promise

By CNN Interactive Writer
Jamie Allen

ATLANTA (CNN) -- He was considered by some to be merely a pawn of the Soviet Union in the Cold War chess match. But eight years after the U.S.S.R.'s collapse, 40 years after he seized power, at the brink of a new millennium, Fidel Castro is leading the Cuban people into yet another uncertain future.

Castro, the revolutionary, made the unlikely transformation into a powerful political figure who looms over the late 20th century landscape -- an army-fatigued caricature who contrasts himself at every turn. One moment, he's a dictator of a country which clings to an outdated cause, marred by rampant poverty and pockmarked by a crumbling infrastructure yet boasts of almost no illiteracy and a healthy medical system. The next moment, he's the magnetic caudillo who took power through revolution, the man who chomps on cigars, meets with the pope, and believes in the magic of baseball.

"He's an individual of enormous charisma," says Roberto Salas, a photographer who has witnessed first hand the enduring reign of Castro.

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Salas and his Cuban-born father, Osvaldo, met Castro in 1955. In 1959, following Castro's rise to power, the Salas' were invited by Castro to Havana to work the government newspaper Revolución.

The Salas' work during that time is now offered in a new hardcover, "Fidel's Cuba: A Revolution in Pictures." The book is filled with black-and-white images taken in "the golden age of Cuban journalism," the time between 1959-68 when revolution was still fresh in the air, when Salas says he and his Cuban colleagues were focused on telling the story through pictures.

The book, in essence, is a freeze-frame of Cuba yesteryear, and a haunting reflection of Cuba today. There's the famous matchlit picture of Castro plotting strategy with his top lieutenant Che Guevara; there's the picture of Castro playing baseball, and the one recording his meeting with then-Cuban resident and writer Ernest Hemingway; there's the pictures of the Cuban people, simple shots of lonely faces set against the backdrop of the island nation, working for the promise of the revolution.

It's a time that no longer exists.

Roberto Salas

...on Hemingway and Castro

525k WAV audio file
2.9Mb QuickTime movie

...on Castro's memory

400k WAV audio file
2.2Mb QuickTime movie

Meeting Fidel

Osvaldo Salas was born in Havana in 1914, and when he was a teen-ager he emigrated to New York City with his family. He lived there for 34 years, first working in manual labor before hooking up with a photography club. Soon he was winning prizes, and in 1949 he established his first studio on 50th street, "across from the old Madison Square Garden," his son says.

Through hard work and a sensitive eye, Osvaldo Salas became a favorite publicity photographer of celebrities and sports heroes, his work seen in "Camera over Broadway," "Life," "Look," and "The New York Times."

Roberto Salas, born in 1940, says he can't recall when he first took a photograph.

"I haven't the slightest idea," says Salas. "Me and my sister were the test props for my father. And when I came home from school I used to help him out in the studio. So I learned photography through birthright, you might say."

The Salas' father and son team met Castro in 1955 when a journalist friend brought the passionate young lawyer to their apartment. Castro immediately began talking about the coming revolution (he was in town to drum up financial support from Cuban exiles), and Osvaldo instinctively started taking pictures of Castro, following him to conventions and through a jaunt in Central Park.

It was the first of many revolutionary photo shoots that Osvaldo and Roberto would take part in.

By 1957, Castro was orchestrating guerrilla movements against dictator Fulgencio Batista, who had left Cuba on the brink of economic and social collapse. And in New York, the younger Salas had joined Castro's 26th of July Movement, which promised a better future for Cuba.

To draw more attention to the cause, Roberto Salas and some friends trekked to the Statue of Liberty, hanging the flag of the 26th of July Movement from the crown. Salas snapped a photo of the picture, which was picked up by New York newspapers and bought by "Life" magazine.

Later, when the Salas men joined the newspaper "Revolución," they found themselves in the heart of the movement, and in the aftermath of loose ends that were never tied.

Castro on the pitcher's mound

Revealing pictures

Roberto Salas says he was never intimidated by the presence of Castro or followers like Guevara.

"The importance or magnetism or any world leader, when you're doing you're job, you're isolated from this," says Salas. "You're not a part of what's happening. You're a spectator. Maybe later when you've put away you're camera, you say, 'Jesus, I took pictures of so-and-so.'"

Perhaps that is why Salas and his father managed to capture so many intimate and revealing portraits of Castro. Another reason: Salas says the Revolución editors gave him the freedom to take any pictures he wanted. It was part of the effort to bring the story of the revolution to the Cuban people.

"The policy of the paper at the time was to put out on the street, on a daily basis, a magazine-style full-page spread of photo essays of everything that was happening at that time," Salas says.

One picture taken by Roberto Salas shows Castro in the rugged jungle, shirt off, leaning on a thin tree. He recalls the moment when he took that picture, and Castro's reaction.

"He says to me, 'You going to take a picture of me without a shirt?' I say, 'Yeah, but it's not gonna look bad,'" says Salas. "It's one of my favorites because it shows a very intimate type of individual. It's very personal. You normally don't see chiefs of states or leaders in that kind of situation."

Another memorable photo by Roberto Salas features Castro and Guevara huddled over a table, the glow of Castro's match reflecting off their faces. Salas says he happened upon the scene in the middle of the night while staying at the government palace. It was dark, and he had to rest his camera on a table to support it.

"Coincidentally, Castro lights a match, and at that time the matches in Cuba were right on the verge of becoming flares and it illuminated everything," Salas says. "It was one of those decisive moments -- a little bit before, a little bit after and you wouldn't have the photograph."

Another picture from that time offers a completely different view of Castro as the Cuban diplomat. It shows American writer Ernest Hemingway and Castro side by side.

"My father always liked that picture a lot," says Salas. "Believe it or not Castro has mentioned that he had read a lot of Hemingway and he had certain inspirations from the writing of Hemingway. Yet this is the only time these men ever spoke together. And that picture is of that moment."

And what book on Fidel Castro -- former baseball player -- would be complete without a picture of him on the diamond. Dressed in army fatigues, boots and a team Cuba pin-striped jersey, the picture of Castro readying to throw a pitch symbolizes Cuba's national obsession with the sport.

"Castro always used to be there when they threw out the first ball at the beginning of the seasons," says Salas. "Castro's style of throwing out the first ball is to pitch a couple of things, and hit a couple of things."

Salas says Castro used to organize pick-up games between government officials and Cuba's finest players, playing games at three in the morning.

"This sounds very absurd, but these are things that are very possible with Fidel Castro," says Salas.

Even in hindsight, Salas can see the aura of possibility, the promise that led Castro to power.

'Frozen in time'

The latest news from Cuba this week has been the reaction to President Clinton's plans to improve communication between the people of Cuba and the United States. While the plan doesn't directly remove the U.S.'s 36-year-old economic embargo on Cuba, it is another step towards better relations between countries.

Salas, who lives in Havana, says the time has come for Washington to treat Cuba with the respect it treats other communist countries.

"I don't see a logical reason for (the embargo) to exist," he says. "If you have relations with China, why don't you have relations with Cuba? I do believe there has to be steps taken on both sides to normalize relations. It's the natural thing. They are 90 miles apart, it's a natural market for both sides, and there's historically always been a good relationship with the people of the United States and the people of Cuba. There's no real logical reason for this to continue anymore."

Meantime, the pictures taken by Roberto and Osvaldo, who died in 1992, stand as now-surreal interpretations of a country's lost legacy, whose people boarded one man's steamship to the promised land but now float uneasily on an ever-changing sea.

"Cuba is a bit frozen in time," says Salas. "Things have changed but ... Cuba is more or less the same."



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