Fidel Castro

Cubans waited hours in line for tickets, packed Havana's cinemas and watched with rapt attention as "The Lives of Others," a chilling account of East German secret-police repression of communism's doubters, arrived in the Cuban capital last month. Was the debut of the Academy Award-winning film two years after its release another signal that Cuba's Communist leaders are open to reform?

Almost 50 years after he seized power, Cuban leader Fidel Castro said in a published message early today that he will not return to lead the country. "To my dear compatriots . . . I communicate to you that I will not aspire to or accept . . . the position of president of council of state and commander in chief," Castro said on the Spanish-language website of the Communist Party's Granma newspaper.

Cuban leader Fidel Castro's decision to step down as head of state after nearly half a century could signal the passing of power to a new generation and fresh hope for the island nation through economic reforms. Tuesday's resignation letter, which includes candid disclosures about his flagging health, was an unequivocal indication that the 81-year-old revolutionary is choreographing his own succession and leaving on his own terms.

No one familiar with Fidel Castro's oratory and ego is surprised that his autobiography runs more than 600 pages and concedes neither error nor excess during his nearly 50 years ruling Cuba. What has surprised analysts has been his conciliatory approach to some of his erstwhile adversaries, including Presidents Kennedy, Clinton and Carter, the latter of whom he termed "a man of honor, an ethical man."

For Cuban exiles and emigres who have been waiting for Fidel Castro's departure for decades, Tuesday's announcement that he was retiring as president was greeted with more cynicism than jubilation. "As far as I'm concerned, until they can show me a body in a casket, I'm never going to believe this is over," Eddie Lopez, an exterminator and U.S.-born Cuban American, said as he made his pest control rounds in Miami Beach.

Fidel Castro's resignation as Cuba's president arrived on a long-awaited yet disappointing day for U.S. leaders who unsuccessfully worked for decades to help bring about his government's collapse. Almost from the time Castro seized power in 1959, U.S. leaders have shaped their policies around their confidence that the communist regime on Florida's doorstep soon would give way to a democratic and pro-U.S. government. Yet Castro has survived the assassination attempts, a tightening U.S.

Without Fidel Castro as president, Cuba is more likely to launch reforms to boost food production, create oil industry jobs and put more pesos in citizens' pockets, analysts said Wednesday. Some changes, probably starting with efforts to help farmers, are likely to occur during the next year, some analysts said.

Years ago, Heberto Padilla, the Cuban poet, was made to apologize in public for criticizing that country's revolution, thus becoming a symbol of censorship and intolerance in the island. Thanks to international pressure from people like Susan Sontag, he was able to leave for the United States; he told me once during a conversation that if Fidel Castro dies, Cuba will quickly be annexed to the United States, becoming the 51st state. "I'm sorry the Bay of Pigs was such a failure," he added.

Cuba's parliament signaled Sunday that the status quo of a stunted state-run economy and strained relations with the United States will persist for now as it named Raul Castro to replace his ailing brother, Fidel, as president and chose another aging revolutionary as the nation's No. 2 leader. The selection of Raul Castro, 76, to head the Council of State had been widely predicted, as he stood loyally by his brother's side throughout a 49-year rule.

Vivien Lesnik Weisman counted herself among that rare breed -- a Cuban American not interested in politics -- when she started to make a documentary about her father, a quixotic revolutionary-in-exile. In the opening of her new movie, "The Man of Two Havanas," the fledgling filmmaker minces no words about Max Lesnik's comrades, including Fidel Castro, and the lost causes he has championed under both communism and capitalism.