Chronology

At the José Martí International Airport he bids farewell to Commander Faure Chomón, the first Cuban ambassador to the USSR.

Visits BANSESCU (Banco de Seguro Social de Cuba-Social Security Bank of Cuba) where a great round table is held to discuss the problems with social security and to improve services provided by that institution. He receives a cheque for $ 110,103.41 from the Federation of Cuban Women, money obtained at the Great Pro-Agrarian Reform Fair.

Gives the closing speech at the Extraordinary Congress of the National Shoe Manufacturing and Tannery Workers` Federation and its affiliates, at the Workers` Palace. Among the many topics with which the speech deals, he says: `Neither the monopolies or imperialism can destroy our Revolution, nor can a counter-revolution do well in our country. And, nevertheless, they keep on promoting stupidities".

He speaks at a mass meeting in the Manuel Sanguily agricultural cooperative at the Ciego de Avila municipal terminal, Camagüey, where 98 peasant homes were handed over.

Travels to the US to take part in the UN General Assembly.
He is welcomed by a crowd at New York Airport. At his arrival he is greeted by the personal delegate of Dag Hjalmar Hammerskjöld, UN Secretary General.
His accomodations are at the Shelburn Hotel.

He is visited by the journalist Herbert Matthews and his wife.
Upon instructions from the State Department, the Hotel Shelburn management asks the Cuban delegation to leave the premises.
Fidel and his entourage set up camp on the grounds of UN Headquarters
Prominent Afro-American leaders approach the UN to invite Fidel to the Theresa Hotel in the humble neighbourhood of Harlem in New York City.
He takes up residence in the Theresa Hotel and receives the Afro-American leader Malcolm X who comes there to express his solidarity.

He receives Premier Nikita Khrushchev of the USSR at the Theresa Hotel.
He meets with President Josip Broz Tito of Yugoslavia.
He arrives at UN Headquarters in the afternoon to take part at the General Assembly session.
He has bilateral encounters with Prime Minister Wladyslaw Gomulka of Poland, with Abdelkader Chardeli, the delegate of the Algerian National Liberation Front, and with Sir Claude Corea, ambassador of Ceylon.

Attends the UN General Assembly session.
Receives constant ovations by the crowd and that evening waves from a window at the Theresa Hotel in Harlem to the thousands of people who applaud him.

Takes part in the UN General Assembly session.
Makes press statements ridiculing the American government decision to not invite him to the banquet being hosted by President Eisenhower.
He eats lunch with the employees and the owner of the Theresa Hotel and with several American journalists. He presents a bust of José Martí to the hotel’s owner.
He speaks at a dinner given in his honour by the American Cuban Committee for Fair Treatment of Cuba and is given a bust of Abraham Lincoln by Richard Wilson, President of the Committee. He states: “We know how capable you are in making propaganda. But we also know that in spite of that propaganda, we have many friends in the United States. The more propaganda there is against us, the stronger we are.” And he concludes by saying: “Whatever the difficulties, there will always be love for the people of the United States”.

Attends a dinner given by Premier Nikita Khrushchev of the USSR at that country’s UN embassy in New York. Fidel states to journalists: “We have come to this house belonging to the Soviet nation where we have been welcomed with great hospitality and with the manners of a very well-educated people.”

In the room he occupies at the Theresa Hotel in Harlem, New York City, he is visited by President Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt. He later says: “The visit of President Nasser is greatly motivating and encouraging for our delegation that is practically confined and surrounded by the hostility of an imperialist power such as the United States.”

Gives his historic 4-hour and 20 minute speech before the Fifteenth UN General Assembly in which he expresses the positions of the Cuban Revolution in the face of imperialist aggression and condemns the inequalities, injustice and subjection predominating in the world: “Make the philosophy of plunder disappear and the philosophy of war shall disappear!”
Attends a dinner given by President Antonin Novotny of Czechoslovakia at Czech UN headquarters.