He remained a controversial future, at once fear and criticized. For hundreds of thousands of americans of cuban descent he , was a symbol of tyranny and oppression. Although normalize relations in in 2015, his death leaves an uncertain future for cuba and its relationship with america. We begin with an update from charlie, who is on the ground in cuba. To deceive. You dont look like you are on the ground, you look like you are way up in the air. Charlie resistance of sadness, has passed a huge footprint in cuba but also someone who is the leader of a small caribbean nation. He had a global profile. Everybody understands that. He was in a sense the poster person for the revolutionary that influenced so many people in latin america. Who wanted to change their own country whether in his image or somebody elses image. That image that he carefully created survived until the day that he died. Even though he was 90. They are set about that. They are sad about that. There are many people who believe that he was a tyrant. But he was doing things that my limited human rights. Things that showed no respect for political opposition. Jeffrey i want to get your memories of fidel castro in a minute. Talk to me for a moment about whether this death has more than symbolic significance. What you can pick up on the street, from the people you are talking to, does this herald a new era of openness or what are you expecting . Charlie i think that will come after raul leaves power in 2018. Then you will have more of a sense of it when both castros will be dead. He is 85. I think he is therefore economic change. Certainly not for political change. We have seen this come up in russia, china, this duality between having to choose if youre going to emphasize economic change, some kind of modified capitalism or mixed economy. Or are you going to change the politics of the company they did in russia. That decision has not been made. Raul castro made it clear that he is opposed to anything that the party would not be in control. I think after he leaves power, you will see a more great reckoning of where cuba will go. Jeffrey what is the most interesting thing your member about fidel castro . Charlie he cultivated his reputation as a revolutionary. He and che cabrera where the poster children for revolution. There were 6 Million People when he took over and 11 million today. He had a global reputation. He made himself into a global figure. The exported revolution of latin america. He was a hero to hugo chavez. And others. At the same time, he was involved in africa to fight wars of liberation. We can forget the cant forget the bay of pigs was a real failure. Then inviting the russians to put Nuclear Weapons in there. About the closest confrontation with have ever had in the history of Nuclear Weapons to a possible dramatic confrontation. That took place between russia and the United States in 1962. Jeffrey one what thing, i am wondering if people in cuba and havana know what is happening in miami. There have been demonstrations and even some celebrations of his death. Im wondering if that is penetrating the consciousness of charlie my guess is that it is. My guess is that they do know. There is a sense of how miami has been connected to cuba since the revolution took place. All the people who went to miami and all of those who come back to cuba now that they have access to come back. A lot of them send money back. I am sure that they are aware of what is happening there. I know that some of them have probably seen the front page of the miami herald. There was a picture of fidel castro that said dead. An entire picture covered the entire front page. It has gotten some attention. They know about dancing in the streets. I heard someone say today, they saw someone dancing who they were surprised to see. It was the son of a friend. Jeffrey the biggest question for you is if raul castro will ever give an interview . Will he ever open up to the American Media . Charlie you cant try any harder than i am trying. [laughter] jeffrey thanks very much for trying. Charlie thanks very much for sitting in. Jeffrey joining me now is jorge dominguez. He is a professor of government at harvard university. With me in washington is a Senior Analyst at the Senior Security our site security archive. Joining me also is is a living scholar on cubanamerican relations. She is a cbs news analyst. Im pleased to have them on this program. Welcome to you all. Jorge, i would like to start with you if you dont mind. When we first heard the news on late friday, early saturday, it struck me immediately that this might mark the end of the 20th century. It has huge symbolic power. Does it have anything more than symbolic power . Does it mean anything for cubanamerican relations . Jorge yes, it is the end of the 20th century. The end of the 20th century came a little too late. Fidel had not had a role in government since he went into the hospital 10 years ago in 2006. One way to think about his significant is really powerful, and how he really did shave many d whoseevents of the worl inheritors we are is to very quickly think back. Supposed he had died in a year, not 2016, but earlier. In 1966, he was preparing to go to start a revolution in bolivia. He was supporting revolutionaries across most of latin america. In 1976, he deployed tens of thousands of troops across the Atlantic Ocean on cuban ships. Nonsoviet ships, to defeat a South African invasion. In 1986, he was the commander in chief of cuban armies in angola and ethiopia. He has a deployed to cuban troops to another dozen countries all over the world. He was beginning to break with gorbachev, who he thought was too much of a reformist. In 1996, he ordered the Cuban Air Force to shoot down two unarmed planes over the streets of florida, and brought president clinton close to that the u. S. Air force should bomb an airfield. By 2006, all of that is in the past. Cuba is now a much less significant country. By the time he dies in 2016, fidel is mainly a symbol of the 20th century. The one bit of impact he continued to have these as a resistor. Someone that did not look well upon president obamas visit to havana in march of 2016. Immediately after obama left, he criticized it in public. Something he had really not done while his brother raul had been president. He became not only assembled but the simple, but the practical containf the attempt to the possible impact of the obama policy change inside of cuba. It has been a important theme in cuban politics and u. S. Cuban relations during the course of 2016. Jeffrey before we go to the issue of cuban relations, i want to come back to the table and ask both of you who knew fidel castro very well. What jorge is elaborating on is a man who was punching way above his weight. My question for both of you is if you could explain the mystery of Fidel Castros relevance. When we start with you julia . Julia i dont think it is so mysterious except that in World History a figure comes along in , history who is much larger than his or her status or country. Jeffrey cuba is a very small country. Julia cuba is a very small country. He has been notoriously ambitious. He took office in 1959 when he was 32. He was in politics since his early 20s. 70 years of putting himself on the political stage in cuba. Doing it in a very highrisk way as well. Jeffrey what was it about him that made him want to insert himself into the course of World History . Again punching way above his , weight . Julia i dont know it was answerable. It was in his dna. He was born that way. He was fixated as a young channel dish as a young child with the United States. The relationship with the United States was formative, not antagonistic. We have letters from him when he writes to fdr as a 12yearold. He came here on his honeymoon. [indiscernible] [laughter] he campaigned in new york city and washington dc to raise money for cubanamericans. Jeffrey was it a lovehate relationship . Or a hatehate relationship . Jorge no, it was an effort to bring cuba out of the thumb of the United States of america. He was insulted how the United States had turned cuba into a playground for the rich and famous. A corporate stronghold, the cubans themselves did not have their own independence for their own selfdetermination. And he let the revolution to make that happen. That will be his most significant recklessly. Test significant legacy. He took a regular sized caribbean island and made it a major player on the world stage far beyond its geographic size and location. It would also help propel him. If in 59, if he had accepted aid from Richard Nixon and begun to be ignored by the trappings of u. S. Power, he would have started to disappear. The antagonism helped him. Jeffrey talk about the legacy of this man. There are a lot of cubanamericans who believe that his legacy, what he will be remembered for is tyranny. How do you feel that the history will be written of this man . You very rarely see a subject who provokes such strong emotion. How do you think this is going to be remembered . When the history of this relationship and revolution are written . Jorge i think your introduction put it well. Your question now reaffirms it. This was a polarizing figure. For some, he was a hero. Or others, he was a demon. That two part assessment should make it a good history book. In 1953, after he was captured, his first major attempt at overthrowing the batista government. I had never seen the original, but the edited transcript of his speech with words that have appeared in a number of obituaries. You can condemn me, it doesnt matter, history will absolve me. In my own sense, i would not also have. Not absolve him. Many of the deeds that he committed were needless acts of abuse of power, of human rights violations, of imprisoning the 1960s forin their crimes of opinion and dissociation. Forholding them in prison very long times, when none of that was really necessary to consolidate power. Jeffrey do you think history will absolve him of some of the crimes he has committed . Julia no. This is a rorschach. If you are a peasant in the countryside of cuba and you are 85 years old today, and you have a daughter or son that is ahead of the ob gyn clinic at the most important hospital in havana, this is not a demon, this is a person who changed you and your familys life. If you are someone that had the property nationalized, their parents put in jail, the dark side of that treatment of the revolution, of course there is a far darker interpretation that does not absolve. It will never be only one thing. Jorge let me breaking for a second. That is why the best thing we can do for anyone who is viewing it is to try to keep these complex and contradictory ideas in mind because they are both true. Jeffrey he will have multiple legacies. No doubt about it. It will depend on the experience that people had with him and in cuba where you stand politically and view the whole issue of socialism and revolution versus capitalism, and the traditional definition of democracy. One of that is david versus goliath, the guy who stood up to the hegemonic power in the region. He really became a hero to a lot of Latin Americans in the third world. I want to be clear that even though people think that his up to is that he stood the United States and defined them to the end, the declassified documents we were able to obtain for our book showed that he up to the United States wanted normale relations with the United States going all the way back to august 1961. Jeffrey our general understanding is that he has not been happening with the normalization process that his brother is undertaking with barack obama. How do you explain that . Jorge it is hard to know. He was 89 years old when he wrote that statement. He may have not liked what obama said. The cuban pressthe cuban press g headline where obama said we should forget the past, where obama actually said we should set aside the past to move forward. Fidel wanted to hold on to the glory of the cuban revolution. Julia he also liked americans. When he was in power and after, he played host to hundreds and hundreds of americans. Jeffrey i should point out he played host to the two of us for a week in 2010. [laughter] Jeffrey Julie and i went with the kennedy family. Are you ordering that he wanted respect and recognition . His talk, looking at he walked but reciprocity he , wanted to be treated as equal. He wanted to be regarded as much larger than the size of the platform of cuba. Jeffrey i need to point out that this is a man who in the cuban missile crisis asked to watch the Nuclear Annihilation of the United States. Julia what did he tell you about that . Jeffrey he told me in 2010 that it was a bit too much, his biggest never mind moment in history. You can say that he liked the United States. Julia he liked americans. Jeffrey he would kill americans in the course of nuking the United States. Julia complex. Jorge let me be the appearance the story in and say that if cuba is attacked by the United States, that would be a preload to a Nuclear Attack on the soviets, and that they should fire first. That is what he said. Jeffrey therefore khrushchev did the right thing by not launching a Nuclear Attack. At the beginning of their terms, saying they would like to have better relations. We want those relations on the basis of Mutual Respect and sovereignty. He did that for two important reasons. One, he was a realist and he knew cuba would be better off not living under the threat of u. S. Aggression forever. Even though he used that politically, he felt that he did not want to have his country treated that way. Jorge i think he did in fact thrive with u. S. Opposition. This is a president of cuba who translated the act that try to consolidate the embargo into spanish and it read over radio had it read over radio and television, it was so scary for ordinary cubans who thought they would be evicted from their homes, it was helpful to fidel to have this kind of u. S. Law. Even though every president since that time, clinton, bush and obama had authority under the law to cancel it. He did benefit from this incredibly stupid behavior. It helped him politically at home. One element of his problemsolving could be involved with a Trump Presidency. No one could be a better ally in policy toward migration is in the cuban government. That is thanks to the agreement that cuba and the United States reached, whereby the cuban surenment tries to make from abody steals a boat cuban harbor. That when the qs coast guard picks them up to florida, the coast guard cutter sails back into a cuban harbor and is well received. If you are dumb of john, looking for an example of unruly the overarching question is this does the obama presageg to cuba dissolution of single Party Communist rule on the island or has it acquiesced to single Party Communist rule . In washington that you hear both arguments, that it has strengthened raul castro, or that this remains impossible for people to remain a close society. When obama went to cuba in march, raul castro was sitting almost in front of him in the balcony. He looked right at him and said what we have been trying to do in cuba for 55 years was not working. It did not work. He came to the conclusion that all this effort to pressure and twist cuba to implode back to revolution did not help anybody. Certainly not the cuban peoples interests. Certainly not the interests in the region. Some people in the cuban government interpreted it that way. We know that the u. S. Negotiating team meeting with the cuban team with secret talks, they arrived at this point of improving relations and said we will move forward with normalizing relationships and changing policies. We think that eventually this will have an impact on your society, culturally and politically. But that is not our goal necessarily. We have a goal to have normal, civil relations. We think it is an cubas best interest. Julia cuba has changed before the obama initiative. 2010, the to proliferation of cell phones, social media, expansion of wifi, each of which seems quite limited, is becoming more and more widespread. Jeffrey it is still very limited. Julia go and find a cuban that does not have a cell phone. It has jumped up massively. In addition to the internets social media, telephone issue. We have half a Million People in cuba off the state payroll who have opened up small businesses, who are accumulating capital, pursuing market capitalism. We have the demographics of cuba changing quite radically. In a problematic way for raul castro, what he needs to do is keep young people with their education on the island. We have cubans traveling back and forward on the island. We have access that didnt previously exist. Americans were visiting there and cubans were coming here. We have a more open society. I have been traveling to cuba for 30 years. It is a more open society in terms of speech and expression in the last 30 years. That inexorably is going to lead to political change and social change already. The idea of a single party, to your initial question, that dates back pre 1959. How does the Cuban National narrative relates to what is coming out of washington . Let me frame the question this way do you think that in five or 10 years that if the openness continues, do you think that in five or 10 years that if the openness continues, does single Party Communist rule continue . Or will it be inundated . Will it undermine the bay of pigs . By fidel castro was a smart man he went the who had the pulse of the people of cuba. He understood the obama visit in march very well. The reason he was worried and the reason he criticized the obama visit and the reason he made sure that t