The Legend of Cuba's Alberto Korda Still Resonates

The Unforgettable Cuban Photos!!

     The incomparable Alberto Korda took this photo of Chi Guevara on March 5th in 1960, 15 months after Fidel Castro and Chi Guevara had shocked the world by leading the Cuban Revolution to an astounding victory over the US/Mafia-backed Batista dictorship in Cuba on the first day of 1959. The photo soon became the most reproduced photo in modern history, even adorning numerous millions of walls in U. S. homes and college dormitories as well as millions, or billions, of cups, clothes, billboards, and other ubiquitous places and edifices worldwide.

   Born in Havana on September 14, 1928, Alberto Korda died in Paris on May 26, 2001. In his lifetime he took millions of photos, many of them quite noteworthy and newsworthy, but his iconic photo of Chi Guevara has made him perhaps the most famous photographer in history. While he was immensely proud of his Chi photo, Korda spent his final years wondering why, among all of his great photos, the image of Chi is the one that the world most admires and cherishes.

   For example, both before, during, and after the Cuban Revolution, Alberto Korda took thousands of great photos, many of them from rural Cuba where he chronicled the dismal lives of peasants, especially children. One day after spending the day in the Cuban countryside, Korda returned to his studio in Havana and developed that day's photos. When he got to see the photo shown above, he studied it for a long, long time until tears streamed down his face. The gushing tears were his first emotional reaction to his photo that day of a little Cuban peasant girl standing in her doorway proudly holding a block of wood that she lovingly pretended was her doll. Korda kept staring at the photo long after he began crying. He would later say, "The little peasant girl was so beautiful but what really will touch my heart till the day I die was her sheer honesty. Yes, she made that block of wood look so awesomely beautiful and important too." Yes, this photo was  the one that made Korda cry. Was it also his greatest?

   But the world has established that Alberto Korda's greatest photo was the one he took of Chi Guevara on March 5th in 1960. Below are two of the YouTube videos about the historic and incomparable Alberto Korda photo of Chi Guevara:

     But the great Alberto Korda also took many superb photos apart from the historic one of Chi Guevara, as shown in this YouTube video:

      From strictly a historic standpoint I believe that one of the most important photos that the great Alberto Korda ever took is the one below. Study it and I will explain it.

     This photo was taken by Alberto Korda on April 16th in 1959 in Washington, D. C. That was when Korda flew to the United States with the two revolutionary Cuban icons Fidel Castro and Celia Sanchez. It was a massively historic visit, or at least it should have been. Please note that the date of April 16th in 1959 was just a little more than three months after the overthrow of the US/Mafia-backed Batista dictatorship by the Cuban Revolution. The Korda photo shown above shows rebel leader Fidel Castro speaking to Christian Herter, then the U. S. Secretary of State. The woman leaning in to hear exactly what was being said was Celia Sanchez, the prime Cuban decision-maker and the person who persuaded a reluctant Fidel to make the trip to the U. S. so soon after the revolution took over Cuba. And they stayed in the U. S. for 12 days in April of 1959 because Celia wanted Fidel  to be able to tell the U. S. government and especially President Dwight Eisenhower that Revolutionary Cuba wanted to have friendly trade & political relations with the Uniited Stattes and that Revolutionary Cuba would soon have honest and democratic presidential elections and that the U. S. and the UN could both monitor the election very closely. And, although Celia believed the super rebel hero Fidel would get 9 out of every 10 votes in any honest 1959 election in Cuba, she had instructed Fidel to promise the U. S. that he would not run for election and would instead return to being only a lawyer.

    Of course, since 1959 those who deny the explanation above about the Celia-Fidel 12-day visit to the U. S. in April of 1959 are lying to correspond with their decades-old narratives that benefit powerful forces in mighty Miami and Washington, not in little Cuba. And, of course, those who lie about that very historic Cuban visit to the U. S. in April of 1959 also lie about the historic Castro-Herter photo shown above.

      As you study this vastly historic Korda photo  of Fidel  Castro with U. S. Secretary of State Christian Herter in Washington in April of 1959, permit me to explain why it should be honestly interpreted by history ALTHOUGH it is not. After Fidel met Herter it is known that Celia expected Fidel to be allowed to meet with President Dwight Eisenhower because, before she had finalized the U. S. visit, she had been told that Fidel would be allowed to meet the President. And, yes, both the U. S. State Department and the Society of U. S. Newspaper Editors had assurred Celia that the Fidel-Eisenhower meeting would take place and that is why Celia persuaded Fidel to make the trip. But she was lied to, as the three famous photos listed below prove.

       As mentioned, Celia Sanchez orchestrated Fidel Castro's 12-day visit to the U. S. in April of 1959 because she had been told that Cuba's new rebel leader would be allowed to meet U. S. President Dwight Eisenhower. That turned to be a tragic lie. Instead, as shown above, Fidel met the U. S. Vice President Richard Nixon. With Nixon arranging photographers and reporters to register the photo-op, the brief but historic meeting took place in Nixon's doorway. It drastically concluded the lie to Celia Sanchez and it has drastically affected US-Cuban Relations from April of 1959 to July of 2025!! 

     At the exact moment shown above, as planned, Nixon told a perplexed Fidel these words: "Your visit, Mr. Castro, was both wasted and useless. Your revolution will be overthrow within a few weeks, at our choosing. So there is nothing more to say about your visit to Washington. We will allow you to fly back to Cuba. So just give us credit for that." And, YES, Fidel understood English very well as he had earlier proved for a famous half-hour during that visit when he had appeared on the top U. S. news program Meet the Press, which, if you dial it up on YouTube, will prove my point.

    This last historic photo about that tragic Fidel-Nixon meeting in Washington in April of 1959 shows Fidel, totally unafraid, leaning back with a strong grin on his face as he absorded Nixon's boast that the Cuban Revolution would be overthrown "within a few weeks, at our choosing." Not concerned or worried about Fidel's reaction or expression, Nixon is then shown merely in a political pose for the cameras that he hoped would improve his political fortunes. After this historic vivit, Fidel indeed "returned" to Cuba where he lived as a revolutionary icon till he died peacefully in Havana at age 90 in 2016. Nixon later lost his own presidency for being "a crook."

     And to prove that Fidel clearly understood the English words that Nixon threatened him with, when Fidel earlier had been quizzed on Meet the Press, the top news program in the U. S. at that time, Fidel spoke English. Shown below is Fidel Castro's historic appearance on Meet the Press on April 16, 1959:

      The historic Fidel Castro half-hour on Meet the Press in April of 1959 was used by Fidel to inform the U. S. people and the U. S. government what his revolutionary victory would change for both Cuba and for the island's post-Batista relations with the United States. You might want to click the arrow above and listen to what he said.

     This historic Lee Lockwood photo crowns the Castro-Nixon saga that occurred in Washington in April of 1959. This photo shows Celia  Sanchez on that 12-day visit to the U. S., a visit that she orchestrated in its entirety because she knew revolutionary Cuba needed good peaceful trade relations with the nearby superpower U. S. The photo above shows Celia in the hallway of a U. S. hotel. This was before she knew about the double-cross to Fidel in Washington. Once she did know, it was HER who had the DEFINITIVE reaction: "Nixon and the United States tried to kill me, Fidel, Camilo and the others for five years during the revolution's war and now during the three months after we won. They are liars and cowards, so now they will have to try those same things again. Let's see what happen. We rebels are not easy to kill...or to lie to."   

    When Celia Sanchez and Fidel Castro arrived back in Cuba after their Nixon-marred 12-day visit to the U. S. in April of 1959, it was still Celia, with Fidel's 100% concurrence, who was the key decision-maker in Revolutionary Cuba. Lying about that fact has been a prime factor in the tragic state of US-Cuban Relations since 1959. Lying about Celia Sanchez's primary role in the Cuban Revolution and in Revolutionary Cuba is tantamount, I believe, to maintaining those lies from the 1950s to July of 2025.

     Before, during, and after the victory of the Cuban Revolution over the Batista/Mafia dictatorship on January 1 of 1959, the top rebel decision-maker in Cuba was Celia Sanchez, the petite doctor's daughter. That was true because Fidel Castro worshipped the ground she walked on and, even if he sometimes didn't fully agree with her, he always --- yes, ALWAYS -- supported her decisions 100%!!! 

      This famed photo was taken at the prime rebel campsite in the Sierra Maestra Mountains during the war as the rebels tried to keep the camp location unknown to Dictator Batista who had U. S. bombers flyiing desperately overhead trying to locate it and bomb it. In this photo Celia Sanchez was studying battle plans for the next day while she held a candle so Fidel Castro could read a Ernest Hemingway novel. Next day, Celia's battle plans would be fully supported by Fidel.

      After the triumph of the Cuban Revolution over the Batista dictatorship, this Lee Lockwood photo again is an example of Celia Sanchez, shortly after waking up one morning, diligently writing down laws for Revolutionary Cuba. Again Fidel Castro was leisurely relaxing barefoot in his rocking chair with his slippers nearby. Once he read her new laws, he would 100% support them. And, please understand, major laws that Celia Sanchez wrote still remain laws in Cuba to this day and nclude prime guidelines such as Committees for the Protection of the Revolution on each urban block, The Federation of Cuban Women, etc., etc. {Two other rebel female warriors -- Vilma Espin and Haydee Santamaria -- were prime collaborators with Celia Sanchez both during and after the revolutionary war}.

Vilma Espin, Celia Sanchez, Haydee Santamaria.

     This historic photo was taken during the war. It shows the always studious Celia Sanchez and her dear friend Vilma Espin. Fidel Castro worshipped Celia and Raul Castro quickly married Vilma in late  January of 1959 right after the victory by the Cuban Revolution. This photo was taken by Dickey Chapelle, history's greatest female wartime photographer.

     Working for the top magazines of the time -- Look, Time, and National Geographic -- Dickie Chapelle took famous photos from the battlefields of World War II, the Cuban Revolution, and the Vietnam War. She was killed in 1965 on a battlefield during the Vietnam War. She took the aforementional wartime photo of Celia  Sanchez and Vilma Espin -- the most historic and revered female Cuban revolutionaries.

     A U. S. officer mourning the body of Dicky Chapelle on November 4th in 1965 on a battlefield in Vietnam. This photo was taken by the AP war photographer Henri Huet.

     The superpower U. S. government and a biased U. S. media, of course, have always denied that Celia Sanchez was the top decision-maker in both the Cuban Revolution and in Revolutionary Cuba. That is because it has always been more appropriate for the U. S. government and the U. S. media to ascribe those powers to Fidel Castro. Yet, it is true that, with Fidel Castro's total support, Celia Sanchez indeed was the top decision-maker in both the Cuban Revolution and in Revolutionary Cuba. Celia Sanchez died at age 59 on January 11th in 1980 in Havana of lung cancer.

      It is true that lying about the fact that Celia Sanchez was solely responsible for 1959's 12-day visit to the U. S. by her and Fidel Casttro tragically impacts both Cuba and the United States. Even now in July of 2025 there remain convenient lies about the photo shown above...when Vice President Richard Nixon replaced the promised President Dwight Eisenpower so it would be Nixon who met Fidel in Washington in April of 1959. It was a historic double-cross that Celia and thus Fidel never forgot, and it remains a double-cross that resonates, tragically, from April in 1959 till July of 2025.

     The prime catalyst for the outcome of the Cuban Revoluion and for the longevity of REVOLUTIONARY CUBA was and is Celia Sanchez. She died from lung cancer at age 59 on January 11th, 1980. But she till this day in 2025 still speaks for her Revolution with historic quotes such as: "Tired old rebels like me, I reckon, are out-gunned and out-numbered. But we still don't get to write it."  She was not fond of the Batistianos, the Americans, and the historians. But most of all, as indicated by her historic quotation below, Celia Sanchez mostly hated "creedy cowards and liars."

*&*************************&*