Communist Voices: Guillermo Cabrera Infante
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Guillermo Cabrera Infante (1929-2005) was one of Cuba's most widely admired novelists. He was initially a supporter of Fidel Castro and accompanied the Cuban leader on his first visit to the United States. He subsequently fell out with Castro, went into exile in 1965 and was an outspoken critic of the Communist government.

I met Cabrera Infante in London on 14th August 1992. The extract posted on YouTube above is about his direct memories of Castro from 1948 onwards. The audio of the full, much longer, interview is below. He told me that when he first met Fidel in 1948 Castro 'was a gangster. He as so many others felt 'a moment of elation' when the dictator Batista fled and recalls that Castro was then regarded as 'some sort of messiah'. But when accompanying Castro to the US, Cabrera Infante 'realised he was the same bully that he was before.'

The interview was for the programme on Cuba in my radio series What's Left of Communism?
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FULL AUDIO OF INTERVIEW POSTED HERE