Sir, - The article quoting Forbes magazine (June 25th) carried a front page photograph of President Fidel Castro of Cuba and a statement that he is worth $100 million. On page 15, another photograph of Mr Castro was published with a caption repeating this allegation followed by a report which again repeated this allegation.
The article was extremely damaging to President Castro, to Cuba, to the activities of Cuba Support Group and the activities of the Cuba Health and Education Project in Ireland, to the portrayal of developing countries, among other concerns. It contained not a shred of proof or substantiation and raises serious concerns about the editorial standard of The Irish Times.
Indeed, this article, which got its inspiration from Forbes magazine in the US, states clearly that not even Forbes substantiated its own allegation. Yet, The Irish Times places this "information" on the front page.
We must assume that if The Irish Times had any real evidence that President Castro had accumulated some personal fortune we would have heard about it by now. However, it would be more interesting to learn why it was that President Castro got singled out for such lavish attention over any of the others listed in the Forbes report.
The editorial standard employed in this article was pathetic. Not only did it read like an article from the Sun or the Star, it confirmed a suspicion held by many that The Irish Times has an editorial bias against Cuba matched only by its near slavish attention to, and bias in favour of, almost anything North American.
Cuba Support Group and other organisations have spent years trying to encourage the Irish people to look at Cuba in a reasoned, educated and objective way. The Irish Times has contributed little to the process and this article served only to reinforce negative attitudes. Is The Irish Times now just another mouth-piece for US propaganda? - Yours, etc., Declan McKenna,
Co-ordinator, Cuba Support Group, Merrion Square, Dublin 2.