HOW was the meeting? That was the first thing that Fidel asked upon greeting one by one the foreign guests invited to the International Colloquium on the Bicentenary, organized by Casa de las Americas: Carmen Bohórquez and Walter Martínez of Venezuela, Atilio Borón and Claudio Kats of Argentina, Pablo González Casanova, Ana Esther Ceceña and Beatriz Stolowicz of Mexico, Manuel Monereo of Spain and Marcia Leiseca, vice president of the Cuban institution that had brought them together in Havana.

The dialogue immediately moved on to the most newsworthy and significant event in the region: the two speeches, very closely connected in essence, which were made the previous evening by Hugo Chávez and Evo Morales, each one in different settings. The former, during the meeting convened by the Venezuelan National Assembly in response to the international ultra-right forum that had taken place a few days previously in the U.S. Congress; and Evo’s address to the cream of the hemisphere’s armies, including the U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, who were meeting in Santa Cruz de la Sierra for the 9th Conference of Defense Ministers of the Americas (CDMA).

Both leaders, in their own particular styles, had caught the Comandante’s interest, who followed them via television and press reports. "Evo was phenomenal. Chávez headed up a zimbombazo (tremendous bombshell)…" he commented, adding that he would have to send thanks to the Loba Feroz (the Big, bad wolf, the Cuban nickname for Ileana Ros-Lethinen) for the political lack of taste that provided an opportunity to show our peoples and the world the nature of imperial strategies against leaders of the left in the region.

Still in the anteroom of the meeting, Haiti was the other issue of common interest, prompting in this case the most distressed comments. Fidel called their attention to the 2,153 dead and more than 60,000 infected with cholera – according to UN figures – which is leading to a "colossal disaster" in that sister nation. He described as shameful the fact that not one word of this drama was mentioned in meetings like the NATO Summit in Lisbon, "where they are talking about cannons while in Haiti thousands are dying en masse."

Atilio Borón added another political element: pressure on the part of Americans and Europeans who, in the midst of that critical humanitarian situation, have gone there to tell the Haitians that "there is no reason to postpone the elections."

"A country where more than 250,000 people have died…" questioned Fidel, who minutes before had conveyed to the guests the impressions that he is constantly receiving from Cuban health brigades in that country, more than 700 including doctors, nurses and technical personnel.

They have been joined by 193 graduates from the Latin American School of Medicine (ELAM) representing 18 nationalities, among them many Haitian doctors, part of a formidable force of 500 health professionals trained totally in Cuba.

Cuban collaboration in that country has been constant since 1998. In the wake of the earthquake, and the more recent cyclone and epidemic, the accumulated experience of more than 10 years has made it possible for the Cuban Medical brigade to move beyond the limits of in-patient treatment and reach victims living in parks, in tents and any of the improvised spaces left behind by the disaster.

That has made it possible that while the overall death rate in the country is currently six deaths per 100 people, they have barely a 1.1 percent mortality rate. "Really, with our people the only ones who die are those who are almost dead already."

The U.S. and European pretension of forcing elections there this Sunday, despite those conditions was described by Fidel as "something very strange," part of the uncertainty that rules in today’s world. "I wanted to talk with you about that, so that you can tell me what you think…," he explained.

And he once again highlighted as "two spectacular events" in the midst of this world situation, the speeches by Hugo Chávez and Evo Morales the previous day. "That’s the best thing that has happened," he said, noting the context of meetings like the G20 in Seoul, or the NATO Summit in Lisbon. "They have come up against a rebellion, particularly in the wake of the NATO agreements and the statement on the right to intervene anywhere in the world."

As on other occasions, Fidel talked to his friends about his passion for constantly keeping abreast of events, the possibility of which has been notably extended by Internet, given that one can find within minutes data that would take months to locate in a traditional library. Then he noted that, due to the blockade, Cuba is suffering from a ferocious censorship in relation to fiber optic cable connections, programs and services on Internet.

In the context of his searches to ensure exact dates and other information which he regularly makes use of in his "Reflections," Fidel traveled back in time to the October Missile Crisis, which he believes is what cost Nikita Khrushchev his presidency. "And Kennedy was the one who received the greatest fright…," he added, a comment supported by historic evidence in the form of a visit from the French journalist Jean Daniel, who was meeting with Fidel when the news came through on the radio of the assassination in Dallas. Kennedy had asked Daniel to ascertain from the Cuban leader if he had realized how close things had come to a nuclear war and to report back to him on the reply.

Fidel recalled that it was not Kennedy who invented the Bay of Pigs aggression, the assassinated president was going along with what was plotted against Cuba by Eisenhower and Nixon. "And The New York Times knew all about it and never published a word." Hence the value of confirming historical evidence.

Adding other anecdotes related to the same theme, Fidel said that, for a while, he was deceived by an enormous 800-page biography by Pierre Salinger, which advanced the theory of a sole gunman involved in the death of Kennedy: Lee Harvey Oswald.

But Fidel’s doubts increased, given his experiences when he was in Mexico preparing the future revolutionaries who came to Cuba aboard the Granma yacht. The geometrical methods that he used to train them in the use of guns and particular those with telescopic lenses, meant that he knew that while a very high precision shot can be made with a supported weapon, it is not possible to immediately repeat the shot with a hand held gun, as Oswald is supposed to have done, and much less so if it is a moving target.

Walter Martínez contributed an astonishing fact to the conversation: the current record for that kind of firing is held by a sniper within the U.S. troops in Afghanistan who, in November 2009 hit a national combatant located at a distance of 2.47 kilometers.

The real possibility of the fact that we are in an era in which there are weapons capable of sending missiles into space that can reach more than 20 times the speed of sound, took up a number of minutes of a conversation in which the invited figures contributed valuable analyses.

As Pablo González Cassanova affirmed at the end of the three-hour interchange during, it was "an immensely enjoyable afternoon." After questions and comments from the guests in a warm and relaxed atmosphere, the leader of the Revolution offered a number of other reflections, of which a synthesis follows:

Was it obligatory for Spain to join NATO under González? What would have happened if he hadn't done so, when the supposed left won? Now they are caught up in it. The Greeks were given a beating; the French uprisings; the British and now the Irish. The latter hadn't said anything about what they were going to do, while everyone knew they would have to ask for a loan of 80 billion euros. Spain said that isn’t going to ask for anything, Portugal neither. No one knows, however, how they are going to maintain their budget deficits.

He is intelligent, expresses himself well, but is more dangerous now that there is a race in the United States to see who is more right-wing. He’s going to compete now, too. He's thinking about what happened to Clinton and Reagan, who lost popularity and then made gains in the polls when they ventured into a confrontation. What is Obama going to do next? A war?

I have seen a certain tendency toward optimism. Being optimistic is not prohibited, but I prefer to be realistic given the current international situation, now marked by the confrontation between the two Koreas and in the midst of a profound economic crisis. It reminds me of what Alan Robock – the U.S. scientist who visited us – said. He spoke of a 'state of denial.' What could happen is so terrible that people prefer not to think about it. The 'state of denial' is generalized.

It's not that I want a war, absolutely not. On the contrary. I think, however, with realism and I see that a handful of madmen are on the loose playing Russian roulette. Does anyone know what the Israelis will do? What is going to happen with Iran? What will occur in Pakistan? And there are other questions: why did the CIA protect Bin Laden? They knew that in September of 2001, he was in a military hospital in Pakistan (in Rawalpindi), for dialysis. The CBS journalist Dan Rather reported it and I found out about it from Michel Chossudovsky, editor of the Global Research website.

Michel Chossudovsky opened our eyes to something that I didn't know: NATO – Germany and other members – have tactical nuclear weapons. The definition of tactical nuclear weapons implies a power that ranges from a third of the one dropped on Hiroshima to six times the strength of that bomb. And they talk to us about 'decriticalizing', lowering the critical mass of the nuclear weapons to, supposedly, make the stockpiles safer.

When they say this, I think of Harry Truman, who was a tremendous cynic, since he knew full well what he was doing when he attacked a defeated Japan with nuclear weapons. He knew that the war was about to end and rushed ahead to use the atomic weapon. On August 6, 1945, he dropped the first bomb on Hiroshima. It was a uranium one and it obliterated the city. Three days later, he dropped the second, of plutonium, on Nagasaki. How the survivors suffered, with the radiation! And more than 100,000 died instantly with each bomb.

I remember when Khrushchev tested a 50-megaton bomb, in the northern polar regions of the Soviet Union and the radiation spread everywhere. It was the largest bomb ever detonated at the time. He, nevertheless, said that there was an even more powerful one: he called it a 'weapon of total destruction.' There has been no more talk of this weapon, neither has the cobalt bomb been much discussed. History can be ugly, don't you think?

Alan Robock has proven that a confrontation between India and Pakistan, in which 100 of the weapons possessed by these countries are used, would be enough to create an eight-year nuclear winter. He talked with us during the days in which the Japanese Cruiseship for Peace also visited. The Japanese spoke of how aggrieved they felt as a result of what was done to them. The United States has a government hated by the greatest, most diverse, number of people in the world.

They have signed an agreement to reduce the number of nuclear artifacts to 1,550 – the United States and Russia – but what difference is there between 1,550 and 500, if a nuclear winter can be created with 100 and nothing would be left. I am warning: I know that the Russians and the Chinese are worried about this; the news agencies don't publish a lot about what people think. I am holding onto the hope that nothing will happen. But what is the likelihood that, at any given time, a nuclear bomb could be unleashed?

As a result of the accord signed by the super-powers during the Clinton administration, the yankees agreed to build a nuclear electrical power plant in North Korea, which would have cost three billion dollars at that time, to produce 800 megawatts of electricity. One year before I became ill, we were immersed in a great battle to save electricity. The price of nickel was up and we bought 30 million highly efficient light bulbs from China which we sent to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, which had always offered us its solidarity. Do you know what those light bulbs meant? Koreans saved the equivalent of more than two nuclear plants like those promised by the U.S. in previous agreements. Around 2,000 megawatts. The North Koreans worked hard to distribute those light bulbs. The U.S. was playing with Korea during that nuclear power plant experience. Now, they cannot frighten the Koreans, they will never again intimidate them. And not the Iranians either.

The U.S. is also playing with Pakistan, which is supposedly its ally, but they don’t even inform it when they’re going to bomb within Pakistani territory. They do so after having launched the bombs. They're afraid for them to know beforehand. It's dirty politics and they've reached the limit.

Do you believe that the United States can save the world? The U.S. can't even count on Israel. It lives under constant blackmail from Israel, which they have begged for three months now to stop building new settlements in Golan, and they're giving Israel 20 F-35 [fighter aircraft] while they have promised 20 more. The U.S. is selling Saudi Arabia 60 billion dollars worth of weapons, possibly up to 90 billion, for weapons which are inferior to those that the Israelis have. They may be useful for military training purposes, for parades or something like that.

There is another, even more serious problem that we have to consider. Are the planet's resources well distributed when we have countries with an excess of resources and others lacking land and water? We are headed for 10 billion inhabitants in 40 years. We are held hostage to this partitioning of the world carried out by the conquerors of the planet and who converted more than a few countries into colonies. What globalized world are we talking about?

As if there were not enough complications already, reports have recently begun to appear talking about anti-matter. I said to myself: What's this? Even more problems? Much has been said about the Big Bang, and about how the virtually infinite quantity of matter seen in the universe emerged from that great explosion. The Big Bang, never before questioned, is now being doubted. Now there is talk of how at the beginning there was matter and anti-matter and one of these, matter, predominated, but that scientists have managed to create particles of anti-matter which last up to one tenth of a second. So you see where the new theories are headed, there's no need for you to worry about getting bored. Nevertheless, I would propose you think about another great question: How will the great crisis the planet is experiencing be resolved?

I knew Saddam Hussein. When he was secretary of the Party and wasn't at war with anyone. Later, however, he got involved in an unjust war against Iran, using chemical weapons supplied by the United States. When he occupied Kuwait, we tried to persuade Saddam to withdraw from that country. I told him: The yankees are going to invade Iraq, there won't be anyone able to help you. Iraq is not Vietnam; Iraq is a barren desert. No one could even get a weapon through. Give the territory back. I even sent him a letter with a delegation headed by José Ramón Fernández.