Odds and ends

• Tonight at 9:15 on the Sundance Channel (late notice, sorry), “638 Ways to Kill Castro,” a 2006 British documentary about attempts over the years to do away with Fidel. New York Times review here. The subject brings to mind this item in a Newsweek obituary of William F. Buckley: “After a coup plot against Indonesian strongman Sukarno failed in 1957, Buckley wrote in the National Review, ‘The attempted assassination of Sukarno last week had all the earmarks of a CIA operation. Everyone in the room was killed except Sukarno.’”

• In the Wall Street Journal, Brian Latell speculates about the relationship between Fidel and Raul, leadership politics, and challenges ahead.

• The Herald covered Cardinal Bertone’s interview and interpreted it as meaning an exchange of dissidents – as opposed to fugitives or anyone else – for Los Cinco. The inference is not so clear to me, and it’s “cryptic” to an Italian friend who did me the favor of reading it, but fortunately you can look for yourself. The Vatican’s English version is here; the omitted question to the Cardinal was, “Public opinion was expecting some step in favor of the political prisoners. Did you talk about it?” Ernesto, at Penultimos Dias, sees things differently; the Cardinal was “scandalously clear,” he said. If the Cuban government ever raises the issue of an “exchange” in public, we’ll find out.