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A massively popular tweet (50k retweets) by Ryan Holmquist quotes Fidel Castro

Tweet by Ryan Holmquist on Fidel Castro's death

It reads,

Castro: I will not die until America is destroyed

Trump: I'm gonna be the president

Castro: well then

There are quite a few other tweets along the same lines. You can also see this popular meme going around (over 10k shares)

Meme with the same quote

Did Castro ever say "I will not die until America is destroyed."

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    I find it funny that you are not skeptical about him replying to Trump on Twitter with "Well then". For me, him saying the first quote is just as unlikely to be true. But then, as another revolutionist famously said "The Fourth World War will be fought on Twitter." - Ernesto Che Guevara
    – daraos
    Nov 27, 2016 at 8:06
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    @daraos 73% of statistics on the internet are fake.
    – Russell McMahon
    Nov 27, 2016 at 13:35
  • Also he was 90, not 100.
    – OrangeDog
    Nov 27, 2016 at 15:16
  • Since this question is protected and I can't answer it, I want to draw your attention to Snopes' article on the matter. They say False. "like the earlier Castro "quotes," we found no mention of the statement existing before their deaths." The draw parallels with the Janet Reno fake quote about Donald Trump not being president in her lifetime. snopes.com/…
    – GeoffAtkins
    Nov 28, 2016 at 9:14
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    @daraos well, since the linked post is not a 3 tweet/retweet conversation between trump and Castro, but a single tweet by a guy named Ryan (not me), there is nothing to be skeptical about regarding that conversation. Its obviously a fake joke conversation.
    – Ryan
    Dec 2, 2016 at 20:15

3 Answers 3

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It is not an accurate quote.

Fidel Castro 19 May 1977 said:

Some time ago, the United States was an English colony. If an Englishman were asked if the United States would be independent, he would have said no, that it would always be an English colony. Afterward, the colonies liberated themselves, a nation was established, but it contained slavery. The slave owners would have said that slavery would never disappear, but slavery ended, salaried workers came, capitalism came, it developed extraordinarily, large multinational enterprises developed, and if a reasonable man is asked now if that will be eternal, he will have to say no. Someday the capitalist system will disappear in the United States, because no social class system has been eternal. One day, class societies will disappear. But you can be calm, I do not foresee in a short time any change toward socialism in the United States.

So Castro predicted the United States eventually becoming socialist, rather than being destroyed.

Also, in the same interview he said:

I don't know when I'm going to die, I don't know if I'm going to die tomorrow, tonight, in an accident, from natural causes. I cannot know.

So clearly he did not hold the view mentioned in the OP.

The quote in the OP is somewhat similar to a famous quote by Bolivar

I swear that I will not die until I have driven the last Spaniard out of America

which illustrates the geographically inclusive nature of the term "America" and an additional reason that Castro would not say that "America" would be destroyed.

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  • It was never meant to be an accurate quote. @RyanHolmquist made that up.
    – Sakib Arifin
    Nov 28, 2016 at 17:46
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    @MohammadSakibArifin with Khrushchev having said "Мы вас похороним" ("We will bury you" / "We shall be present at your funeral" / "We shall outlive you" depending upon the translation), it isn't immediately obvious whether or not Castro said something similar to the OP, even given that Ryan Holmquist was just joking.
    – DavePhD
    Nov 28, 2016 at 18:39
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    I had to listen to MANY of Fidel Castro's speeches when I was young, and I don't remember him even once using the word America as a reference for United States (he either said The Imperialism, or The Empire, or simply United States). I do remember him talking about America being the whole continent, from Canada to Argentina.
    – yms
    Aug 18, 2017 at 21:32
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No. It's a rumour. It was first tweeted by https://twitter.com/RyanHolmquist in 25 November after the announcement of Fidel Castro's death. He said in a latter tweet:

So – funny thing chuckles – these people on the Internet, they think Castro said he wouldn't die until America was destroyed? What? Hahhhh

https://twitter.com/RyanHolmquist/status/803086865456889857

indicating that he himself doesn't believe in the quote he posted. He said in another tweet that was posted 23 hours and 50 minutes after the tweet about the quote:

Thanks for making my day, Twitter. I'm truly grateful. Glad we can share jokes –though, I believe compassion is needed today more than ever!

https://twitter.com/RyanHolmquist/status/802750399941869569

indicating that the quote was posted as a joke.

enter image description here

Also, the claim about the quote is rated as false by Snopes.com.

Immediately after Castro died, a joke emerged that Castro had once quipped he would not die until "America was destroyed." Later versions of the were typically accompanied by a photograph of a smiling or laughing Trump.

http://www.snopes.com/fidel-castro-said-he-wont-die-until-america-is-destroyed/

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    Nowhere does he say that the "I will not die until America is destroyed" part is the joke. It could just as well be that the joke is just the idea of Castro dying in reaction to the election.
    – jwodder
    Nov 27, 2016 at 17:06
  • Snopes provides no reference for their position, though.
    – Sklivvz
    Nov 28, 2016 at 16:56
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Most likely the phrase was made up for the joke, then subsequently that's been quoted as having actually being said by Castro.

I attempted a search from the older web (pre 2011) on Google and couldn't find anything outside the joke incorrectly indexed as old. I can't really give a reference for this since it's negative evidence.

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  • A google search URL (coupled maybe with nGram search URL) would be good evidence - at least, better evidence than none.
    – user5341
    Nov 28, 2016 at 4:49
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    @user5341: Better than none, but not up to our standards. Google gives different people different search results.
    – Oddthinking ♦
    Nov 28, 2016 at 8:11
  • @Oddthinking probably n-gram is a bit better, although certainly not complete enough for these usages
    – Sklivvz
    Nov 28, 2016 at 13:27
  • @Oddthinking - in general, true, but an empty set is an empty set, regardless of personalization of search results. Obviously, Google search isn't exactly "proof", but it is "evidence"
    – user5341
    Nov 28, 2016 at 14:46
  • I didn't mean it as proof, but it is certainly weak evidence.
    – Rick Tankard
    Nov 29, 2016 at 9:13

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