Spy conference chews on Cuba, Castro

Say you live in the United States and are fascinated by Cuba. News strikes that Fidel Castro is extremely sick. But the Cuban government classifies specifics of El Comandante's condition as state secrets. How do you get the skinny?

Cuba watchers attending the fourth annual Raleigh International Spy Conference do their best, with a big assist from the Internet. Again and again, they watch the government video of Castro in bed. They note changes in tone from official press releases about Castro's younger brother and acting successor, Raul. They hunt for the origins of dirty laundry rumors about Raul, digging for clues to political rivalries.

Brian Latell, a former CIA officer and National Intelligence officer for Latin America, rejects some of what he finds in cyberspace. He doesn't buy the rumors that Fidel is dead or that the dictator was shot in the stomach, he said. But Latell, the senior research associate at the University of Miami, does see increasing numbers of people convinced that Castro is dying.

"The consensus is that Castro has metastasized cancer in the stomach or colon or intestines," said Latell, author of the book "After Fidel: The Inside Story of Castro's Regime and Cuba's Next Leader?" Latell is keynote speaker at the three-day "Castro and Cuba: The Inside Story" conference, which concludes today.

Humberto Fontova, a New Orleans writer whose family fled Cuba when he was a child, checks regularly on Web sites such as KillCastro.com. The author of the book "Fidel: Hollywood's Favorite Tyrant," said clues that Fidel Castro might be faltering turned up as early as June. For decades, Raul lived in his older brother's shadow. Suddenly Cubans were fed images of the defense minister playing with his grandchildren. "Everyone said: 'Whoops, this is interesting," he said.

Fontova said he is intrigued by voice recordings floating around the Internet, purporting to be Raul Castro. In them, Raul Castro appears to admit that he ordered the Cuban Air Force to shoot down two unarmed private planes in 1996, killing members of an exile group that was trying to disperse anti-Castro fliers. It is not clear if the voice recordings are legitimate.

But to Fontova, they are proof that Raul Castro's enemies are trying to get the United States to go after the younger brother, who officially has only temporary control of the Cuban government. If Raul Castro would be taken into custody by a foreign government, someone else would have to take over Cuba's reins.

Gonzalo Fernandez, a Raleigh resident who fled Cuba in the 1960s, says Americans need to remain concerned about the fate of Cuba, especially as it forges alliances with countries such as Venezuela or Iran.

In an afternoon talk, retired senior CIA official Gene Poteat argued that the Cuban missile crisis -- the 1962 standoff between the U.S. and the Soviet Union over Soviet nuclear missiles secretly shipped to Cuba -- helped accelerate the Cold War arms race.

Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev backed off from firing those missiles, only because he knew the United States was the stronger nation, Poteat said. But that only inspired the Soviet Union to accumulate more weapons.