In a 1971 article in "Commentary", "How Castro Failed," Gall wrote that Castro had "dominated his island and conducted its diplomacy with the art and authority of a Renaissance prince, while leading his countrymen through the most drastic social revolution Latin America has seen in this century...No dictator within memory has combined Fidel Castro's prodigious personal powers: great physical stamina and audacity; a memory of near-total recall; an amazing virtuosity at intrigue and maneuver; an imposing platform presence and an overpowering oratorical style drawing with equal effectiveness on comic and sentimental histrionics." He described Castro's "destruction...of freedom of discussion and criticism" as entailing a "complete and open rupture...with the Western intellectual tradition." He also compared recent certain developments in Castro's Cuba with developments that took place in China after the Great Leap Forward and which were "consummated by the Cultural Revolution."