Well written historical overview and general biographical sketch of Herbert Matthews, the reporter from the New York Times who climbed into the Sierra to interview Fidel Castro on 17 February 1957. The front-page interview, photograph of Matthews and Castro, and facsimile of Castro Ruz's signature gave lie to the Batista government's claim that Castro had been killed. That propelled the barbudos into the maelstrom of history that saw them walk into Havana in January 1959; De Palma makes the point that barring that interview 'Castro could have triumphed without Matthews, but then history would have been different. What Matthews did was invent the image of Fidel Castro that at first captivated and then infuriated most Americans. Before Matthews showed up, Castro was a man, a rebel, a hero. What Matthews did was invent Fidel as an idea, a conception that could remain elusive, always changing, unknowable, unfathomable, and, therefore, in the end, undefeatable.' [p.281]

De Palma writes well. In this book, he has written a serious study of an important historical figure that has remained a peripheral, yet necessarily included, part of the Castro story and the Cuban saga. Herbert Matthews reported on the Italian invasion of Abyssinia in 1935, on the Spanish Civil War, on WW2 (he had been detained by Mussolini's government at the War's outbreak, and returned to report on the Allied invasion of Italy). His stories on Castro's guerrillas (three were printed) were sensations.

For the rest of his life, until 1977, Matthews was hounded by his coverage of, and reporting on, Cuba. He was blamed for helping Castro to power (wrongly); he was condemned for being sympathetic to Castro (correctly: he was sympathetic); he was cursed for being a Communist sympathizer (inaccurately; De Palma shows that rather than becoming a Communist Castro forced Cuba's and other Communists to become Castroites).

Over time the Times exiled Matthews from the news pages, eventually forced him out of the paper by eliminating his usefulness (at one point Matthews was both a reporter and an editor), and let him walk away from 44 years of employment as silently as possible. De Palma shows how both the Times and Matthews were actors in this tragedy, never failing to show that Castro was also an actor in the banishing of Matthews from fame and acclaim. Castro has tried to depict his fooling Matthews into thinking the guerrillas had hundreds of soldiers, rather than the couple of dozen or so they actually had. Fidel Castro, as much as the New York Times, used Matthews for his own purposes.

A fascinating historical narrative, this book deserves the fame it, and others of its kind, never receive. ( )