Fidel Castro and Franklin D. Roosevelt

You'd think that "his autograph" would be the obvious answer; but according to my researches, it's not the correct one.

What he actually asked for, it appears, was a ten dollar bill.

History Today describes how the young Castro wrote to Roosevelt on 6 November 1940, to congratulate him on his re–election the day before for a second term as US President. The word 'autograph' doesn't appear in the article, but the following words do: "On [his] second page, the precocious Castro gets to his main point: 'If you like, give me a ten dollar bill green American'."

A blog named Pieces of History, in the US National Archives, has images of the entire letter, along with a transcript:

Santiago de Cuba, November 6th 1940

Mr. Franklin Roosevelt
President of the United States:

My good friend Roosevelt:

I don't know very English, but I know as much as write to you.

I like to hear the radio, and I am very happy, because I heard in it, that you will be President for a new (periodo).

I am twelve years old. I am a boy but I think very much, but I do not think that I am writing to the President of the United States.

If you like, give me a ten dollars bill green american in the letter, because never, I have not seen a ten dollars bill green american and I would like to have one of them.

My address is:

Sr. Fidel Castro
Colegio de Dolores
Santiago de Cuba
Oriente Cuba

I don't know very English but I know very much Spanish and I suppose you don't know very Spanish but you know very English because you are American but I am not American.

Thank you very much

Good by. Your friend,

F. Castro (signed)

Fidel Castro

If you want iron to make your ships I will show to you the bigest (minas) of iron in the land. They are in Mayorí, Oriente, Cuba.

Castro received a reply to his letter; he showed it to his school friends and it ended up on a school bulletin board. But he was angry that the President had not enclosed a ten–dollar bill, and had rejected his offer to show him Mayarí's iron mines.

History Today concludes: "It would be an exaggeration to claim that this exchange was the genesis of Castro's unremitting anti–Americanism, but certainly the experience did not augment any admiration that he may have had for the US."