On Wednesday, while the Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla delivered his speech before the UN General Assembly during the annual debate on the U.S. embargo against Cuba, U.S. diplomat Jeff Bartos was spotted reading the book "The Double Life of Fidel Castro," written by Juan Reinaldo Sánchez, Fidel Castro's personal bodyguard for 17 years.
The gesture, captured on video and shared by international media outlets such as CBS News and Al Jazeera, was interpreted as a symbolic political act of disdain towards the intervention by the head of Cuban diplomacy. Bartos did not provide a public explanation for the reason behind the reading.
The choice of the book relates to Washington's criticisms of the privileges of the Cuban elite. In The Double Life of Fidel Castro, Juan Reinaldo Sánchez describes the stark contrast between Castro's austere public image and a private life that included more than twenty residences, several yachts, a hunting reserve, and the exclusive use of Cayo Piedra. The work also reveals aspects of his family life kept secret and includes the author's accusations regarding connections to drug trafficking. Sánchez was imprisoned after requesting his retirement in 1994 and managed to escape to the United States in 2008. The contrast between austerity and privilege had been one of the main points in the speech by the U.S. Ambassador to the UN, Michael Waltz, the previous day, when he showcased photographs of Fidel Castro's Rolex watches valued at $40,000, Hermès ties, and Montblanc pens belonging to Díaz-Canel.
The episode occurred in a context of heightened diplomatic tension between Washington and Havana. On Tuesday, Rodríguez physically advanced towards the podium while Waltz was speaking and shouted, "You are a liar!", to which the ambassador replied, "This is America. Step back." The president of the General Assembly, Khalilur Rahman, had to briefly suspend the session and order the Cuban foreign minister to return to his seat.
Additionally, a Cuban diplomat, Richard Tur de la Concepción, tried to snatch the phone from Waltz's spokesperson during the altercation, which resulted in his expulsion by the United States the following day.
While Bartos was reading, Rodríguez presented two medications to the Assembly: Pemetrexed, used for lung cancer, which he stated Cuba cannot acquire in the United States due to the embargo, and NeuralCIM, a Cuban product developed for Alzheimer's treatment which, he claimed, U.S. restrictions prevent patients from accessing.
However, the embargo does not impose a general prohibition on exporting medicines to Cuba. U.S. legislation allows for their sale under license, although it is subject to requirements and controls. Therefore, attributing the inability to acquire a drug solely to the embargo requires clarification of the obstacles affecting that operation.
The chancellor also stated that 12,000 children in Cuba are waiting for surgeries and that the survival rate for children with cancer has dropped from 85% to 65%. "We are not talking about numbers; we are talking about lives, opportunities for healing, tragedies, and traumas," he declared before the assembly.
The debate concluded with the most unfavorable vote in history for Cuba on this annual resolution: 130 votes in favor, 17 against, and 25 abstentions, compared to the 165 votes in favor and seven against recorded in 2025, and the 187 in favor with only two against in 2024. Among the 17 countries that voted against were, in addition to the United States and Israel, Argentina, Colombia, Costa Rica, and Ecuador, among others.
The book that Bartos held in his hands was written by Juan Reinaldo Sánchez with the collaboration of French journalist Axel Gyldén and published in English in 2015 by Macmillan/St. Martin's Press. Reading it during a full session of the UN, in front of a chancellor who the day before had engaged in an unprecedented confrontation with Ambassador Waltz, condensed Washington's stance into a silent gesture: while Havana appeals to the suffering of the Cuban people, the United States points to those it considers responsible for that suffering.
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