Epic of the Cuban Doppler-3. Fidel and Rubiera: The Conversation That Kicked It Off

"Cuban Doppler Epic-3" recounts the decisive moment when Fidel Castro, in the middle of Hurricane Iván, ordered the construction of the first Cuban Doppler radar, with Dr. José Rubiera and the engineers of LADETEC (Cuba's weather-radar engineering firm) leading the effort. This chapter reveals the historic conversation in which buying the equipment abroad was turned down in favor of homegrown technology, the enlistment of the Instituto de Meteorología (Cuba's Meteorology Institute) into the Batalla de Ideas (Battle of Ideas, a Cuban state technology-development program), and the technological push that turned a decades-old dream into a state mandate — culminating in the successful development of the Cuban prototype.

"Fidel and Rubiera, the Conversation That Gave the Kickoff" documents the political and strategic turning point that made a decade-old technological dream real. In September 2004, amid the preparations for Hurricane Iván, the Comandante en Jefe Fidel Castro asked Dr. José Rubiera what the country needed to improve its cyclone forecasts. The immediate answer — "a Doppler radar" — set off a momentous exchange: faced with the offer to buy one for a million dollars, Rubiera firmly insisted that the engineers of Camagüey (LADETEC) build it themselves, turning down the option of handing the job to the UCI (Universidad de Ciencias Informáticas, Cuba's computer-sciences university). This episode recounts the tense follow-up meetings with the Comandante's Support Group, where the representative Roly Tellechea tested the team with pointed questions and dismissive remarks about the Camagüey site, though he met a forceful, unified defense from the Institute's leadership. This mission became INSMET's main task within the Batalla de Ideas program, bringing with it an unprecedented technological boost (computers, vehicles, air conditioning, and communications) that pulled the weather service out of the depressed state it had been in since the 1990s. What began as a personal intellectual concern turned into a top-level state mandate, which later enabled the building of the prototype in Camagüey (2012) and the installation of the first series unit at Loma de Casa Blanca, definitively cementing weather radar engineering in Cuba.

The Conversation Itself

Hurricane Iván was closing in. It looked set to cross Cuba somewhere, though just where was still unclear. Long Mesa Redonda (Cuban TV round-table program) news specials were being held; Rubiera barely slept, he'd rest a bit and come back. The Comandante en Jefe took an active part and fired off numerous questions at Rubiera, some frankly unexpected to me, but Rubiera always answered with poise. Sometimes they'd stray from the hurricane itself and talk about broader subjects — meteorological, geographic, or of any other kind — putting Rubiera's erudition to the test.

Suddenly, Fidel asks Rubiera — and what else would you need to improve hurricane forecasts? Rubiera, as if he'd spent his whole life preparing for that very question, said without hesitation — a Doppler radar.

Over the years, watching the Comandante en Jefe talk live on TV with all sorts of people, one learned he was no easy interlocutor. Fidel, a man of vast culture with an extremely high level of general knowledge, had a knack for diving into any subject and asking hard, uncomfortable questions because of how deep they cut — he liked to "put his finger on the wound" and quickly push right up to the edge of human knowledge on the matter. Still, I always appreciated that Rubiera, with great composure, gave him the right answer every time.

Parenthesis closed, let's get back to the Doppler conversation. Fidel asked him how much it would cost. Rubiera told him around a million USD (that was the figure I had in hand at the time; but it was an underestimate). Fidel said —well, we'll buy it. Rubiera didn't stop there and countered —we can build it in Cuba. Fidel, delighted at the possibility, proposed —well then, let's put the UCI (University of Informatics Sciences) people on it. Rubiera, polite but firm —no, Comandante, the engineers from Camagüey have already worked on modernizing the Cuban radars, they can build them. Fidel insists on the UCI, Rubiera won't budge and holds forth on the Camagüey engineers. After that they moved on to other topics. That's how I remember it, grosso modo.

Rubiera, as I already told you in the previous installment, had taken on the role of guardian angel for us ever since the inauguration of the HERMES System in March 1988. He backed me at every turn (I already told the story of how he stood by me at my PhD defense). We had talked about the Doppler many times and spoke the same language, and although we never explicitly said that we ourselves could build it, Rubiera believed in us more than I did and was firmly convinced we could pull it off — he never had a shred of doubt. In my moments of existential wavering I'd picture Rubiera in my mind giving me a shove and telling me —clench your backside and pedal, you all can do it.

A few days later, maybe a week or 10 days on, I was told about a meeting in Havana with one of the guys from the Comandante en Jefe's Coordination and Support Team. That was the first practical demonstration I had of the cross-cutting management method, but there were many more after that.

First Meeting with the Support Group

For me and my colleagues at LADETEC this matter was extremely important — as you saw in the previous two posts, we felt it as something personal and dear to us. We had worked hard on the Doppler business. Still, we were afraid it wouldn't materialize, or that the work would be handed to someone else (and that fear wasn't unfounded — I'll get to the attempts and setbacks we ran into for subjective reasons as we go along).

By the time this happened, Minister Rosa Elena Simeón was already gravely ill (she would die within the month). I had discussed the Doppler with her more than once. In her place, Fernando González Bermúdez, First Deputy Minister, was acting head.

On the trip to Havana, I shared my worries with José Castelló, the CITMA (Ministry of Science, Technology and Environment) delegate for the province. Fernando came from CENPALAB (National Center for Laboratory Animal Production), where he had a strong group of innovative engineers with results in sugar-mill automation, and I thought Fernando might try to hand the task to them. Castelló told me he didn't think that was going to happen.

As it turned out, nothing could have been further from the truth than my fears. Fernando not only never thought of that, he gave me decisive backing throughout the whole Doppler effort, as I'll go on to tell; and he himself cleared away all my doubts from our very first conversation. He told me —Rosa Elena told me about you and asked me to back you and look out for you in this task, and in general, in everything. I can attest that he honored that legacy in exemplary fashion, far beyond anything I could have imagined in my boldest dreams.

Rolando (Roly) Samuel Tellechea, from the Support Group, was the one who ran the meeting. The Commander in Chief never fell short — Roly came to take stock not only of the Doppler matter, but of the entire state of the Instituto de Meteorología, from the stations all the way to the national headquarters on Loma de Casa Blanca.

I (and not only I) didn't like Roly, because of his way of talking — or better said, his somewhat arrogant and disrespectful manner, laced with tasteless jokes.

The first clash wasn't with me. We were talking about "dangerous phenomena." In the setting we were in, it was obvious which phenomena we meant. Even so, Roly asked us to specify "dangerous weather phenomena," which is quite correct (unnecessary, but correct); but right after he came out with something very incorrect — he said, "because a dangerous phenomenon is also a black guy standing on a corner…" Nobody let that one go, they called him out on it and he apologized, but the "joke" sat badly with everyone.

The second clash wasn't with me either, but it was about me and about my group of engineers. Tomás introduced me as Head of the Radar Center and in charge of LADETEC, the group that had developed the automation and modernization of the radars. When Tomás mentioned that we were based in Camagüey, Roly made a "face" of deep disagreement and asked, in a scornful tone (well, that's how it seemed to me, since I was the one on the receiving end) — why does "that" have to be in Camagüey? He got it wrong again, because that stung everyone, not just me. A year earlier, Tomás's decision to put me at the head of the Radar Center based in Camagüey had struck sparks (and rightly so — in Cuba, centralizing something in a faraway province is madness), but in the time since, trampling on my meager modesty, we had earned our place, and people appreciated my effort, always backed by my loyal captains at LADETEC.

I had no chance to defend myself. One after another, Tomás Gutiérrez, Director General of the Institute, Gisela Alonso, President of the Environment Agency, Abel Centella, Scientific Director, Enrique Martínez, head of the Center for Attention to the Station Network… I don't remember, but I know there were others… gave him a royal beating for saying that. Even the invasion from east to west came up (the one led by Gómez and Maceo, and the one led by Che and Camilo). I considered it unnecessary to add anything. Anyway, that first meeting was only meant to take a preliminary survey, which, to his credit, Roly carried out brilliantly — nothing was left out.

The Instituto de Meteorología Enters the Battle of Ideas

The Battle of Ideas (Batalla de Ideas), led by Fidel Castro, officially began on December 5, 1999. This political campaign arose as a mass mobilization demanding the return of the boy Elián González, abducted in the United States after surviving a shipwreck, and it became an ideological confrontation and a matter of national and international public opinion. My colleague, the monster Albio was there from the start. He was at a National BTJ Conference and stayed on in Havana taking part in mobilizations until the end of the year.

The Battle of Ideas evolved after the return of Elián González (June 28, 2000) from a specific campaign for the boy's return into a massive, permanent policy in Cuba. Driven by Fidel Castro, it became a central ideological tool against the US blockade, the Cuban Adjustment Act, and terrorism. The "Battle of Ideas" came to encompass educational transformation, the population's all-around culture, health, and social programs to ensure revolutionary continuity. Numerous agencies received institutional strengthening under this Battle of Ideas program.

So, once the initial diagnosis was made, the Instituto de Meteorología entered the Battle of Ideas Program with the following FIVE tasks requested by the Commander in Chief: 1. Design, manufacture, and assembly of a prototype Cuban Weather Radar (Doppler), which is what gave rise to the program. 2. Design, manufacture, and install 20 automatic weather stations. 3. Create a website for the Instituto de Meteorología that would rank among the best in the world. 4. Build a television studio at the Instituto de Meteorología's headquarters on Loma de Casa Blanca, equipped to broadcast forecasts from that location, and 5. Establish a broadband communications channel between INSMET headquarters and the national television network's central studios.

It falls to me to say, proudly, that the task assigned to us was completed successfully. It's up to others to tell what happened with the remaining four.

In reality, this National Weather System Technological Strengthening program covered far more than that. Starting from the second or third meeting, the task was handed to René Hidalgo Font, also from the Support Group. I'm taking from an old report (surely incomplete) a list of the resources delivered in the first few months: 180 desktop computers, 14 laser printers, 6 laptops (I know it was a lot more, because the two they gave us weren't counted among those six), 66 televisions and 88 radio receivers, 45 refrigerators, 43 stoves, and 68 fans, 204 bicycles, and 2 UAZ jeeps (both went to the radar program, one to Isla de la Juventud and the other to Camagüey). Numerous air-conditioning systems were also purchased, along with modern grounding and lightning-protection systems, line protection, and VHF and HF communications equipment for the stations and the provincial and national centers. Later, many more resources were assigned. It was an enormous boost for the National Weather System, which had been quite depressed after the harsh 1990s.

Building a Doppler

The original task of designing, manufacturing, and assembling the prototype Cuban Weather Radar (Doppler) expanded considerably, culminating in the automation of the La Bajada, Pilón, and Gran Piedra radars and the conversion of the Camagüey mock-up into the industrial solutions installed on all the radars. René Hidalgo, who steered this project with a firm hand from within the Battle of Ideas, understood it very well: the Doppler part was just an add-on to the radar we were already reproducing in the country. Spare parts, measuring instruments, and tools were also bought for all the radars, in addition to the things specifically for "the Doppler."

The commitment to Rubiera and to Fidel was to set up the prototype on Loma de Casa Blanca. Logistical considerations led us to set up the Camagüey prototype instead (back in 2012); but later on we set up the first serial unit on Loma de Casa Blanca (OK, 16 years later — that's the pace our working life ran at) and that was our crowning achievement, because there we used nothing from the old MRL-5 radar (unlike what we had done in the Camagüey prototype), only the antenna's metal structures, a true gem of Soviet-era production.

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Right at that moment, my dream of building a Doppler radar, shared with my engineers at LADETEC, became a national technological bet. For the first time in my 23 years of work, technological innovation came to me as a state mandate from the very top, and not as an initiative born of our own intellectual restlessness.