He is, according to one of his biographers, the Energizer Bunny of world politics.
Fidel Castro, 69, still bearded and seemingly in robust health, moves right along, beating his drum for world socialism and the Cuban Revolution, and against the United States' economic embargo of his country.
These are the themes that he will probably speak upon, and probably at great length, in New York during the festivities next ,, week marking the 50th anniversary of the United Nations.
Mr. Castro has been Cuba's leader for almost 37 years and the enduring nemesis of the world's remaining superpower. He has survived the hostility of eight American presidents, beginning with Dwight Eisenhower.
He has shown little enthusiasm for the friendlier overtures of Bill Clinton, his loosening of travel and currency restrictions for Cuban-Americans, or his permitting U.S. charities and relief agencies -- such as Baltimore's Catholic Relief Services -- to operate more freely between the countries.
In the face of it all, Fidel Castro endures. He has survived all attempts to isolate him on his island. In the end, despite a punishing 33-year economic embargo, it is the United States that is isolated, in that it is virtually the only country still adhering to the economic embargo.
"Every Latin American government [except Guatemala and Paraguay] has relations with Cuba, and many are involved in commerce," says Tad Szulc, author of "Fidel: A Critical Portrait."
"The Catholic Church is now involved in efforts to establish a dialogue with him. The American business community is dying to get in before the Canadians and Mexicans beat us out," he said.
It wasn't supposed to be that way. Many diplomats and sharp minds in Washington's think tanks had expected Mr. Castro to be sucked into oblivion when the Soviet Union sank. That event, in 1991, was to do what the Bay of Pigs invasion and the subsequent American embargo failed to do.
But despite the deep recession visited upon Cuba by the demise of the Soviets, the ravages of a hurricane or two, and allegations of drug dealing within the army, Mr. Castro still appears to be pre-eminent in Havana.
So how does he do it? He is a dictator; Cuba knows no democracy. Mr. Castro still has a thousand or more dissidents in prison. He is a communist, seemingly a doomed breed in this age. Americans have been told all this and have dutifully waited for him to fall. And waited.
