FIDEL CASTRO to US PRESIDENT FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT

November 6th, 1940
In November 1940, 13 years before spearheading the revolution which would ultimately see him replace dictator Fulgencio Batista as leader of Cuba, a teenage Fidel Castro – aged 14, not 12 as he misclaimed – wrote a somewhat cheeky letter to the then President of the United States, Franklin D. Roosevelt and asked him for some money – a $10 bill, to be precise. Some time later, he received a standard reply from officials; sadly, his request for cash fell on deaf ears, as did his offer to reveal the whereabouts of Cuba’s largest iron mines. Young Castro’s priceless letter was rediscovered in 1977 by specialists at the National Archives and Records Administration.

Santiago de Cuba
Nov 6 1940

Mr Franklin Roosvelt,
President of the United States.

My good friend Roosvelt I don’t know very English, but I know as much as write to you.
I like to hear the radio, and I am very happy, because I heard in it, that you will be President for a new (periodo).
I am twelve years old. I am a boy but I think very much but I do not think that I am writing to the President of the United States.
If you like, give me a ten dollars bill green american, in the letter, because never,
I have not seen a ten dollars bill green american and I would like to have one of
them.

My address is:
Sr Fidel Castro
Colegio de Dolores
Santiago de Cuba
Oriente Cuba

I don’t know very English but I know very much Spanish and I suppose you don’t
know very Spanish but you know very English because you are American but I am not American.

(Thank you very much)
Good by. Your friend,
(Signed)
Fidel Castro

If you want iron to make your sheaps ships I will show to you the bigest (minas) of iron of the land. They are in Mayari Oriente Cuba.