London:
His first name means "faithful" in Latin, but Cuba's Fidel Castro is an insatiable "womaniser" who has fathered at least 10 children by a string of women in the small island nation of 11 million people, says a new book.
Castro's private life has always been strictly taboo in Cuba's state-controlled media. And he has also rarely been photographed with any of the women he has been involved with.
Now, investigative journalist Ann Louise Bardach has revealed in her upcoming book, chronicling the lives of Castro and his brother Raul, that while revolutionising the Cuba, the El Commandante had another personal agenda -- that of creating "a tribe", The Daily Telegraph reported.
Castro, now 83, has a child, Fidelito (Little Fidel), with his first wife Myrta Diaz-Balart in 1949 and five boys between 1962 and 1974 with Dalia Soto del Valle, a little-seen companion whom he is said to have secretly married in 1980.
But there have been many more paramours and several other children along the way - most notably from the time when the 29-year-year old rebel leader celebrated his release from prison in 1955 for a failed uprising, the book says.
For three Castro offspring were born to three women during 1956. Most famously, there was Natalia Revuelta, an aristocratic beauty who became a fierce defender of his revolution -- she bore him a daughter, Alina Fernandez.
Bardach, also a member of the Cuba Study Group at the Brookings Institution think-tank, has also revealed the identity of the mother of Jorge Angel, the third Castro child of 1956 -- Maria Laborde, an admirer who Castro met just after was he freed.
The book has also disclosed another apparent addition to the brood -- a son known as Ciro, the early 1960s' product of another brief fling.
He was previously unknown outside the family inner circle, but a close relative of Celia Sanchez, Castro's closest confidante and yet another rumoured lover, revealed his existence to the author.
However, his offspring have largely adhered to their father's instructions not to flaunt their privileged backgrounds and are rarely seen in public.
His first son, Fidelito, has received the highest prominence. But when he mishandled the country's nuclear power programme, his father ordered his dismissal. "He was fired for incompetence. We don't have a monarchy here," Castro had said.