I’m interested in where Fidel Castro gets the dough to shore up his bankrupt regime. Can you illuminate? — Robert Henry; Los Angeles, California

In the wake of the collapse of the USSR, which bankrolled him to the tune of $4 billion a year, Castro has turned to Hugo Chavez, Marxist President of Venezuela, the world’s fifth largest oil exporter. In addition to shoring up Castro, he’s funding revolutionaries and terrorists throughout Latin America.

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First thing’s first. The USSR officially collapsed in December of the year 1991. Venezuela elected Hugo Chavez president in December of the year 1998.

That’s an, um, seven year lag. How’d he float his way through those years?

I once heard an NPR report, circa 1994, that Cuba more or less had legalized Prostitution (which is to say it was illegal, but the government looked the other way) so as to bring in extra tourist dollars. Is that what that sailed Castro through all those lean years?

Next, I ponder the difference between the money proferred by the old Soviet Union, which fancied itself a Super Power, and the amount of money that could possibly be proferred by Hugo’s Venezuela, which fancies itself something like a hedge against super powers (ie: USA) — not a Super Power.

And just what is the power-relationship between Castro and Chavez supposed to be? Is Chavez the man in charge these days of the whole , with Castro simply a sort of Left wing Elder Statesman and Spiritual Guide? (Or do we just kind of blur them into one inseperable entity?)
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UPDATE. 10-13: I’m not the only person to have noticed this letter.

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