MIAMI_The death of Fidel Castro has raised uncomfortable questions about the future of his immediate family, a group remarkable both for its size _ at least seven, and maybe up to 11 sons and daughters _ and for how little is known about it.
Except for perhaps two of the sons, Fidel's wife and their other children are largely unknown to Cubans, have held no political jobs and appear to have no ambition of playing a role in the island's future.
But Raul Castro, Fidel's brother, successor and long-time manager of Castro family affairs, will need to take care of them to protect Fidel's legacy and assure their security and economic solvency, according to several analysts.
They will not get top government jobs, the analysts added, but will be allowed to quietly capitalize on their surname so they can earn a living and remain at least publicly loyal to Raul Castro and his successors.
"It would be terrible if Fidel's children started to complain that they were broke, that they had been abandoned by their father's revolution," said a former top aide to Raul Castro now living in Florida.
Fidel Castro left behind such a large family _ a wife of some 50 years and children by several women _ that Miami blogger Emilio Ichikawa once joked made him "a sort of national breeding stud."
His nuclear family in Cuba has seven members: wife Dalia Soto del Valle, the blonde, green-eyed literacy teacher he met around 1961; their five sons; and his oldest son, Fidel "Fidelito" Castro Diaz-Balart, from his first marriage.
Dalia is a "strong person" who rules the family roost when Fidel is not around but has no personal or political power or ambitions, said Juan R. Sanchez, a top Fidel bodyguard for 17 years before he defected in 2009.
"I expect Raul will continue to take care of them, like he took care of the others," Sanchez told El Nuevo Herald, referring to the younger brother's reputation for personally handling most Castro family affairs.
Raul also likely will provide for Fidelito, Sanchez added, "not a front-row job but something in government." He said that Fidelito lived many years in the same Havana apartment building as Raul, and the two get along well.
Dalia and her sons will want to assure their post-Fidel survival, but they lack political muscle and therefore will avoid any possible tensions with Raul, said Delfin Fernandez, an aide to the Fidel and Raul Castro families who defected in 1999.
"They will be more interested in securing the financial legacy of the family _ their opportunities to do business, to capitalize on the Fidel name," Fernandez added in an interview.
Fidel kept his family under a veil of secrecy for decades, saying it was necessary because of the 600-plus alleged plots to assassinate him. The first details of Dalia and their sons became public in 1992, when their oldest son already was about 30 years old. Their first photos were published in 2000 _ in the foreign media. Most Cubans would not recognize them if they saw them on the street.
The names of Dalia's five sons all begin with A _ Alexis, Alexander, Antonio, Alejandro and Angel _ because of Fidel's admiration for the Greek conqueror Alexander the Great. They use the surnames Castro Soto del Valle.
Most of them went to the Lenin school in Havana, reserved for Cuba's elite, and live much of their time in Punto Cero, the tightly guarded compound west of Havana where Fidel, Raul and other senior revolutionary leaders live.
Friends say the sons often call Dalia "ma" but refer to their father as "the professor" because they want to avoid both the unthinkably familiar "papi" and a first name that would be just too powerful to drop in normal conversations.
Fidel insisted his children be raised in the brand of revolutionary austerity that he espoused, and visitors have described his home as far better than Cuba's average yet more modest than the homes of most Latin American leaders.
When Fidelito failed in his role as the head of the country's nuclear-power program, his father not only fired him but publicly blasted his shortcomings. "He was fired for incompetence," the father declared.
Only Fidelito and Antonio, team doctor for the national baseball squad, are known to have regular jobs. Several are reported to have worked in computers and photography, and the youngest, Angel, is said to run a car repair shop.
Yet all have access to goods and benefits out of reach of the average Cuban _ smartphones, home internet access and food stores set aside for the country's elite. At some points they also have been alleged to have traded on their family name to obtain gifts, commissions or other benefits from foreign businessmen and visitors.
The family patriarch also has tried to keep his sons from getting too close to Raul's progeny, who were raised in a less austere environment, according to Fidel daughter Alina Fernandez, now a Miami radio host.
Raul's offspring in fact may prove to be critical to the future of Fidel's family, Sanchez and Fernandez said, because they clearly have political power _ enough to spark speculation that one of them may succeed him.
Raul's only son, Alejandro, is a colonel in the security forces who serves as his father's top national security adviser and heads a government committee on corruption _ a critical but highly sensitive topic on the island.
Described as being almost as powerful and perhaps more ambitious than Alejandro is Raul's son-in-law, Luis Alberto Fernandez Lopez-Callejas, an armed forces general who heads GAESA, the company that administers the Cuban military's multimillion dollar businesses _ from tourist hotels in Cuba to companies in Africa, Europe and Central America.
Fernandez is married to Raul's daughter Deborah. Another daughter, Mariela, is well known as a gay-rights activist, member of the legislative National Assembly of People's Power and head of the Cuban National Center for Sex Education. Little is known about another daughter named Nilsa.
"Fidel's family will be protected as long as Raul is there," said Sanchez. "But after a (leadership) succession, their status may become less certain."
