Cuban rebel leader Fidel Castro, center, questions a man charged with banditry as Celia Sanchez looks on in the background during a trial held in the guerrillas' base in the Cuban mountain range of Sierra Maestra in this 1958 file photo. For a quarter century fellow revolutionary Celia Sanchez was Castro's confidante and closest aide before dying of cancer in 1980. Castro has defiantly forged a Communist state in America's backyard and has weathered the hostility of every U.S. administration since Eisenhower.