Former Cuban President Fidel Castro says he was misinterpreted when a visiting U.S. journalist quoted him in a recent article as saying Cuba's communist economic model no longer works.
Speaking Friday in Havana, Mr. Castro said he meant "the exact opposite" of the quote contained in an Internet posting by Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic magazine.
Goldberg wrote Wednesday that he asked the 84-year-old former president if Cuba's economic system was still worth exporting to other countries. Goldberg reported that Mr. Castro replied, "The Cuban model doesn't even work for us anymore." There was no immediate response from Goldberg to Mr. Castro's comment on being misinterpreted.
Goldberg recently traveled to Cuba for interviews with Mr. Castro, who discussed subjects that included the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, along with Iran and Israel.
Goldberg was accompanied by Julia Sweig, a Cuba expert at the Council on Foreign Relations.
Sweig was quoted in Goldberg's article as saying Mr. Castro was not rejecting the ideas of the 1959 revolution that brought him to power. Sweig said the comments on Cuba's economic system appeared to be an acknowledgment that under "the Cuban model," the state has too big a role in the economic life of the country.
