Fidel Castro, Cuba's fiery revolutionary patriarch and an international icon of rebellion, resigned as president on Feb.
19, 2008, in a letter in La Granma, the state run newspaper in Cuba. "I will not aspire nor accept -- I repeat I will not
aspire or accept, the post of President of the Council of State and Commander in Chief," he wrote.
Mr. Castro became ill in 2006, underwent surgery and has not been seen in public since then. Questions persist about his
recovery and he has looked gaunt in photographs.
When he was hospitalized in 2006, he handed power to his younger brother Raśl Castro, his defense minister and closest
confidant. Crowds in Havana on May Day 2007 watched along the parade route for a glimpse of their longtime leader but saw
only Raśl and other Communist Party officials.
After overthrowing the dictator Fulgencio Batista, Fidel Castro entered Havana on Jan. 8, 1959, a bearded guerrilla leader
in his early 30s riding on an open jeep. Allying Cuba with the Soviet Union, he taunted the United States for decades, surviving
the attempted invasion at the Bay of Pigs in 1961 and an economic embargo imposed by Washington. At home, he has ruled with
an iron hand, jailing opponents and keeping a tight control over every aspect of government.
Mr. Castro has held power longer than any national leader other than Queen Elizabeth. His personal control over a Communist
revolution made him perhaps the most important leader in Latin America since its 19th century wars of independence. The continent's
current anti-Yankee chief, Hugo Chįvez of Venezuela, has declared Mr. Castro to be his ideological godfather.
