AMERICAN EXPERIENCE: FIDEL CASTRO (TV)
Summary
One in this documentary series. This installment covers the life of Fidel Castro, from his January 1959 takeover from General Fulgencio Batista's regime in Cuba to the spring of 1994, a period in which Cuba found itself in decline after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
The relationship between Cuba and the United States deteriorated when Castro made a deal with Russia to trade Soviet oil for Cuban sugar in 1960. After Castro lashed out at U.S. policies during a speech at the United Nations, the Eisenhower administration imposed a trade embargo on Cuba in 1961, leading to an escalating war of wills between Castro and America's leaders.
The program's highlights include: President John F. Kennedy's failed Bay of Pigs invasion; the threat of nuclear war after U.S. spy planes detected ballistic missiles being built in Cuba; Castro's marriage, five children and grandchildren; Castro's deteriorating relationship with revolutionary Che Guevara; the failed attempt to make ten million tons of sugar in 1970 to boost the country's economy; President Gerald Ford's attempts to normalize relations with Cuba (which were derailed when Castro aligned himself with Marxists in the Angolan civil war); Castro helping the Sandinistas achieve victory in Nicaragua; the exodus of 125,000 Cuban refugees in the Mariel boatlift of 1980; a United Nation team's probing of Castro's human rights violations; and Castro's insistence on making Cuba into "the Jurassic Park of communism" following the Soviet Union's collapse.
Cataloging of this program was made possible by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
Details
- NETWORK: PBS
- DATE: January 31, 2005 Monday 9:00 PM
- RUNNING TIME: 1:06:08
- COLOR/B&W: Color
- CATALOG ID: T:84133
- GENRE: Public affairs/Documentaries
- SUBJECT HEADING: Biography; Cuba - History - 1959-; Cuba - Officials - Talk/Interviews
- SERIES RUN: PBS - TV series, 1988-
- COMMERCIALS: N/A
CREDITS
- Mark Samels … Executive Producer
- Susan Mottau … Coordinating Producer
- Adriana Bosch … Producer, Director, Writer
- Patricia Alvarado Nunez … Co-Producer
- Rose M. Compagine … Associate Producer
- Karen Colbron … Researcher
- Tania Mastrapa … Researcher
- Julie Ecker … Researcher
- Alison Smith … Researcher
- Mason Daring … Music by
- Mark Adler … Theme Music by
- David Ogden Stiers … Narrator
- Rena Baskin … Voice
- Peter Haydu … Voice
- Paul Horn … Voice
- William Lebow … Voice
- Timothy Sawyer … Voice