After his release, he was first welcomed to America by hard-line exiles, then reviled for his futile attempts to press reforms on Castro in the mid-1990s and his subsequent return to Cuba to join the dissident movement.
To put "the internet" within the scope of Leveson would be as daft as it would be futile, and to regulate the press further, without having a broader definition of who "the press" might be, is a recipe for irrelevance.
One line of objection to the White House's effort to ostracize Fox News is that Presidential wars against the press are always futile and self-defeating.
In the 15th century, scribes protested the printing press, with a futile zeal rivaled perhaps only by that of modern journalists.
The tragedy is, good men like Harris continue to wage a futile fight". Despite the odds, Harris wants to press his case, believing he has the medical evidence to support his claims of malpractice.
"We have to press ahead … a postponement would be futile and would only give independent organisations more time to target the government," said the interior minister, Jarupong Ruangsuwan.
Today David Cameron and Ed Miliband maintain the tradition while we in the press gallery watch with satisfaction Speaker Bercow's futile efforts to control the racket.
Scientists are notoriously bad at disclosing the truth, but, in its futile quest for a hidden agenda that is not there, the press is missing much of the point.
Thad Allen pointed out in a press conference that boats are still skimming on the surface, a futile gesture when the dispersant Corexit is being used to break down oil on the surface.
"The government of Pakistan's ban on Twitter is ill-advised, counterproductive and will ultimately prove to be futile as all such attempts at censorship have proved to be," said Ali Dayan Hasan, Pakistan director at Human Rights Watch, in a press statement.
