Excerpt from Dateline 1958:
When he penetrated the natural fortress of Fidel Castro deep in Cuba’s Sierra Maestra last year,
Herbert L. Matthews of The New York Times had fifty-seven years, three wars
and more than a quarter of a century of writing on foreign affairs behind
him.
The young rebel leader
fighting to overthrow the regime of Fulgencio Batista found his visitor to be a
tall, lean and solemn man with a lofty brow, scholarly and austere in
appearance. It must have soon been apparent to Castro that there was one with
courage, no dry ascetic, who appreciated good talk and a good cigar.
Mr. Matthews, on his part,
gathered material enough to write 7,000 words in three stories, disclosing to
the world that Fidel Castro was not only alive but “fighting hard and successfully”.
Nancie Matthews, his wife
who accompanied him on all save the last few miles of the hazardous journey to
support the fiction that they were a middle-aged American couple on a fishing
trip, later wrote of his return from the jungle: “Herbert looked excited and
triumphant, though utterly tired and unwashed.”
It was as much the
hallmark of Herbert Matthews as was to be the authenticity of the story.
Weariness went with exaltation, first, in 1935 when he covered the Italian
invasion of Ethiopia. Again it came, with deeper understanding, during his two
years in Span on the Loyalist side – “these are the great days of my life,” he
reported then. More great days brought elation and fatigue in frontline
coverage of his action in Sicily and Italy, 1943-44.
Mr. Matthews has himself
explained the motivation that drove a secure editorial writer to undertake so
dangerous a mission as that to the Sierra Maestra. Five years ago he wrote:
“Life and events go on
outside, a los of contact means a loss in authority. You cannot know what is
happening in a given place unless you go there or, if that is impossible, have
direct contact with those who do. If you don’t have some feeling for what you
are writing about, some enthusiasm and understanding, and, perhaps above all,
some participation, it is better not to write anything.”