(MCT) HAVANA—Largely alert and lucid, Fidel Castro made a surprise appearance on a TV news program Friday night in a pre-recorded, hour-long interview, speaking about an essay he wrote last week condemning the U.S. for threatening the global economy.

His appearance was unusual because Castro has largely been out of the public eye since he underwent emergency intestinal surgery 14 months ago.

The government has at times shown photographs and video of Castro, but his exact illness and prognosis have been kept secret. His last state TV interview was in June.

Castro’s voice remained weak during Friday’s appearance. But he maintained his signature ability for rambling discourse, as well as animated hand gestures, including once slapping an object that was off screen.

On a few occasions, the interviewer had to prompt Castro, including when he had to correct him on the number of “Reflections” columns he has written during his illness. Castro had a rough start. But he became energized as the interview progressed.

Castro’s appearance comes as rumor mongering about his demise has reached a fever pitch in the Cuban exile community in South Florida, but his appearance Friday suggested he is slowly gaining strength.

“They say I was dying and ‘if I die’ and I will die the day after tomorrow, or something,” Castro said. “Nobody knows the day they are going to die.”

The interview also comes on the heels of an earlier column that Castro wrote for Cuba’s daily newspaper that raised concerns in the international community about Castro’s lucidity.

In the column, Castro advanced an extremist theory that a U.S. conspiracy was concealing the truth behind the Sept. 11 attacks, including the presence of gold bars in the World Trade Center’s basement.

In the most recent essay, which served as the basis for Friday’s interview, Castro acknowledged that controversy in the first sentence. He went on to write more than 5,300 words about how the world is threatened by a devastating economic crisis for which the United States is to blame.

Castro also spoke about how America’s creation of the atomic bomb during World War II caused hundreds of thousands of Japanese deaths in Hiroshima and Nagasaki—another theme he had addressed in his latest column.

“It was an act of terror,” Castro said.

© 2007 McClatchy-Tribune News