Columbia Journalism Review, www.cjr.org, July 31, 2002

CUBA: WAITING FOR FIDEL'S FINALE

By Alina Tugend

Every six months or so, Vanessa Bauza, one of the few American
correspondents in Havana, gets a call from her editors. A rumor is again
sweeping through the Miami community of Cuban expatriates: Fidel Castro is
dead. Bauza, a reporter for South Florida Sun-Sentinel and the Tribune chain,
checks it out. It's not true - again.

For the four American media organizations with permanent offices in Cuba -
The Associated Press, CNN, The Dallas Morning News, and Tribune Company
- the main job often seems to be keeping their fingers as close to Castro's
pulse as possible. "There is a sense of a deathwatch," Bauza says. "It's very
much something I'm aware of."

But even as she says that, she follows immediately with a disclaimer, as do
other American reporters on the island. Cuba is a country of great stories.
"We're not all sitting around twiddling our thumbs waiting for the big man to go
to the sky," Bauza says.

Still, CNN's Lucia Newman says she once had to jump in her car and drive
twelve hours, from one end of the country to the other, to check out Castro's
health once again, as she often has over the last five years. Castro was fine.

All the Cuba reporters remember June of last year, when Castro apparently
fainted and was helped from the stage two hours into a speech. "People were
sad and shocked and scared," says Anita Snow, who has been the AP's Cuban
correspondent since 1998. "It's the first time he showed physical
vulnerability." Reporters saw Cubans stumbling out of their houses sobbing.
And they could almost hear the cheers from Miami.

On May 1 Castro gave, for him, a relatively short forty-five-minute speech to
the hundreds of thousands gathered at Revolution Square for the annual May
Day rally. Even in the broiling sun, Castro, at seventy-five, looked fit. And later
that month, when Jimmy Carter came to visit, Castro's energy appeared
undimmed.

Cubans like to talk and like to complain. About no meat at the bodega. About
housing problems. About long lines for the bus. About the American bloqueo
(sanctions). But when it comes to politics, they often go quiet. This is
especially true when it comes to imagining a future without Castro, who has led
the country since 1959. In fact, they don't like to say "death" and "Castro" in
the same sentence. "They say, 'when Fidel ceases to exist physically,'" says
Tracey Eaton, correspondent for The Dallas Morning News. "Or, the
'biological solution.'"

Reporters on the Cuba beat say editors and producers don't seem as hungry for
their stories as they did a few years ago, when the first American reporters
returned after twenty-eight years out in the cold. But every newspaper has a
plan in place to deal with the ultimate big story - Castro's death and the
aftermath.

They all decline to reveal any details, except for Bauza, who half-jokingly
outlines her plan: "I pick up the phone," she laughs, "and say, 'Send help.'"