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Okay, we have a friend, Alicia Zuckerman, who runs Miami's public radio newsroom, and she wrote

recently on Facebook that in just about every Miami newsroom, every vacation weekend and holiday plan has come with the caveat unless Castro dies.

Well, this weekend, the tradition ended along with Fidel. Now, rumors of Castro's death have circulated before. He was rumored to be dead a

couple of years before he assumed power. That is, until a crucial interview in the jungle.

The story goes like this. It's February, 1957, Ruby Phillips, longtime Cuba correspondent for the New York Times, is approached by Castro's

comrades. He wants to give an interview. Phillips declines. Cuba had become her home, and she knew

she'd be deported. At the very least, she'd hurt her access to the increasingly repressive

government of Fulencia Batista.

But she cabled the Times and urged Herbert L. Matthews, former war reporter turned editorial

writer to do it. He'd been there before and was eager for adventure, so he went.

That's essentially where New York Times reporter Anthony De Palma's story takes off, as he relates in his book called

The Man Who Invented Fidel, Castro, Cuba, and Herbert L. Matthews of the New York Times. De Palma told us a few

years back that Matthews was both the best and the worst person for the job.

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