It reads like that because he only knows basic English. Spanish is his primary language, afterall. As for why he would ask for ten dollars, perhaps it was part of a school project or something. He probably had no delusions about it, nor was he naive enough to think he’d likely get anything. I’m betting he was happy just to get a reply.
ETA: I’m still having trouble reading the whole letter. Could somebody who reads scribble please translate?
Addenda:
About a week or two after the story broke in the US in 1977, Castro acknowledged to American reporters that he indeed wrote the letter. He couldn’t remember the details of why he wrote it, but he remembered being happy that he got a response and that the letter was put up on a bulletin board at school for about a week. It made him the most popular guy in school(in his words).
Copy and paste it in Paint. It is very clear and much easier to read, including the two diagonal hash marks it “sheaps”
Preserving original formatting, spelling and punctuation as far as I can make it out:
President of the United S-
tates.
If you like, give me a
ten dollars bill green ame-
rican, in the letter, because
never; I have not seen a
ten dollars bill green ame-
rican and I would like
to have one of them.
My address is:
Sr. Fidel Castro
Colegio de Dolores.
Santiago de Cuba
Oriente. Cuba.
I don’t know very English
but I know very much
Spanish and I suppose
you don’t know very Spa-
nish but you know very
English because you
are American but I am
not American.
Thank you very much,
Good by, Your friend,
[signed]F. Castro
Fidel Castro
If you want iron to make
your sheaps* ships I will
show to you the bigest
(minas)** of iron of the land.
They are in Mayorí. Oriente.
Cuba.
**minas = mines, Castro kept the original Spanish in brackets as he obviously didn’t know the English word.
In a nutshell, what was the Cuba-America relationship like in 1940? And what was the government and economy like in Cuba at that time?
What about Fidel himself. Was he just a normal boy at that time? Did he come from a wealthy or politically influencial family or anything like that?
You’d be surprised – just about every scrap of paper that crosses the White House threshold is preserved in some fashion. Any document produced in the course of the President’s official duties, from executive orders to thank you letters) is requried by law to be turned over to the National Archives and are considered government property (a product of Nixon’s attempts to withhold documents during Watergate). Every letter received is logged and filed along with its response, and shipped out to the NARA warehouse in College Park.
[del]They didn’t.[/del]
[del]
Thanks for this obviously inside info. I’ve been to the National archives doing research on letters to and from government officials in the 1820 period, and it certainly seems they preserved them all.
Fidel did come from a wealthy family, so if he wanted $10 he almost certainly did not need $10.
As to the Cuban government in 1940, I have only recently been learning about this period as it is not taught in Cuba. In 1940 Cuba adopted a new constitution, modelled on the US constitution and considered very progessive. In 1940 Cuban also held elections, and Fulgencion Batista who had ruled until then as a dictator actually won that election, with support from a coalition of parties, including the Cuban Communist Party (PCC).
Fidel himself in his “History will absolve me” speech, spoke of the period between 1940 and 1952 like this:
“Let me tell you a story: Once upon a time there was a Republic. It had its Constitution, its laws, its freedoms, a President, a Congress and Courts of Law. Everyone could assemble, associate, speak and write with complete freedom. The people were not satisfied with the government officials at that time, but they had the power to elect new officials and only a few days remained before they would do so. Public opinion was respected and heeded and all problems of common interest were freely discussed. There were political parties, radio and television debates and forums and public meetings. The whole nation pulsated with enthusiasm. This people had suffered greatly and although it was unhappy, it longed to be happy and had a right to be happy. It had been deceived many times and it looked upon the past with real horror. This country innocently believed that such a past could not return; the people were proud of their love of freedom and they carried their heads high in the conviction that liberty would be respected as a sacred right. They felt confident that no one would dare commit the crime of violating their democratic institutions. They wanted a change for the better, aspired to progress; and they saw all this at hand. All their hope was in the future.”
Linkhttp://www.ucc.ie/acad/appsoc/tmp_store/mia/Library/history/cuba/archive/castro/1953/10/16.htm