Is Castro 'In Charge' While Recovering From Surgery?

HAVANA, April 29, 2007 — -- One of Cuban President Fidel Castro's closest collaborators has told ABC News the legendary revolutionary is once more calling in officials for meetings, discussing issues with them on the phone and following world and domestic events as doctors keep a watch on his recovery from abdominal surgery nine months ago.

"I spoke with somebody who was meeting with him yesterday afternoon, for example, and he told me Fidel called him and he had to be there with him at 5 p.m.," Ricardo Alarcon, president of the Cuban parliament and long-time member of Castro's kitchen cabinet, told ABC's Bob Woodruff in Havana.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, Castro's closest ally, said on Sunday that Castro was back "in charge" of Cuba. Nevertheless, Alarcon said Castro was mostly using the phone to convey instructions and holding fewer meetings than before his surgery for an undisclosed ailment.

"He has to follow a process of recovery that the doctors try to control very keenly," said Alarcon. "He has been very disciplined in terms of concentrating on his recovery, exercising, you know, having check ups or whatever, and reading a lot."

Woodruff is in Havana on his first international assignment since recovering from an Iraq roadside bombing that almost took his life in January 2006. His reporting team includes cameraman Doug Vogt and sound technician Magnus de Macedo, the same crew that was with him in Iraq the day Woodruff was critically injured by the improvised explosive device.

His reports leading up to Cuba's traditional International Workers Day march on Tuesday, when it is expected Castro might appear in public for the first time in nine months, will air beginning Sunday evening.

"Will [Fidel] be there this May Day? I don't have any information that you will be satisfied on that," Alarcon said.

"Of course, he is entitled to, if he feels okay ... but I don't know," Alarcon added with a laugh. "I am not prepared to confirm or deny."

Woodruff, while waiting with everyone else for Fidel Castro to appear, has been busy taking the pulse of the Communist-run Caribbean island that has begun an inevitable weaning from his 47-year rule.