Meeting with Castro recalled
Albuquerquean recalls meeting with Castro in ’90s visit to Cuba
In the wake of the death of Fidel Castro, the revolutionary who ruled the Caribbean island nation for more than half a century, a New Mexico journalist recalls the ironic moment he met the controversial leader in the mid-1990s.
“I probably have the only onehundred dollar bill in the world signed by Fidel,” said Mark Slimp, who now heads the public affairs office for the Army Corps of Engineers Albuquerque District.
Slimp was senior field producer for ABC Network News from 1994 to 1997, producing reports for shows like “World News Tonight,” “Nightline,” “This Week” and “Good Morning America.”
At the time, Slimp said, it was almost impossible for U.S. reporters to get into Cuba. His team managed to travel to the island to do a story about Pastors for Peace, an interfaith organization that began sending volunteers with humanitarian aid caravans to Cuba in 1992.
“We did follow them around but we were able to break away some times and we were able to find out about what was going on in Cuba at that time period,” Slimp said. As he recalls, it was the first time a broadcast team had been in Cuba for many years.
At the end of their trip, Slimp’s team and the Pastors for Peace group were invited to a reception at the National Assembly building. Slimp said their Cuban “minders” took away their cameras before they joined the receiving line where each of them met Castro. Official event photographers snapped a picture of Slimp shaking hands with the bearded Cuban leader, wearing his signature olive-green fatigues.
They were escorted into an assembly room and sat while Castro made a brief speech and then took questions for a few minutes. At that point, Slimp said, his team wanted to leave because they had an early flight the next day. But their Cuban escorts urged them to stay for a party in a huge room nearby.
So the Pastors for Peace volunteers and the news team milled around for a couple of hours “eating sugary things, because that’s all they had.” Suddenly, Castro entered the hall surrounded by a small entourage.
“Everybody went round him. It hit me it was as if a movie star or a rock star had come into the room. They were so happy to be there with him,” Slimp said.
He discovered that the “big deal” was to get Castro’s autograph. Slimp recalled one woman in a low-cut dress proffered her bare shoulder for the Cuban leader to sign.
Most people held out a dollar bill. “He’d write his name across George Washington,” Slimp said, noting the irony of the socialist leader placing his signature on top of the image of a founder of the United States’ capitalist democracy.
Slimp asked one of the Cuban leader’s entourage if Castro had a sense of humor. Oh yes, “El Comandante” has a great sense of humor, was the answer. At that point, Slimp took out a $100 bill. As the producer in charge of the news team, Slimp carried thousands of dollars in cash because credit cards weren’t accepted in Cuba.
“I was the bag man,” Slimp said. He said Castro was busy talking as he signed the bill, then suddenly he
noticed the denomination.
“Oh, you must be a very wealthy American,” the Cuban leader said in Spanish.
Slimp explained that they had met just a short time before and that he had introduced himself as the producer for the ABC Network News team.
“Oh yes, the very wealthy TV news person,” Castro responded.
Slimp said he started to take back the bill, but Castro held onto it, grinning as he said, “We may need to hold onto this for the Revolution.”
Slimp explained that Castro and all the Cuban officials usually referred to the “Revolution,” as if it was an ongoing “war” for the people.
As the two men held onto the hundred, Slimp said felt like they were in a Three Stooges comedy.
“Like Curly, Moe and Larry, we were playing tug of war with a $100 bill,” Slimp said.
Now, more than 20 years later, after hearing news of Castro’s death at 90 on Nov. 25, Slimp recalled some of his impressions of the Cuba of the mid1990s.
The final collapse in 1991 of the Soviet Union, which had imported most of Cuba’s oil and provided large quantities of food and medicine, severely damaged the island’s economy. In the years that followed, called the“Special Period,” Slimp said a lot of Cubans had no jobs and there was little to buy in the stores. Slimp noted that Castro’s regime ensured that people were well educated, but from his experience, many wanted to leave their homeland.
Looking back at Cuban history, Slimp said Havana was a big entertainment center with lots of casinos and hotels in the 1950s before Castro came to power in 1959 and shut down the gambling centers. Slimp thinks that Cuba appears to be going full circle with the opening of new hotels, the return of cruise ships and opening of beaches to tourists.
Slimp has a long history in New Mexico. He earned a bachelor’s in journalism and communications from the University of New Mexico and started work in 1974 as a reporter/ photographer with KOAT-TV in Albuquerque. He later worked for KOB-TV and went on to TV positions in New York, Baltimore and Los Angeles. While with ABC Network TV News he was based in Miami, Fla. He was vice president of integrated communications for AARP in Washington, D.C., from 1997 to 2008.
Upon returning to New Mexico in 2009, Slimp was chief of communications for the state Department of Transportation for one year. He has been chief of public affairs for the US Army Corps of Engineers in Albuquerque since 2010.