History Will Absolve Me

The CIA analyst who tracked Castro for decades explores the mind and motivations of the man who governed Cuba for nearly half a century.   On trial in Santiago for leading a bloody assault on the city’s Moncada garrison, young revolutionary leader Fidel Castro uttered a phrase in court that would come to serve as a rallying cry for his 26th of July Movement and his regime thereafter: “History will absolve me.”   Despite the fact that his methods resulted in great loss of life on both sides, Castro never wavered in his belief that in the final reckoning his life’s work would be vindicated—his violence necessary in bringing a new government to Cuba and a new political model to the developing world.   For decades, CIA analyst Brian Latell tracked Castro relentlessly—getting to know his habits, his fears, and the passions that drove him. In this book, the author of After Fidel and Castro’s Secret steps from the shadows to paint a complex and nuanced portrait of the man he came to know better than any other intelligence target—revealing the mind and motivations of one of the most mercurial, passionate, and dominating leaders of the twentieth century.   “One of America’s foremost Cuba analysts.” —George J. Tenet, former CIA director