By DOUG CLIFTON
             Herald Executive Editor

             and DAVID LAWRENCE Jr.
             Herald Chairman

             HAVANA -- In a six-hour ``conversation'' with 32 American editors, Cuban
             President Fidel Castro denounced the U.S. embargo, boasted of his country's
             social programs and chastised the press for reporting that, he said, was too often
             ``not objective.''

             In turns jocular and scolding, whispering and shouting, the 72-year-old
             self-described ``revolutionary'' seemed to revel in the opportunity to address a
             delegation from the American Society of Newspaper Editors, an organization
             before which he made his maiden speech to the American public in 1959.

             Dressed in crisply pressed green fatigues -- his ``working clothes'' -- and armed
             with a stack of reports and newspaper clippings, he launched into long, detailed
             answers to 15 questions. The longest response was 55 minutes. Despite its length,
             it never addressed the question posed.

             Castro's bearing is erect, his energy seemingly without limit. The only signs of his
             advancing age are the liver spots on his hands and face, the gray that flecks his hair
             and beard, and the obvious kinks he shook off as he rose from his chair at one
             point, after four solid hours of talking.

             He began the session with a warning.

             ``I have no time limits,'' the legendary marathon speaker said. ``You can stay here
             as long as you want and until you get bored.''

             Much of what the Cuban leader told the editors, he has said before. His principal
             revelation was that Cuban officials have arrested a second suspected hotel
             bomber, a Salvadoran he identified as Otto Rene Rodriguez Llerna. He was
             dispatched to Cuba on a bombing mission, Castro said, at the direction of Luis
             Posada Carriles, the accused terrorist who had claimed responsibility for a spate
             of hotel bombings last summer.

             The arrest was made after Posada admitted to a Herald reporter that he had
             enlisted a Salvadoran mercenary in the earlier bombing plot, which caused the
             death of an Italian tourist.

             Posada, Castro said, was emboldened by the article. He said the would-be
             bomber was intercepted by Cuban agents, who had Posada under surveillance.

             In trademark fashion, Castro answered no question directly and often eluded a
             question in its entirety.

             Asked why the Cuban people were not able to purchase or read foreign
             newspapers or magazines -- something Castro does voraciously -- he talked
             about the global economic crisis, the evolution of interest rates in the Clinton
             administration, the International Monetary Fund and Playboy magazine, which he
             briefly noted was ``pornography'' and not fit for Cuban consumption.

             Among the subjects he addressed:

               Press coverage of Cuba: ``All reporters are not exactly the same,'' he said.
             ``There are times when activities of journalists have had nothing to do with
             journalism. If I were certain objective reporters would come to Cuba and not be
             biased beforehand, we would [allow U.S. news bureaus to be established].''

             He complained about some of the unflattering coverage during Pope John Paul II's
             visit to Cuba in January. He acknowledged that Cuba has problems but said it also
             has ``good things to write about.''

             Castro said he reads a daily digest of world press coverage. He pointed to a
             Saturday report of 271 pages, 46 of them with news of Cuba.

               The embargo: A familiar theme for Castro and most Cuban officials. Castro was
             especially animated on the subject Saturday. ``Our conditions for ending the
             blockade are that it will end without conditions or it will last forever,'' he said with
             rising voice and pointed finger. The United States, he said, has ``assumed the role
             of Goliath and we of David, and the world will always be in favor of David.''

             Castro said he is convinced that President Clinton personally opposes the
             embargo but that he is bound by political considerations to maintain it. Those
             considerations, he said, were driven by the Cuban American National Foundation,
             which he repeatedly referred to as ``the mafia.''

             With one of the many touches of defiance expressed during the long afternoon, he
             said, ``Cuba is not losing the battle. Cuba is proving that you can do much with
             very little.''

               The pain of a two-currency economy -- dollars and pesos: He called the
             situation ``very painful. We would have preferred never to establish these
             differences.'' But he said permitting dollars -- and building a tourist industry -- was
             necessary after the Soviet Union collapsed seven years ago, pulling $5 billion
             annually from the Cuban economy. He said the crumbling buildings along Havana's
             waterfront Malecon ``make me so sad.'' But he said the nation badly needed hard
             currency. ``The tourists will not stay in these crumbling houses. They will not
             come. We have no other alternative.''

               The Pope's visit: He described the pontiff as ``sincere and impressive'' and
             recalled him ``walking with difficulty. I saw a man fulfilling his duties with great
             personal sacrifice. The Pope inspires affection and respect.''

             ``I am in favor of ecumenicism,'' Castro said. He spoke of growing up in a
             ``religious home, although I regret that we were taught to hate other than
             Catholics.'' He said he admired the Pope's ``outreach to the poor and his criticism
             of the consumer society. We coincide on many things,'' but not all, he said.

               On baseball: Referring to Livan Hernandez of the Florida Marlins and his
             brother Orlando ``El Duque'' Hernandez of the New York Yankees, Castro said:
             ``We didn't send them; you stole them. If you have to compete for $6 million
             versus 3,000 to 4,000 pesos [$150 to $200], you cannot win.'' Maybe, he said,
             ``we can send a team to the major leagues and demonstrate the quality of our
             players in Cuba.''

               Thinking of retiring? ``Do you think one has the right to retire in the midst of
             such a struggle? As long as I have the necessary energy to be useful and I have the
             mental energy and they [other leaders] ask me, I will be here,'' he said.

               Power: ``I am not married to power. To me, power is not money. I hate
             individualism and selfishness. I don't own any property.'' Here he showed off his
             $30 Seiko watch. He spoke of giving away -- anonymously -- gifts he had
             received, and keeping only his books. ``I will never lie to the people. I have never
             done this, and I never will.'' Later he added: ``I have never been overtaken by
             vanity.''

               His own integrity and that of his ministers: He was clearly angered by a Forbes
             magazine list that indicated he was worth $1.5 billion. ``What right do they have to
             write such slander?'' he said. Not ``a single minister or high official'' has ever been
             proven to have stolen anything. ``Not a single Cuban functionary has a bank
             account in dollars. Whoever steals a dollar from the state would never last a single
             minute in his position. We don't want to make ourselves rich; we want to make our
             people rich.''

               The Cuban exile community: He argued that most South Florida Cuban
             Americans are ``immigrants'' not ``exiles.'' He said, ``Eighty-five percent of those
             who came to the United States did it not for political reasons, but rather for
             economic reasons.'' He said the first wave who left Cuba, beginning in 1959,
             included many in or allied with the previous government of Fulgencio Batista. He
             spoke of ``war criminals and torturers who left Cuba with their money.''

             That was followed, he said, by ``another wave affected by the revolutionary laws
             -- people who thought that the revolution wouldn't last very long. Tens of
             thousands of these people.'' They included, he said, many of the country's
             professional and managerial classes, noting, for example, that half of Cuba's 6,000
             doctors left in the early years of the revolution. He said, ``Let us do our revolution
             with those who want to stay in the country.''

             If the revolution were to be ``destroyed,'' he said, ``90 percent of those [Cubans]
             in the United States would stay there.'' Most in Miami ``would not abandon their
             businesses or wages.'' He used other countries -- El Salvador and Nicaragua -- as
             examples where people stayed in the United States after a war ended. ``Those
             from Vietnam do not return no matter how sweet the relations with the United
             States might be.''

               The Pedro Pan movement: When 14,000 unaccompanied children were sent to
             Miami in the early '60s, he said, ``we never told even one parent that they could
             not take even one child.'' He called the movement ``a crime against humanity'' and
             said the children were ``practically kidnapped.'' He said parents expected to travel
             to Miami shortly afterward, but the October 1962 Cuban missile crisis intervened
             and flights were suspended for years.

               The rafter crisis: He angrily chopped his right hand and said it was ``unfair to
             blame Cuba. We are not the ones who oppose people leaving the country.'' He
             decried the ``contraband in persons organized in the United States. The United
             States should try them, and they should abide by the laws of the United States.''

               What happens after he's gone: ``The day I die nothing is going to happen, and
             perhaps things will be even better.''
 

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