Fidel's Brother: The Raul I Know

By Dolly Mascarenas

Few in politics have a record as long as Raul Castro's, and yet rare is the leader as powerful as he who is as mysterious to the outside world. Raul, who temporarily assumed charge of the Cuban presidency for the first time last week as Fidel recovered from abdominal surgery, has always been there. His brother's designated successor, he was beside Fidel from the moment the two, with Raul's acquaintance Che Guevara, launched the revolution that overthrew the dictatorship of Cuba's Fulgencio Batista in 1959. Having joined the Socialist Youth as a university student, Raul was red before Fidel, who fought Batista in the name of nationalism and only later made his way to communism. Early on, the younger brother gained a reputation for ruthlessness, overseeing the execution of scores of Batista soldiers in 1959, an image that would be reinforced over the years when Raul ordered the death, imprisonment or ouster from the Communist Party of a long line of dissidents and potential rivals. As Defense Minister, Raul, with Moscow's backing, built a 150,000-strong disciplined military that was tested in conflicts in Angola and Ethiopia. After the Soviet collapse brought an end to aid that had sustained Cuba, a pragmatic Raul turned the much diminished army into a pioneer of free enterprise, managing the government's stakes in agriculture, industry and, now especially, tourism. Those reforms have provoked speculation that as President, Raul, 75, would be more open to economic liberalization than Fidel, who turns 80 this month. No one knows for sure, though. Raul has remained a figure in the shadows, almost never giving interviews or speeches covered by the media. TIME's Mexico City--based reporter Dolly Mascarenas, however, has known Raul Castro for decades. These are her impressions:

The first time I met Raul Castro, in 1972, I confess that I did not pay any attention to him at all. I was visiting revolutionary Cuba with a group of young "internationalists"; I was green and wanted to change the world. Fidel was the one that I wanted to see. First I met Vilma Espin, who had joined the revolution before marrying Raul. That she was from a well-to-do family and had thrown away everything for the cause made her a dashing character in my eyes. She was then and remains today head of Cuba's Women's Federation. People who knew Raul at the time of the revolution speak of him as hotheaded and daredevilish. He wore his beret a bit sideways then; separate studio photographs of him and Fidel just after their victory show Fidel looking pensive, Raul beaming with confidence. That was all lost on me in that first encounter. The younger Castro made almost no impression, and I remember wondering how he could be so different from his brother, who filled a room with his presence. All eyes were on Fidel when he entered.

The next time I visited Cuba was in 1983 as a journalist. Attending a social gathering, I saw Raul and Vilma again. At first sight, Raul, wearing his green fatigues, seemed serious and stern as he went through the official greetings required of him. But later I saw him talking to people and laughing. That is when I realized how different he seemed from my first impression. You could see how he was enjoying the jokes and the bantering. He intrigued me.

Fidel is so overpowering. When you talk to him he looks at you directly, into your eyes. He makes good use of his pale, long fingers, very much like a pianist's, touching you to make a point. He speaks in a circular way, taking you on a fact-filled detour and then back to the main point. Once when I was interviewing him, he turned to his secretary and said, "She is from Galicia, but from a very different background from mine." He then started telling the story of Galicia--the Spanish region from which his father came--and ended by telling us about his family and how he became a revolutionary.

Raul is more of an executive. He gets to the point and does not waste time. I was there in Granma province in 1994 when Raul famously lost his cool as the local party leader recited a long and preposterous list of "successes" for the benefit of the visiting Defense Minister. I saw how, suddenly, Raul could not take it anymore. He slammed his hand on the table and boomed, "F___! How come, if we are doing so well, the people complain of hunger?" Raul immediately fired the offending official and sent a senior party official to Granma to address the province's problems.

I was allowed to follow Raul once when he visited some garrisons. The aura of the severe official evaporated when he was with his troops. I use the word his deliberately: those really were his men. He cared for them. He knew their names and asked about their projects. At one garrison it was alternative medicine, growing plants and making extracts. At another it was special-operations training. He ate with the men and joked with them. He is a fine yarn teller, never too self-conscious to act a story out. He turns his head sideways when he listens to you and looks at you, not intensively like Fidel but more quizzically. Unlike Fidel, who takes no breaks from work for simple pleasures, Raul likes a good time, enjoying cockfights and horses.

He has always respected the family. Even though he is the fifth of seven children and the third and youngest male (Ramon, 81 and an agricultural adviser, is older than Fidel), Raul has always been the clan's peacekeeper. When Fidel in the 1960s expropriated Cuba's ranches, including his family compound in Biran, where his mother Lina Ruz still lived, she met the revolutionaries at the door with a Winchester rifle, which she knew how to use. It was Raul who convinced her of the merits of the reform. Lina continued to live on the compound after the state took over its ownership.

Raul has been married to Espin, a chemical engineer who studied briefly at M.I.T., for more than 45 years. His eldest daughter Debora has Espin's nom de guerre. The couple has two other daughters and a son. Raul talks about his eight grandchildren with great pride. He has lived in the same modest house in Havana for as long as anybody can remember. His nephews and nieces go to him for advice.

Only in recent years have I begun to see the two brothers together at public events, as the younger Castro has become more visible. Raul has played a major role in recent government battles--for instance, to get Elian Gonzalez back from the U.S. in 2000 and to win the release of five Cubans convicted of spying in America the following year. When Elian was returned, however, it was Fidel who took center stage.

Raul seems comfortable with who he is. He does not appear to crave attention. One does have to wonder, a little, though, about the effects of living for four decades so close to a brother whose name doesn't even have to be invoked for people to know whom you're talking about; Cubans will just make the gesture of stroking a beard to refer to Fidel. Among the many photographs at the family house in Biran is one of a young boy in a cart. The official caption says the picture is of Fidel. On the print itself, someone has written in pen: "Soy yo, Raul." "It is me, Raul."