‘It’s not my fault that I haven’t died yet,” Fidel Castro shoots back at me with a droll smile. “It’s not my fault that the C.I.A. has failed to kill me!” I had made a cautious foray around a delicate subject. Isn’t he tired of playing David and Goliath with his superpower neighbor? “Isn’t it time to retire?” I ask, beginning a troubling silence that ends with Castro locking eyes with mine. “My vocation is the revolution. I am a revolutionary, and revolutionaries do not retire,” he says, “any more than writers.” And then he laughs.

It is, as the government documents proclaim, Year 36 of the revolution. Moscow has fallen. The Eastern bloc is in ruins. His own country is in economic free fall. But Fidel Castro continues to proudly trumpet socialism.

“I feel like it all began yesterday,” he says. “You could say that from the time I was 19 years old I have been engaged in an intense struggle. For 48 years. And in spirit I feel just like I did when I began. Some people say I am stubborn, but in reality I have been tenacious, persistent. I think that if I could live my life over again, I would do things exactly the same way.”

I think of the recent spate of purse snatchings in old Havana, of the buildings crumbling along the Malecón, and remind him of Thomas Jefferson’s recommendation: a revolution every 20 years. Castro admires Jefferson, but the words don’t sit well. He shakes his head. “I think it is better to have one every 300 years. Life needs to renew itself,” he says. “I am not here because I have assigned myself to this job for a lengthy period of time. I am here because this job has been thrust upon me, which is not the same thing.” He leans forward, his face close to mine. “There are times when we really cannot be masters of our own destinies.” Does he see his life as a calling or mission? “No, I’ve never thought that. I can say that I have enjoyed a certain privilege—like people who live to be 100—not because anybody planned it but because of an accident of nature.” Have the Western media demonized him for four decades? Is he a devil? He smiles. “If that is the case, then I am a devil who has been protected by the gods.”

Castro has suggested that he doesn’t care how he will be remembered. “I feel no fear about myself personally. Glory and my place in history do not worry me. All the glory in the world can fit into a kernel of corn,” he said, invoking the 19th-century Cuban patriot José Martí. “More people know about Napoleon because of the brandy than because of the battle at Austerlitz. We should be more concerned about the fate of ideas than the fate of men.”

“It has been my fate to lead a life full of fascinating events and experiences.”

On January 1, 1994, Fidel Castro celebrated the 35th anniversary of his Cuban revolution, having outlasted eight American presidents, assassination attempts, the collapse of his Russian patron state, and a daily barrage of predictions heralding his imminent demise. And although he has told close friends that he will retire if the U.S. embargo is lifted, it does not seem likely that this formidable man will be disappearing from the world stage anytime soon. Cuba may be the last chapter of the Cold War, but judging from the awesome vigor of Castro, it looks to be the longest. Dressed as always in a crisp olive-green uniform and black combat boots, the imperially tall Castro seems younger than his 67 years. The trademark cigar is gone (Castro gave up smoking eight years ago in order to serve as a role model), but age has brushed him only vaguely: his hair and beard have grayed, a few sunspots dot his long, elegant hands. Only his mouth, with dry lips of purplish gray, truly betrays time’s passing.

We discuss the most recent Clinton imbroglio—the president’s alleged Arkansas girlfriends. Castro is faintly amused. “But look at how machismo works in Latin America,” he says. “There are many countries where it is a good idea for the candidate in order to be elected to have a lot of girlfriends, where being a womanizer is a virtue.” As he speaks, his empathy for Clinton seems to grow. “It’s an interference in his personal life,” he protests. “A violation of his human rights. Or is love not human?” Then he laughs. “Anyway, it has no logic,” he says, summoning his legendary gallantry. “Clinton’s wife is a beautiful woman.”