Fidel had probably always thought of himself as Cuba’s future leader. At school, he fought to become the undisputed leader of his peers, whether by coming in first in a poetry competition in grade school, becoming captain of the basketball team at Colegio Belén, or winning recognition in student politics at Havana University. At the age of twelve, he sent a letter to Franklin Delano Roosevelt to congratulate him on his third inauguration as president and to ask him for a dollar.
