Fidel Castro visits the United States, four months after his guerilla army took charge of Cuba. The trip, labeled a "Good will trip", was part of Castro’s publicity victory lap after toppling the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista. touring the city with all the swagger of a rock star.
News cameras had stalked the young revolutionary as he toured the city and held babies, ate hotdogs and tossed peanuts to elephants at the Bronx Zoo. At one photo-op, he was pictured next to a group of American schoolchildren wearing fake Castro-style beards. By then, he had not made his political leanings public, although there were suspicions of his communistic leanings. Fidel Castro met with high-ranking U.S. government personnel during the trip, most notably Vice President Richard Nixon on April 25 at the Capitol. While President Eisenhower avoided a meeting by golfing in Georgia, other officials, including acting Secretary of State Christian Herter, met with him. More
