Fidel Castro Visits Lincoln Memorial

de bene esse: literally, of well-being, morally acceptable but subject to future validation or exception

Taken several weeks after he assumed leadership in Cuba and a month before joining forces with Nikita Khrushchev, Fidel Castro paid a visit to the United States in 1959 and laid a wreath at the Lincoln Memorial. While Castro’s visit didn’t go as well as he anticipated (Eisenhower declined to meet with him on the grounds that he didn’t believe Castro would remain neutral during the Cold War), his admiration for Abraham Lincoln remained strong. While in power, Castro always kept a bust of Lincoln in his office, citing Lincoln’s devotion to “the just idea that all citizens are born free and equal” as a source of personal and professional inspiration.