Fidel Castro Dead At 90
LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — Longtime Cuban President Fidel Castro had died, according to Cuban TV.
Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz was 90.
CBS Radio has confirmed the death. The Associated Press says Castro's brother Raul has also confirmed the death.
Castro was born August 13, 1926. He was the revolutionary who wrestled power away from a dictator and then ruled Cuba for decades with an iron fist under communist rule.
The Castro-led revolution against then Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista started on July 26, 1953. The revolutionaries ultimately got Batista out of office on Jan. 1, 1959. A communist country 90 miles off the coast of the USA raised instant alarm for then US President Dwight Eisenhower and then incoming president John Kennedy.
In March of 1960, Eisenhower gave the thumbs up to a CIA plan to oust Castro. In April 1961, Kennedy gave the final nod to the invasion plan. The failed Bay of Pigs invasion, and subsequently the Cuban missle crisis of 1962, fueled American-Cuban antagonism for decades to come.
Casto governed the Republic of Cuba as Prime Minister from 1959 to 1976 and then as President from 1976 to 2008.
He had been in ill health for about a decade.
Politically a Marxist–Leninist and Cuban nationalist, Castro also served as the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba from 1961 until 2011.
Under his administration Cuba became a one-party communist state; industry and business were nationalized, and state socialist reforms implemented throughout society.
This is breaking news and more information will be added as it becomes available.
