This snippet from an NPR report on a Castro visit to Harvard in 1959 seems like vintage Roy for those of us who had the pleasure to know him:

GARCIA-NAVARRO: A bit later, one of the Harvard law students ask Castro, himself a doctor of law, when democracy would come to Cuba.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

ROY SCHOTTLAND: Dr. Castro, Roy Schottland (ph). The postponing of elections in Cuba has been explained by the need for special powers to fulfill your revolutionary reforms. Don’t you feel you would have even greater powers if the people were allowed to speak through the polls?

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Castro responded that the political climate needed for free and open elections did not yet exist. Castro went on to say that it would take time for political parties to develop and that he would wait a few years to hold elections. Castro claimed that he took no pleasure in holding power. He said leading Cuba was a duty, that it was work and that he did it out of love of country, not lust for power.