FIDEL CASTRO TAKES MANHATTAN

MORTIMER ZUCKERMAN, THE REAL estate and publishing magnate, was throwing a typically glamorous luncheon at his Fifth Avenue apartment. Gathered at one table were takeover maestro Henry Kravis, billionaire Laurence Tisch, New Yorker editor Tina Brown and her husband Harry Evans, the head of Random House, along with some luminous stars of TV journalism–Diane Sawyer, Mike Wallace, Peter Jennings and Barbara Walters. It was a pretty predictable guest list for this crowd. But there was someone sitting at the same table who does not make a regular haunt of Fifth Avenue apartments. Uncharacteristically dressed in a suit, his beard a thinning shadow of its former self, Fidel Castro, 69, nibbled on gold-embossed cookies, told jokes and held forth on everything from elections to heaven and hell. High above Central Park, the absolute leader of Cuba was excellent company, if a little long-winded.

Last week Fidel Castro took Manhattan. He was in town along with leaders of scores of countries to join in the 50th-anniversary celebration of the United Nations, but somehow he became headliner of the show. He received more than 200 invitations, including one from a woman in New Jersey who wanted to hold a barbecue for him. He dined with the Rockefellers, lectured blue-blood investment bankers and stopped by Time Inc., the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. Castro even made the front pages of the tabloids when he–like Yasser Arafat–was declared unwelcome at several parties by New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani. The snub simply ratcheted up awareness of Castro’s presence, once again proving that there is no such thing as bad publicity.

The purpose of Castro’s p.r. offensive–and his dapper new suit–was very specific. He desperately wants the U.S. to end its 33-year-old trade embargo. With no more subsidies from the Soviet Union, the Cuban economy has almost ground to a halt. Normalized trade with the huge market 90 miles to the north would make all the difference in Cuba’s fortunes, and the unfairness and foolishness of the embargo were the themes Castro returned to again and again. His suit, meanwhile, conveyed an aura of reasonableness that military fatigues, Castro’s usual wardrobe, do not.

The strategy seemed to work. At least five major newspapers ran editorials questioning the value of the embargo. Businessmen, many of whom are eager to go into Cuba, also seemed sold. Dwayne Andreas, head of the agricultural giant Archer Daniels Midland, attended the Rockefeller dinner and was impressed. “These communists used to be ideological crusaders,” said Andreas. “But the communists of 1995 are managers of businesses. Fidel talked like the general manager of AT&T. Even his language is that of a businessman. He was talking about his working capital requirements, his depreciation problems, his repair problems.”

Not everyone, however, was so pleased. Demonstrators followed Castro around, calling out, “Assassin!” Jose Cardenas, the director of the Cuban-American National Foundation in Washington, said, “How dispiriting for Cubans sitting in misery and squalor to see Fidel feted in New York by the powers that be. His acceptance by them could have set back the prospects for freedom and democracy in Cuba by five years.” Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Jesse Helms vowed to renew efforts to make the embargo even tighter.

There is little chance that it will be eased very soon–Bill Clinton will not want to risk the votes of the fiercely anti-Castro Cuban-American community in Florida. But no matter how bad Castro’s record on human rights and democracy may be, there is momentum in that direction. Clinton has quietly relaxed some travel restrictions. The embargo is cruel, say those who oppose it, and with the end of the cold war, it is a relic. Trade with Cuba, they argue, would open the country up to democratic influences.

On the world stage Castro is himself something of a relic of the cold war. At lunch in the Time & Life Building, he spoke with animation of the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, sounding a bit like an aging star reliving his most memorable role. He told TIME’s editors two little-known facts about the crisis, one never previously recorded. He said a lone Russian commander in Cuba–not Nikita Khrushchev or anyone in Moscow–held the authority to launch tactical nuclear weapons in case of a U.S. invasion. Castro also claimed that Khrushchev inadvertently read him a letter sent by John F. Kennedy to the Kremlin during the crisis. In the letter Kennedy promised to quietly withdraw U.S. missiles from Italy and Turkey if Khrushchev would remove the missiles from Cuba. It has long been known that Kennedy made the offer concerning Turkey, but mention of Italy was new.

The visit to New York lasted five days, the maximum Castro could get on his U.S. visa. He joked that he will not return until Giuliani fixes the potholes in the road from the airport. But the briefness of the trip probably worked to Castro’s benefit. He flew off with the press still curious and businessmen eager to head to Havana. As another show-biz adage has it: always leave them wanting more.