So Fidel Castro has finally resigned as president of Cuba, a post he has held since 1976, having previously been a rather powerful prime minister way back to the 1959 overthrow of the hated Batista regime. My old Guardian colleague and predecessor as political editor, Ian Aitken - at 80 a year younger than Fidel - was in Havana for the then-mighty Daily Express when the rebels took the city. Actually Ian was in the hotel pool, but he later got an exclusive interview with Fidel, so Lord Beaverbrook was satisfied.
Foreign visitors seem to be overwhelmed by Castro's charisma (though the late Arthur Miller, no softie, resisted it). But a system which depends on one man ain't a system, so Cuba will become ever-more vulnerable to the revenge of the exiled community in Miami who hate him so. I hope Hugo Chavez is paying attention across the bay in Venezuela.
