In the Dark

Beard Liberation Front

Media Release

26^TH November

Keith Flett 07803 167266

Campaigners pay tribute to Fidel Castro, ‘most iconic post-1945 beard wearer’

The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has paid tribute to Fidel Castro, who has died at 90, as the most iconic post-1945 beard wearer.

Castro, like Che Guevara, did not always have facial hair but grew a beard as his politics moved to the left in the 1950s.

Subsequently his beard came to be seen as a symbol, worldwide, of opposition to US foreign policies in the 1960s

A 1975 US Senate Intelligence Committee heard that in the 1960s the CIA believed that if Castro’s beard fell out this would undermine his standing with the Cuban people. Plots were hatched to put thallium salt in Castro’s cigar or his shoes which would have caused his beard hairs to fall out.

The plots were…