Cuban President Fidel Castro, ailing and out of sight, has been meeting with a trickle of international guests in recent months, a U.S. government official said Tuesday.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive situation with Cuba, declined to say with whom Castro was meeting. But the meetings, generally with visitors from Latin America, suggest he may be setting the stage for a transition of power that he hopes will protect the government he has built over four decades.
In a review of global threats last week, National Intelligence Director John Negroponte said that Castro and his brother Raul, who has taken over as Cuba's temporary leader, are trying to create a "soft landing" during the transfer of control.
"From the point of the United States policy, we don't want to see that happen," Negroponte said. "We want to see the prospects for freedom in that country enhanced as a result of the transition" from Fidel Castro.
Negroponte also said Castro's days "seem to be numbered," a view supported Tuesday by the U.S. government official. That official said U.S. intelligence believes that Castro is likely to die within a month or two, although analysts don't yet know the precise nature of his illness.
That assessment narrowed the life-expectancy estimate of U.S. intelligence agencies, which previously had said Castro was not expected to make it through the end of this year.
The Spanish newspaper El Pais reported on Tuesday that Castro has had at least three failed operations and is suffering complications from an intestinal infection, leaving him with a "grave prognosis."
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