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43. Fidel in Wharton
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✥ 43 ✥ Fidel in Wharton Fidel castro has made two trips to Texas. On the first, he went away with money; on the second, with a horse. The second visit was the longest and most public, and it won Fidel the temporary good will of a covey of wealthy Houston businessmen. It was part of a two-week trip that the Cuban premier made to the United States in April 1959, just three months after his revolutionary army entered Havana and overthrew the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista. Castro was still a romantic hero to most Americans then, a freedom fighter who had just come down from the mountains to cleanse Cuba of corruption. His trip was intended to build up good will and reassure Americans that his revolution was no threat to our national interest. He arrived in Washington, DC, on April 15 with fifty fatigue-clad and bearded comrades, nineteen armed bodyguards, and a hundred cases of rum to be used as gifts. His visit was not an official one, as he was not yet a head of state. President Eisenhower went on a five-day golfing trip while Castro was in Washington, but Vice President Nixon met with him for two hours. Castro toured the monuments and Mount Vernon, received visitors at the Cuban Embassy, held a press conference , and had dinner at a Chinese restaurant, where he debated with students at nearby tables. From Washington he went to New York, Boston, and Montreal, stopping to address students at Princeton, Harvard, and the Lawrenceville School, creating a sensation with his beard, cigar, fatigues, and gun-toting bodyguards. Castro’s last stop on that trip was Houston. Lyndon Johnson, then a US Senator, asked the Houston Jaycees to invite Castro so ✥ 169 that Houston businessmen with interests in Cuba could meet with him. They welcomed him enthusiastically. His party traveled by motorcade with a police escort, sirens screaming, from Hobby Airport to the Shamrock Hilton Hotel. They were met in the lobby by a cheering crowd of Houston businessmen, accompanied by their wives and children. Some of the children were dressed as miniature Cuban rebels, in fatigues and waving little Cuban flags. That night the Jaycees gave a banquet for the Cubans, attended by Mayor Lewis Cutrer and the cream of River Oaks society. There is a Houston Chronicle photograph of Castro enjoying himself at the dinner, wearing his fatigues and a Stetson hat presented to him by oilman Frank B. Waters, gesturing with a cigar in his right hand. One of the other guests that night was wildcatter John B. Ferguson, owner of the world’s fastest quarterhorse, Go Man Go, which was stabled at Ferguson’s ranch at Mackay. According to Ferguson’s daughter, Joan Attaway, Castro and Ferguson got to talking horses, and Ferguson expansively said, “If you’re ever back this way come out to my ranch. I want you to have a colt.” Castro said, “I’ll be there tomorrow.” The next morning twenty-five cars full of Cubans, reporters, and police headed out of Houston to Mackay. Ferguson had agreed to meet Castro for lunch at Peterson’s Restaurant in Wharton and then take him to the ranch. Many of the students at Wharton High School, including my cousin Don Middlebrook, cut classes to go to Peterson’s that day. Peterson’s was not a large or elegant place; its specialty was fried shrimp in a basket. Don still remembers the scene vividly. “It was very crowded,” he told me. “There were reporters and a TV crew there. Castro had half a dozen guards with him, their carbines hanging off their shoulders, ready to shoot.” At the ranch, Ferguson’s daughter Joan presented the colt to Castro. “He was very polite, very nice,” she recalled. “My husband, Buddy, and I walked back to his limo with him and he invited us 170 ✥ [54.204.142.235] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 08:56 GMT) to come visit him in Cuba.” As for the event itself, she said, “It was a tornado. We had a lot of horses and those Cubans were on them, riding them all over the place. The police were shoulder to shoulder . There were press people there from all over the world. I was glad to get rid of them.” When Castro got back to Houston, his brother Raúl was waiting for him at the Shamrock. He had flown from Havana that afternoon , the only time he ever came to...