Mirta Diaz-Balart

Mirta Francisca de la Caridad Díaz-Balart y Gutiérrez (born September 30, 1928) was Fidel Castro's first wife, the daughter of Rafael José Díaz-Balart, a prominent Cuban politician and mayor of the town of Banes, and wife América Gutiérrez. She was a fellow student at the University of Havana, studying Philosophy, when Fidel married her.

They married on October 11, 1948 and divorced seven years later (while Castro was in exile) in 1955. They had one child, a son, Fidel Ángel "Fidelito" Castro Díaz-Balart, born on September 1, 1949. After the divorce, Castro was not granted custody of their son, instead he kidnapped Fidel Jr. when his son visited Castro in Mexico prior to his return to Cuba. There is a documented story of the rescue of Mirta's son from the captors of Fidel Jr. Mirta remarried to Dr. Emilio Núñez Blanco, the son of a former Cuban Ambassador to the UN, Emilio Núñez Portuondo. A story in the October 8, 2000 ^[1] edition of the Miami Herald claimed that she was then living in Spain and that occasional visits to Cuba had been arranged by Raúl Castro, her former brother-in-law.

Díaz-Balart lived in Spain with her family after 1959; Mirta was deprived for many years of the company of her son as he studied in Cuba and in the Soviet Union. ^[2]

Mirta Díaz-Balart is the aunt of current Republican and anti-Castro former U.S. Congressman Lincoln Diaz-Balart and his brother Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL) and sister of the painter Waldo Diaz-Balart and the late Rafael Diaz-Balart. She has two daughters by her second husband, Mirta and América Silvia Núñez Díaz-Balart, both residing in Spain with their families. She has numerous grandchildren.

References

• Castro, Juanita; as told to Maria Antonieta Collins (2009). Fidel y Raul - Mis Hermanos, La Historia Secreta. Santillana USA Publishing Company, Inc.. ISBN 978-1-60396-701-3.