Castro attack on Reagan called harsh and unfair

Cuban President Fidel Castro assailed President Reagan as a "fascist" in a scathing attack that prompted an American diplomat to walk out of an international conference in protest.

Castro, in a two-hour speech Sept. 15, also accused the United States of waging germ warfare against Cuba.

Western diplomats at the conference of the Inter-Parliamentary Union, which includes members of parliament from 94 nations, called Castro's speech his harshest attack against an American president since Richard Nixon left office.

Sen. Robert Stafford (R) of Vermont, who sat through the attack at the presidential table on the dais, later called Castro's speech "unfair and often untruthful, certainty impolite. I'm surprised that it occurred."