Dying in bed with boots on

The Castro era nears its end.

The biggest dilemma for any dictator is how to go. That is true particularly for a dictator who seizes power through violence. History has a way of enforcing symmetries of beginnings and endings. Or at least the Hollywood version of history does. In the real world, many if not most dictators leave the stage without a bang.

Fidel Castro was one who did, deliberately. He defied the predictions of nearly everyone from his island’s extensive exile community by ceding power on his own terms and more or less quietly rather than with a revolutionary swan song, for example, by provoking one final reprise of the Cuban missile crisis with an attack on the nuclear power station at Turkey Point, Florida.

It’s hard to say Castro’s denouement was not, indeed, deliberate and planned. Few people know that he corresponded regularly with Francisco Franco, addressing him not as an ideological enemy but as a fellow Galician. Castro asked Franco for advice and kept a photo of him on his nightstand.

Franco went very slowly, using the King as his trustee, and died, calmly, in bed. His country, apart from one or two bumps, moved on. The question became, who would be Castro’s trustee of regime change qua continuity?

It looked for a while that the Church would play that role. Castro did all he could to behave like the dutiful Jesuit schoolboy when he hosted the Pope in Cuba. But the Pope wasn’t interested in being the conspicuous trustee, not least for the benefit of so flagrant an apostate.

Castro settled for the next best option, or at least the most obvious one: his brother Raul. And now, at long last, Raul will rest from his duty.

What is it with these Celtic caudillos? Franco, Pinochet, Castro. They knew a thing or two about the arts of power that others could emulate – for good and for ill.