Reverend Blair said:
Did the documentary you watched include papers that have been released since the collapse of the former USSR? The fact that Castro did not want Soviet missiles in Cuba was documented by the Soviets themselves, Jay.
Your fear of communism is comical. Your belief that they want to destroy the world if they can't take it over has more place in a 1950's science fiction movie than in any modern political discussion.
I don't remember if they discussed his reluctance to the missiles. That doesn't really matter, since he must have agreed to it at some time....
My fear of communism might seem comical to a sympathizer, but I'm not convinced this threat has died and all is well with the world again.
"Your belief that they want to destroy the world if they can't take it over..."
I never said that.
An interesting artical I found
http://www.virginia.edu/uvanewsmakers/newsmakers/naftali.html
"Fidel stuck to three basic themes in his talks, in the four hours that he dominated. He talked about the betrayal of Cuba by the Soviets. His statements about the United States were muted. One could see that his "charm offensive" dictated some of what he would say about us. But about the Soviets, he did not hold back. He lambasted Kruschev for having forced the missiles upon them. The Cuban position is that they never wanted the missiles. And then in a dramatic and humiliating fashion, to decide to remove them without consulting the Cuban Government at all. When Castro spoke, the passion of his anger was genuine. This was not theater. You could see it--he shook a little bit. His voice increased and his timbre changed. This man is still angry, forty years later, at the Soviets.
The second great theme was that he was the defender of Cuban sovereignty, and that, of course, is linked to this sense of betrayal. There some of the most interesting admissions were made.
Fidel explained why he was willing to risk escalating this crisis by shooting down American planes without Soviet approval. On October 26 and later in November, angry at the state of the crisis and its resolution, Fidel ordered his own men to use their anti-aircraft guns against American planes that were flying low-level reconnaissance missions. The Soviets did not ask him to do this. The Soviets did not want him to do this. In fact, the Soviets sent an envoy just to tell him to stop.
But, it did not matter because Fidel felt himself the embodiment of Cuban sovereignty and he was going to do whatever he pleased to show that Cuba would not be stepped on by either super power. This was a constant theme in our discussions. "