Fidel Castro, who led Cuba for a half-century, dies at 90

His communist revolution out lasted ten American Presidencies and with stood half a century of American economic embargo.

He survived numerous attempts to overthrow or assassinate him.

He fought off one U.S. backed invasion at a little known beach called, Playa Huron,

In what Americans came to known as the Bay of Pigs and helped unleash a super power confrontation by installing Soviet missiles in Cuba.

The world has seen little of the Cuban leader in the past decade after serious intestinal illness struck in 2006.

In 2008, he stepped down as President.

Putting his brother, army head, Raul Castro at the country's helm.

This feeble old man in a track suit was a pale shadow of the over confident, 32 year old guerrilla, who shook up the Western hemisphere.

Fidel Castro triumphantly took control of Cuba on January 1,1959.

He rolled into Havana a top a tank a week later.

He came down from his guerrilla strong hold in the Sierra Eastern Mountains,

joined by his partner in revolution, the Argentine Che Guevara, in a small rebel army.

They had toppled over the right-winged dictator, Fulgencio Batista, who had been in and out of power in Cuba for 25 years.

Castro quickly nationalized U.S. owned companies and property in Cuba, along with church holdings, farms, and business of wealthy and middle class Cubans.

The U.S. responded with an economic boycott that lasted decades.

Castro began an alliance with America's super power rival, the Soviet Union.

The parting President Dwight Eisenhower, severed all links with Cuba.

There is a limit to what the United States in self respect can endure.

That limit has now been reached.

Our friendship for the Cuban people is not affected.

The hardships placed upon the Cuban economy and Castro's repression of his Cuban opposition, sparked a series of mass migrations,

that would profoundly affect the United States and the future of U.S. Cuba relations.

The new American President John Kennedy, picked up one of his predecessor's plans, an armed overthrow of Castro.

The CIA trained an army of 1,200 Cuban exile's to invade and began a popular uprising.

On April 17, 1961, the small counter revolutionary force stormed the beach on Cuba's South East Coast.

Many Cuban people rallied to Castro and his forces quickly put down The Bay of Pig's Invasion.

It was a disaster for the new Kennedy administration, but the following year brought on a new confrontation and even more danger.

On October 16,1962, U.S. spy planes photographed a construction of a Soviet missile site in Cuba.

A crisis ensued, which brought the world the closest it had ever come to nuclear annihilation.

A U.S. Naval blockade called Quarantine,was forced on Cuba.

Kennedy took to the airways and warned of the consequences.

To halt this offensive buildup, a strict quarantine on all offensive military equipment under shipment to Cuba is being initiated.

Shall be the policy of this nation to regard any nuclear missile launched from Cuba against any nation in the Western Hemisphere as an attack

by the Soviet Unions on the United States,

requiring a full retaliatory response upon the Soviet Union.

It took twelve days of intense negotiation and U.N. efforts but the Soviet's backed down and promised to remove the missiles from Cuba,

in return for a U.S. commitment not to invade the Caribbean island.

The News hour, Robert McNeil, who was in Havana at the time, asked Fidel about the missile crisis in 1985 New Hour interview.

When the crisis was at it's very height,

did you personally think that..

did you believe that nuclear war was a possibility on one of those days?

Did you believe as you sat here in Havana, did you believe it?

Yes, yes I believe that as a possibility.

What did you feel about your role in having to be brought to that point?

It was not me.

It was the United States, the one who led us to that point.

It was United States, that initiated the blockade, that initiated organized the invasion, the sabotage,

the pirate attacks, the missionary invasion, and those who spoke invasion against Cuba.

It was the Unites States, it was not us.

I believed that we answered correctly.

I have no doubt whatsoever.

What would we to do?

Yield?

United States could be assured that we will never yield.

Under conditions such as those, we will fight.

Castro put down decent, economic condition worsened.

Immigration to the United States surged.

Exiles and their families filled American cities and prospered in places like Miami's Little Havana.

These immigrants became a force in American politics, standing against any efforts to lift the embargo or reopen diplomatic relations.

All the while, Castro endured.

He rallied his faithful supporters in the capital with his trademark, hours long fiery speeches, full of Nationalist and Socialist Rhetoric.

[ Spanish dialect ]

Crowds of thousands turned out to listen, even with massive Soviet subsidy and other dramatic economic down turn hit Cuba in 1980,

and Castro said anyone who wanted to leave Cuba could do so by boat.

Again, a huge wave of immigrants headed to the United States, in what became known as, "The Mariel Boatlift. "

Many of these were prisoners and convicts, but Castro continued to hold a tight grip on his people.

Through restrictions on free speech and free press.

He quited the opposition with imprisonment.

He did not deny that his jail held political prisoners, when the News Hour, Robert McNeil asked him in 1985.

Yes, we have them.

We have a few hundreds political prisoners.

Is that a violation of human rights?

Those that have infiltrated through our coasts.

Those who have been trained by the CIA, to kill, to place bombs.

Do we have the right to put them to trial or not?

Are they political prisoners?

They are something more than political prisoners, they are traitors to the homeland.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990's, subsidize sugar prices and cheap oil from Cuba's communist ally disappeared.

Cubans were again asked to tighten their belts, Castro needed new friends.

In 1998, the communist leader became face to face with communism arch rival.

Castro, welcomed Pope John Paul II to Cuba.

The pope addressed the Cuban people at a mass, where thousands turned out.

He called for an end to human rights abuses and drew the world's attention to the plight of the Cuban people.

Castro did come to loosen some restrictions on the Catholics in Cuba.

The Pope's message did little else to change the day to day lives of Cubans.

But in later years, Castro found new allies in the hemisphere.

Long live the Bolivian Republic of Venezuela, long live!

Long live Cuba, long live!

In leftist leaders like Venezuela's Hugo Chavez and Bolivia's Evo Morales,

who said they were inspired by the Cuban Revolution, and joined Castro in delighted defiance of Uncle Sam.

Fidel's slow fade began in July 31, 2006, when he acceded power to his younger brother, Raul.

The news that Castro had undergone successful for gastro- intestinal bleeding, aired over state television.

In the states, among the exile and Cuban American population, there was anxiety.

Along with jubilation, at the idea that this could be the end.

But soon Castro, allowed himself to appear in photos from his hospital bed.

Even entertained friends while convalescing.

When he was up and moving in October 2006, the video captured a frail and aging man in a much weakened state, trying to look healthy.

In December 2006, Cubans celebrated the 50th Anniversary of the Revolution and a belated birthday without the guest of honor who was still too ill to attend.

He didn't reappear in the public eye until 2010, in almost a year later, he officially resigned as the Communist Party's leader.

In 2012, Cuba hosted another Pontiff, Pope Benedict. Castro was too ill to attend a large mass, which drew thousands.

But the pair did hold a meeting.

These fifty years have shown, the isolation has not worked.

It is time for a new approach.

Then in December 2014, President Obama announced, the United States would re-establish diplomatic ties with Cuba.

That meant, opening an Embassy in Havana, expanding economic ties and easing travel bands.

The first step was a prisoner swap between the two countries.

But the deal was made with Fidel's brother, President Raul Castro,

it was the first major discussion between the Presidents of the U.S. and Cuba since 1961, and Fidel was still no where to be seen.

Despite his decline from public life and politics,

the Communist icon continued to publish editorials columns and assumed the role of an elder states man.