Why is there a photo of me with Fidel Castro in the late 1950's
Once upon a time my bandmates found a picture of me on the internet. Not that surprising; plenty of people have photos of them on the internet, right? It's not super random to have a profile photo from a platform show up on some google search. Plus like, being in a band you get photographed a lot. etc.
The difference is that people don't often find themselves in a photo dated nearly 25 years before they were born, standing next to Fidel Castro.
The origin
The first place this photo popped online up was on an article about 'famous instances of photo retouching in history' - two images side by side show a person on the left holding a microphone up for Fidel Castro on the right. The focus of the image is on the third person in the frame who has been edited OUT of the later editions of the photo - but the person on the left looks like me - and not in a 'kinda' way, in a full-on “why did someone photoshop me into this photo??” way.
Since it was first shown to me, I've done minor research into the origins but can't for the life of me figure out who the person on the left is. The photo itself is of historical significance because the guy who was removed is Carlos Franqui and (as both Franqui and the fervently anti-communist historians tell it [so do with that what you will]) after disagreeing with Castro over supporting the Soviet invasion of (then) Czechoslovakia, Franqui was exiled from Cuba and Castro had Franqui removed from the photo.
Family Portrait with Fidel
Franqui didn't take this well and wrote a book about his falling out with Castro which, well, after a lot of back and forth Della decided she had to buy it for me because - I mean, look at the goddamn cover.
It arrived this morning so I'll be digging in tonight after work but my hopes that the person who looks like me can be identified were dashed almost immediately:
Just another man.
The Second Photo
The date associated with the original photo is suspect; I've seen it listed as being taken in 1958, 1963 and 1965. A few years after the initial photo showed up though, a second photo surfaced online and was sent to me:
This additional photo (despite being significantly better quality) looks to be the same moment as the first but was dated "1969"; this would obviously post-date Franqui's exile from Cuba in '63 so I don't believe that's accurate. Franqui doesn't appear to be in the frame - but the man in sunglasses in the center I believe to be Manuel Urrutia, former President of Cuba who left the country before Franqui in 1959. The guy on the left is still there though and appears to be wearing a similar outfit. Maybe the same one? It's really hard to tell. The first photo it appears he's wearing a leather vest, but the latter looks like a leather jacket.
Anyway, if any historians out there wanna help me ID the dude on the left so I can stop worrying my family that one day I may get unstuck in time and sent back to the 50's it'd help me out a lot.
