Home > News > Report

Castro wanted $10 bill

June 17, 2004 16:38 IST

'Never I have not seen a ten dollars bill green American and I would like to have one of them.'

A written plea by a 12-year-old Cuban boy to an American president in 1940.

The White House, which had an office to deal with the President's correspondence, replied.

Much to the little boy's disappointment, there was no $10 bill in the envelope.

Later American presidents must have rued the day Franklin Delano Roosevelt ignored the request -- the boy, Fidel Castro, came to power in Cuba 19 years later and has been the cause of much grief since to American presidents.

In 1975, according to The Times, London, Castro told a reporter he became a hero at school when his letter was acknowledged. The school posted the reply on the notice board for a week.

Castro's plea was among the thousands of letters children wrote to various US presidents over the years.

Several of these letters, which evoke a range of emotions, are now on display at the US National Archives and Records Administration.

One letter from three girls in Montana begged President Eisenhower to save Elvis Presley's famed sideburns. 

'My girlfriend's (sic) and I are writting (sic) all the way from Montana. We think its (sic) bad enough to send Elvis Presley in the Army, but if you cut his sideburns off we will just die!'

Unfortunately, there was not much Eisenhower could do about it. The much-loved sideburns vanished under a regulation army haircut.

 


Article Tools
Email this article
Top emailed links
Print this article
Write us a letter
Discuss this article





















Copyright © 2004 rediff.com India Limited. All Rights Reserved.