Andrea Reminisces About Dinners With Defiant Fidel

“Well, he was so argumentative. I first went in 1999 when there were so many protests against the US at the height of the controversy over Elian Gonzalez, that 6-year-old boy. And we would argue, he would have dinners or meetings or interviews starting at midnight going to 2:00 and 3:00 in the morning so sometimes hard just to keep up with him. And we would debate the politics and the human rights abuses and the lack of free elections, and over the years, I had many interviews with him and he was still combative. He read everything. He had access to the internet, most people here did not back then. And he was a voracious reader questioning me about the politics and the economy in the US. And very, very aware of everything that was going on, very, very smart and very wedded to his revolutionary ideology.”
— Correspondent Andrea Mitchell on NBC’s Sunday Today, November 27, 2016.