Ventura Downplays Worries Over Cuba Trip

Gov. Jesse Ventura says he has enough world experience to avoid being used for propaganda purposes by Cuban President Fidel Castro when he visits the Communist-run island this month for an agricultural exposition.

“For these people that think I’m some babe in the woods, heading to Cuba, and would be totally ... transfixed or misled by Castro, guess again,” Ventura said.

The trip has been condemned by the U.S. State Department and by Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, whose state is home to many anti-Castro Cuban Americans.

“I know what it’s like to be under the rule of a dictator,” Ventura said, describing his Navy years in the early 1970s when he watched Ferdinand Marcos exercise dictatorial powers in the Philippines.

“When Marcos declared martial law, you didn’t hear a peep out of the United States. Why? Because he was a puppet to us.... As long as we pulled his strings, it seems, we’re OK with him.”