13 March 1958: Palace Attacked, Echeverria Killed

Praetorian Students, American Tanks

1933: Armed Students (and the books?). Key actors in the overthrow of Machado's government. Not just "social" mobilization: military mobilization as well! Samuel Huntington, following pioneering ideas of Sociologist Gino Germani, was the first to link modernization and praetorianism. Yet he dismissed students as a powerful agent of political change. The population of Universidad de la Habana may disagree.


1950s: where do these tanks come from? MAP? If used for internal repression (what else in Cuba?), public opinion in US may get nervous and constraint what decision-makers can do to help Batista rebuild political order.

Too big a university for too small an Island?
Aerial view of the Universidad de la Habana in the 1940s

Revolution Betrayed

USA conspires against Fidel

Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States 1958-1960, Volume VI, Cuba.

481. Paper Prepared by the 5412 Committee

Washington, March 16, 1960.

A PROGRAM OF COVERT ACTION AGAINST THE CASTRO REGIME

1. Objective: The purpose of the program outlined herein is to bring about the replacement of the Castro regime with one more devoted to the true interests of the Cuban people and more acceptable to the U.S. in such a manner as to avoid any appearance of U.S. intervention. Essentially the method of accomplishing this end will be to induce, support, and so far as possible direct action, both inside and outside of Cuba, by selected groups of Cubans of a sort that they might be expected to and could undertake on their own initiative. Since a crisis inevitably entailing drastic action in or toward Cuba could be provoked by circumstances beyond control of the U.S. before the covert action program has accomplished its objective, every effort will be made to carry it out in such a way as progressively to improve the capability of the U.S. to act in a crisis.

2. Summary Outline: The program contemplates four major courses of action:

a. The first requirement is the creation of a responsible, appealing and unified Cuban opposition to the Castro regime, publicly declared as such and therefore necessarily located outside of Cuba. [3 sentences (10 lines) not declassified] (Tab A)

b. So that the opposition may be heard and Castro's basis of popular support undermined, it is necessary to develop the means for mass communication to the Cuban people so that a powerful propaganda offensive can be initiated in the name of the declared opposition. The major tool proposed to be used for this purpose is a long and short wave gray broadcasting facility, probably to be located on Swan Island. [2 sentences (4 lines) not declassified] (Tab B)

c. Work is already in progress in the creation of a covert intelligence and action organization within Cuba which will be responsive to the orders and direction of the "exile" opposition. [3 sentences (7 lines) not declassified]

d. Preparations have already been made for the development of an adequate paramilitary force outside of Cuba, together with mechanisms for the necessary logistic support of covert military operations on the Island. Initially a cadre of leaders will be recruited after careful screening and trained as paramilitary instructors. In a second phase a number of paramilitary cadres will be trained at secure locations outside of the U.S. so as to be available for immediate deployment into Cuba to organize, train and lead resistance forces recruited there both before and after the establishment of one or more active centers of resistance. The creation of this capability will require a minimum of six months and probably closer to eight. In the meanwhile, a limited air capability for resupply and for infiltration and exfiltration already exists under CIA control and can be rather easily expanded if and when the situation requires. Within two months it is hoped to parallel this with a small air resupply capability under deep cover as a commercial operation in another country.

[Numbered paragraphs 3-5 (29 lines) not declassified] (Tab C)

6. Recommendations: That the Central Intelligence Agency be authorized to undertake the above outlined program [2 lines not declassified].

Tab B

PROPAGANDA

1. [paragraph (8 lines) not declassified]

2. As the major voice of the opposition, it is proposed to establish at least one "gray" U.S.-controlled station. This will probably by on Swan Island and will employ both high frequency and broadcast band equipment of substantial power. The preparation of scripts will be done in the U.S. and these will be transmitted electronically to the site for broadcasting. After some experience and as the operation progresses, it may be desirable to supplement the Swan Island station with at least one other to ensure fully adequate coverage of all parts of Cuba, most especially the Havana region. [3 paragraphs (19 lines) not declassified]

Accidental Revolution

What if the Congress of Latin American Students had been organized in a different city or a different date? What if Gaitan's assassin had failed?



Student Fidel, in a business/tourism trip to Bogota, the exact same week of Gaitan's assassination and the ensuing urban upheaval. He looks happier than a child with a new toy (o perro con dos colas).

Manifesto in Coronet (1958)

Coronet Magazine
February 1958

Why We Fight

As this is written, our armed campaign on Cuban soil against Cuba's dictatorial regime is entering its second year. Though it has been given many meanings and many interpretations, it is essentially a political struggle. In this struggle, we have sustained few reverses and a good many victories, while dictator Batista can point to a single successful achievement: he has effectively muzzled all public communications in our country, silenced TV, radio, and the press, and so intimidated our news publishers that not a single Cuban reporter has ever been assigned to our side of what is, in effect, a spreading civil war.

One of the unexpected results of this iron censorship, augmented by a military blockade around the combat zone, has been that our program--the aims, plans and aspirations of the 26th of July Movement-- has never been published or explained adequately. In obtaining and publishing this exclusive article--the only first-person story written by me since we landed in Cuba on December 2, 1956-- Coronet Magazine has given us the opportunity to state our aims and to correct the many errors and distortions circulating about our revolutionary struggle.

Though dictatorship, ignorance, military rule, and police oppression have spawned a great many evils among our people, all these evils have a common root: the lack of liberty. The single word most expressive of our aim and spirit is simply--freedom. First of all and most of all, we are fighting to do away with dictatorship in Cuba and to establish the foundations of genuine representative government.

To attain this, we intend to eject from office Fulgencio Batista and all his cabinet officers; to place them under arrest and impeach them before special revolutionary tribunals. To replace the unconstitutional Batista regime, we will aid in setting up a provisional government to be nominated by a special convention made up of the delegates of our various civic organizations: Lions, Rotarians, professional bodies such as the physicians' or engineers' guilds, religious associations, and so forth. This will be a break with established procedure, but we feel certain that it will prove workable. Once appointed, the provisional government's chief task will be to prepare and conduct truly honest general elections within twelve months.

The question has presented itself whether I aspire to the presidential office of this provisional government or the elected government which will succeed it. The truth is that, quite apart from my personal reluctance to enter the presidential competition so soon, our Constitution, as it now stands, would prohibit it. Under its age requirement clause, I am, at 31, far too young to be eligible for the presidency, and will remain so for another ten years.

We do have, however, a number of program points which might serve as a basis for action by the provisional government. They are the following:

I. Immediate freedom for all political prisoners, civil as well as military. Although the outside world knows little about it, Batista has imprisoned dozens of officers and hundreds of enlisted men from his own armed forces who have shown revulsion or resistance to his bloody suppression of political discontent.

2. Full and untrammeled freedom of public information for all communication media--broadcasting, TV, the daily and periodical press. Arbitrary censorship and systematic corruption of journalists has long been one of the festering sores of our nation.

3. We want to reestablish for all citizens the personal and political rights set forth in our much-ignored Constitution.

4. We want to wipe out corruption in Cuban public life. Those who have grown accustomed over the years to dealing with venal policemen, thieving tax collectors, rapacious army bosses here in Cuba may think this an optimistic resolution. But we intend to attack this problem at its very roots, by creating a career civil service beyond the reach of politics and nepotism and by making sure that our career functionaries get paid enough to be able to live without having to accept bribes.

5. We want to sponsor an intensive campaign against illiteracy. Though no one knows the exact number of our illiterates, they run into the hundreds of thousands, perhaps even up to a million. Our farm children get little schooling at best; many of them get none at all. Hundreds of thousands of small farmers feed their families on roots and rice, simply because no one has ever taught them how to grow tomatoes, lettuce, or corn. No one has ever shown them how to utilize water. No one has ever told them how to choose a wholesome diet or how to protect their health.

6. We are in favor of land reform bills adjusting the uncertain owner-tenant relations that are a peculiar blight of rural Cuba. Hundreds of thousands of small farmers occupy parcels which they do not own under the law. Thousands of absentee owners claim title to properties they have hardly ever seen. The titles, in fact, have been seen by no one and it is often impossible to establish who actually owns a particular property. We feel that in settling the question of legal ownership, preferential treatment should be given to those who actually occupy and cultivate the land. We will support no land reform bill, however, which does not provide for the just compensation of expropriated owners.

7. Finally, we support speedy industrialization of our national economy and the raising of employment levels.

Apart from political misconceptions about my ambitions and those of our movement--we have been often accused of plotting to replace military dictatorship with revolutionary dictatorship--nothing has been so frequently misunderstood as our economic program. Various influential U.S. publications have identified me as a tool of big business as a dangerous radical, and as a narrow reactionary manipulated by the clergy. U.S. companies with business interests in Cuba have been repeatedly warned that I have secret plans in my pocket for seizing all foreign holdings.

Let me say for the record that we have no plans for the expropriation or nationalization of foreign investments here. True, the extension of government ownership to certain public utilities--some of them, such as the power companies, U.S.-owned--was a point of our earliest programs; but we have currently suspended all planning on this matter. I personally have come to feel that nationalization is, at best, a cumbersome instrument. It does not seem to make the state any stronger, yet it enfeebles private enterprise. Even more importantly, any attempt at wholesale nationalization would obviously hamper the principal point of our economic platform--industrialization at the fastest possible rate. For this purpose, foreign investments will always be welcome and secure here.

Industrialization is at the heart of our economic progress. Something must be done about the staggering mass of over one million unemployed who cannot find jobs during eight months out of twelve. They can hope to work only during the four months of the cane harvest. A million unemployed in a nation of six million bespeaks a terrible economic sickness which must be cured without delay, lest it fester and become a breeding ground for communism.

Fortunately, improvement is by no means as difficult as Cuba's present rulers would lead us to believe. Our country is rich in natural resources. What we need is an adequate canning industry to utilize our superb fruit crops; expanded industrial facilities for the processing of sugar and its important by-products; expanded consumer industries for the production of light metal, leather, paper, and textile goods which would go far toward improving our trade balance; and the beginnings of a long-range cargo fleet.

The state would not need to resort to expropriation to take a guiding part in such economic developments. By reforming its tax collection system, which now consists of paying off the revenue collector instead of paying the state, it could increase its budget many times and turn its attention to the sorely needed extension of our road network.

And with rising living standards and growing confidence in government will come rapid progress toward political stability under a representative, truly democratic government. That, ultimately, is what we are fighting for.

As long as we are forced to fight, however, our constructive projects must wait. Our immediate task is something entirely different: it is the burning of Cuba's entire sugar cane crop. It was a terrible decision, and now that we are about to carry it out, it is a terrible job. Sugar cane is Cuba's principal source of revenue; it contributes about one third of the total national income and employs two fifths of the labor force. Half of our farm income is dependent on sugar. Yet it is the very importance of the cane crop that compels us to destroy it.

If the cane goes up in flames, the army will grind to a standstill; the police will have to disband, for none of them will get paid; and the Batista regime will have to capitulate. What is more, we will gain this decisive victory with comparatively little bloodshed by expending this year's crop.

I well know the heavy personal losses involved. Mv family has sizable holdings here in Oriente, and my instructions to our clandestine action groups state clearly that our crop must be the first one to burn, as an example to the rest of the nation. Only one thing can save the cane, and that is Batista's surrender.

But even if the crop will have to burn down to the last single cane, the flames will set fire to the dictatorship which weighs heavily on us now. Once the tyranny has gone up in smoke, we will see the way to a decent, democratic future.

Fidel: "Los americanos van a pagar bien caro lo que están haciendo."

Sierra Maestra
Junio 5-58

Celia:

Al ver los cohetes que tiraron en casa de Mario, me he jurado que los americanos van a pagar bien caro lo que están haciendo. Cuando esta guerra se acabe, empezará para mi una guerra mucho más larga y grande: la guerra que voy a echar contra ellos. Me doy cuenta que ese va a ser mi destino verdadero.

Fidel

Sierra Maestra
June 5-58

Celia:

At seeing the rockets fired at the house of Mario, I have sworn to myself that the Americans are going to pay dearly for what they are doing. When this war ends, for me will begin a much longer and bigger war: the war that I am going to wage against them. I realize that that will be my true destiny.

Fidel

Castro NYTimes Interview (3 of 3)

The New York Times
Tuesday, February 26, 1957

Old Order in Cuba is Threatened by Forces of an Internal Revolt

Traditionally Corrupt System Faces Its First Major Test as Reform Groups Challenge Batista Dictatorship

This is the last of three articles by a correspondent of The New York Times who has just returned from Cuba.

By HERBERT L. MATTHEWS

The old, corrupt order in Cuba is being threatened for the first time since the Cuban Republic was proclaimed early in the century. An internal struggle is now taking place that is more than an effort by the outs to get in and enjoy the enormous spoils of office that have been the reward of political victory.

This is the real and deeply significant meaning of what is happening in Cuba today, and it explains the gravity of the menace to the military dictatorship of President Fulgencio Batista.

This writer has studied Cuban affairs on repeated visits since General Batista seized power by a garrison revolt on March 10, 1952, and he has just spent ten days in Cuba talking to all sorts of conditions of men and women, Cuban and American, in various parts of the island.

Majority Rule Is Lacking

At last one gets the feeling that the best elements in Cuban life-the unspoiled youth, the honest business man, the politician of integrity, the patriotic Army officer-are getting together to assume power. They have always made up the vast majority of Cubans, but Cuba has never had majority rule, least of all since General Batista interrupted a democratic presidential election in 1952 to take over by force. The Cuban people have never forgiven him for that.

By coincidence, economic and fiscal developments are going to bring a crisis of their own that will affect politics. This year's sugar crop will be very profitable and next year's also promises to be so, but the experts agree that after that a recession is almost certain. The public works program, an enormous slush fund providing colossal graft, but also much employment and accomplishment, will end in the summer of 1958.

Economic Figures Unknown

To finance the program, amounting to $350,000,000, the Government led by Joaquin Martinez Saenz, Governor of the National Bank, resorted to inflationary tactics, pledging the gold reserves and increasing the public debt. Even those best informed on the Banco Nacional and what it is doing do not know the real figures of reserves, public debt and the like. Economists believe that statistics and information are being twisted, and many believe that if present policies are continued the Cuban peso, now on a par with the United States dollar, will have to be devalued next year or protected by exchange regulations. The trade balance is still heavily against Cuba.

These calculations are making many Cuban and United States bankers and business men critical of the Batista Government's fiscal policies. The Cuban elements ask whether President Batista should not be got out of the way in 1957 while the currency is still sound and the economy prosperous. They want to face the hard times with an honest, orthodox, democratic, patriotic Government.

Opposition Is Anti-U. S.

It is disturbing to find that the opposition, which contains some of the best elements in Cuban life, is today bitterly or sadly anti-United States. This is a recent development in Cuba and it is one of the sharpest impressions a visitor from the United States now gets. It does not, of course, apply to United States tourists, who are not held responsible for the situation and who meet unfailing friendliness.

The opposition says there is an infinitely harder problem because Washington is backing President Batista, and many proofs are offered. The first is the public cordiality and admiration for General Batista expressed on frequent occasions by United States Ambassador Arthur Gardner. Another is the friendliness of the United States investors and business men who, despite their misgivings, naturally want to protect their investments and businesses. "We all pray every day that nothing happens to Batista," one of the most prominent directors said to me. They fear that the alternative would be much worse, at least in the beginning, perhaps a military junta, perhaps a radical swing to the left; perhaps chaos.

Sale of U. S. Arms an Issue

There is also bitter criticism in Cuba, as in all Latin-American dictatorships, over the sale of United States arms. While I was there, seven tanks were delivered in a ceremony headed by Ambassador Gardner. Every Cuban I spoke with saw the delivery as arms furnished to General Batista for use in bolstering his regime and for use "against the Cuban people."

Also while I was there, the United States aircraft carrier Leyte came on an official visit with four destroyers, and this, too, was taken as evidence that the United States was displaying its support of President Batista.

An appeal in English was circulated in Santiago de Cuba during my visit. "To the People of the United States From the People of Cuba."

"We do not wish to harbor resentment against you, our good neighbors of the North," it said. "But do give us your understandingand fairness when considering our crisis."

A movement of civic resistance has been formed in Santiago, which is the capital of Oriente Province at the eastern end of the island where Fidel Castro, the rebel leader, is fighting a guerrilla war in the Sierra Maestra. Business and professional men of the highest type are the leaders. The women of Oriente have cooperated so impressively that for many weeks they have refused to send their children to school. The University of Oriente is closed.

A similar movement of civic resistance is getting tinder way in Havana. It is a non-violent movement of influential citizens in support of honesty, decency, democracy, apart from the political parties and movements, which are hopelessly divided and discredited, and also apart from the Army. The citizens want to demonstrate to the decent, patriotic elements in the Army that the people of Cuba, moderate, bourgeois people, will support them against the regime as the Argentine people did their Army and Navy against General Juan D. Perón.

In this struggle one other element of prime importance must be added-the Cuban university students with their long traditions of struggle against Spanish oppressors and Cuban dictators.

Student Faction Accused

The directorate of the Federation of University Students has been on the run from the police for many weeks, thus far successfully. The authorities accuse them of complicity with Fidel Castro, with whom they signed a pact in Mexico City, but they say they are fighting a parallel, separate fight for the same goals. The real reason the police want them is that they are out for trouble, and the Superior Council of the University of Havana, headed by the rector Clemente Inclán, whom I saw, is clearly afraid to reopen the university in present circumstances.

Through underground connections, I was able secretly to see five members of the student directorate, including their leader, José Antonio Echeverria, whom the police want most of all, and who therefore has considerable fame in Cuba at the moment. His friends call him "El Gordo" (the Fat One), but in reality he is merely heavy set, florid, handsome, with a mass of hair in a pompadour, prematurely touched with gray. He is only 24 years old and is an architectural student.

Señor Echeverria said the students were active in the present resistance, which may or may not have meant they were taking part in the bombings and sabotage. The students, he said, would get behind a respected civic resistance movement, but meanwhile they are waiting their chance to get into the streets and join a revolution, if there is one. They concede that they are in no position to start one.

The directorate maintains that it has the almost solid backingof the student body. The students obviously are not seeking anything for themselves. As a whole, their traditions are anti-Communist and democratic. One boy said: "My father fought against Machado (Gen. Gerardo Machado, the brutal President and dictator of the Nineteen Twenties); my grandfather fought in the War of Independence (which began in 1895 and resulted in the Spanish-American War). I must fight now for the same ideals and the same reasons."

Their talk was studded with phrases such as these: "Cuban students were never afraid to die," and "We are accustomed to clandestine struggle." This is true.

So one see three elements lining up against President Batista today-the youth of Cuba, led by the fighting rebel, Fidel Castro, who are against the President to a man; a civic resistance formed of respected political, business and professional groups, and an honest, patriotic component of the Army, which is ashamed of the actions of the Government generals. Together these elements form the hope of Cuba and the threat to General Fulgencio Batista.

Castro NYTimes Interview (2 of 3)

The New York Times
Monday, February 25, 1957

Rebel Strength Gaining in Cuba, But Batista Has the Upper Hand.

This is the second of three articles by a correspondent of The New York Times who has just returned from Cuba.

By HERBERT L. MATTHEWS

President Fulgencio Batista of Cuba is fighting off a revolutionary offensive. As of today he has the upper hand, and with any luck be can hang on until his Presidential term ends in February, 1959.

The economy is good and most workers are contented. There are profitable sugar, coffee and tobacco crops. Tourism has been satisfactory. Investments from the United States are high and General Batista has been made to feel he has the United States behind him. The upper echelons of the Army and the police are his men and they give him his power.

Yet the President needs luck, for Cubans are a violent, unpredictable people, and the forces lined up against General Batista are strong and getting stronger every day.

These and other developments have been hidden by the strictest censorship ever imposed in Cuba. Even the best-informed Cubans do not know what is happening outside their immediate circles.

This has been the case since Jan. 15, at which time constitutional guarantees were suspended for forty-five days in all of Cuba. It is still true, though censorship on outgoing dispatches of foreign correspondents was eased on Thursday. The only way to get complete information about Cuba today is to go there, as this writer did, to talk with every type of Cuban and to travel around the island. One must then leave the country to write the story.

On such a trip one gets to understand why President Batista is so generally unpopular and why such a formidable opposition is building up against him. The dictator has lost the young generation of Cuba. The group of young rebels, led by a former law student, Fidel Castro, that dominates the Sierra Maestra at the eastern end of the island and that is fighting off successfully the cream of General Batista's army is only one element-the most dramatic one-to prove this.

Señor Castro's men, the student leaders who are on the run from the police, the people who are bombing and sabotaging every day, are fighting blindly, rashly, perhaps foolishly. But they are giving their lives for an ideal and for their hopes of a clean, democratic Cuba.

The extent of the violence and the counter-terrorism of the Army and the police are among the things that have been hidden by the censorship. The bombs have wounded some persons and killed a few, but that is not the purpose of the bombers. The aim is to do a little sabotage (power lines, water mains and communications damaged, sugar cane fields set afire here and there) and above all to register a violent protest against the dictatorship.

Perpetrators Are Unknown

The public does not know who is doing the bombing, for the police have thus far caught only one small group in Havana and none elsewhere. As a desperate measure of counter-terrorism, therefore, the police kill someone virtually every time a bomb is exploded in Havana, riddle his body with bullets, put a bomb in his hand and call the press photographers to come and take photographs. This macabre procedure is sardonically called by Habaneros, "Batista's classified advertisement."

Yet the bombings go on. In the seven nights the writer spent in Havana there were seven or eight bombings. In Santiago, at the other end of the island, there were eighteen on Feb. 15 alone. The whole of Oriente Province, the eastern-most district, is literally or figuratively up in arms against the Batista regime.

However, this does not apply to the sugar cane and other workers, who are making good money now. But permanent unemployment, which is a grave problem, affects the youth especially and contributes to their disaffection.

Communism has little to do with the opposition to the regime. There is a well-trained, hard core of Communists that is doing as much mischief as it can and that naturally bolsters all the opposition elements. But there is no Communism to speak of in Fidel Castro's 26th of July Movement, the student movement or the disaffected elements in the Army.

The brutality of Cuban to Cuban is always horrifying to foreigners. While it is taken as part of the game in Cuba, as in Spain, there is no doubt that counter-terrorism is not effective with Cubans.

In Holguin, Oriente Province, the tough Army commander sent by General Batista gave what the citizens now ironically call "Batista's Christmas present." The bodies of youths began showing up in the mornings in the streets, until there were twenty-six by the turn of the year.

800 Women Demonstrated

At the same time in Santiago, down on the coast, four bodies turned up, one of a 15-year-old boy who, according to medical testimony, had been tortured for twenty-four hours before being killed. Eight hundred women of Santiago, including the mother of the boy, marched through the streets of Santiago with placards on Jan. 4 in one of Cuba's most bitterly impressive demonstrations.

Eugenio Cusidó, a Deputy, planned to read in Congress Jan. 15 the names of the men who perpetrated these crimes. A brother of the Deputy had been dragged from his home in Holguin by the dreaded Rural Police and hanged. On Jan. 15 Government supporters were ordered to stay away from Congress. There was no quorum, but the Government announced that its measures of censorship and suspension of constitutional guarantees were automatically in effect. Most lawyers say this was illegal.

Señor Cusidó arose, nevertheless, and tried to speak, but the chairman suspended the meeting because there was no quorum. For obvious reasons, Señor Cusidó fled to Miami.

It is universally agreed that there is more corruption than ever under the Batista regime and this is saying a great deal in Cuba. The enormous peculations, in which President Batista is said by everyone to take a large share, is more concentrated now, being mostly in the hands of Army generals and public works contractors. There is smuggling on a great scale and Havana is becoming a wide open city for gambling.

With all the advantages he has had, President Batista merely had to avoid mistakes to coast through this term of office, to which he was elected Nov. 1, 1954. However, he has made bad mistakes and seems rattled. Otherwise he would not have introduced the tightest of all Cuban censorships, which has been proving such a boomerang that the people have even doubted that the economic situation was good. The rumors going around Havana and the other Cuban cities are all far worse than the reality.

The Cubans are a volatile, tough and brave people. Their anger and disappointment have been rising steadily. It is being said in Cuba that because of this the future looks more hopeful.

Tomorrow: the danger to the dictatorship of General Batista and the current wave of civil resistance in Cuba.

Castro NYTimes Interview (1 of 3)

The New York Times
Sunday, February 24, 1957, page 1

Cuban Rebel Is Visited in Hideout

Castro Is Still Alive and Still Fighting in Mountains

This is the first of three articles by a correspondent of The New York Times who has just returned from a visit to Cuba.

By HERBERT L. MATTHEWS

Fidel Castro, the rebel leader of Cuba's youth, is alive and fighting hard and successfully in the rugged, almost impenetrable fastnesses of the Sierra Maestra at the southern tip of the island.

President Fulgencio Batista has the cream of his Army around the area, but the Army men are fighting a thus-far losing battle to destroy the most dangerous enemy General Batista has yet faced in a long and adventurous career as a Cuban leader and dictator.

This is the first sure news that Fidel Castro is still alive and still in Cuba. No one connected with the outside world, let alone with the press, has seen Senor Castro except this writer. No one in Havana, not even at the United States Embassy with its resources for getting information, will know until this report is published that Fidel Castro is really in the Sierra Maestra.

This account, among other things, will break the tightest censorship in the history of the Cuban Republic. The Province of Oriente, with its 2,000,000 inhabitants, its flourishing cities such as Santiago, Holguin and Manzanillo, is shut off from Havana as surely as if it were another country. Havana does not and cannot know that thousands of men and women are heart and soul with Fidel Castro and the new deal for which they think he stands. It does not know that hundreds of highly respected citizens are helping Senor Castro, that bombs and sabotage are constant (eighteen bombs were exploded in Santiago on Feb. 15), that a fierce Government counterterrorism has aroused the populace even more against President Batista.

Throughout Cuba a formidable movement of opposition to General Batista has been developing. It has by no means reached an explosive point. The rebels in the Sierra Maestra cannot move out. The economic situation is good. President Batista has the high officers of the Army and the police behind him and he ought to be able to hang on for the nearly two years of his present term that are still left.

However, there are bad spots in the economy, especially on the fiscal side. Unemployment is heavy; corruption is rife. No one can predict anything with safety except that Cuba seems in for a very troubled period.

Fidel Castro and his 26th of July Movement are the flaming symbol of this opposition to the regime. The organization, which is apart from the university students' opposition, is formed of youths of all kinds. It is a revolutionary movement that calls itself socialistic. It is also nationalistic, which generally in Latin America means anti-Yankee.

The program is vague and couched in generalities, but it amounts to a new deal for Cuba, radical, democratic and therefore anti-Communist. The real core of its strength is that it is fighting against the military dictatorship of President Batista.

Truly Terrible Risk

To arrange for me to penetrate the Sierra Maestra and meet Fidel Castro, dozens of men and women in Havana and Oriente Province ran a truly terrible risk. They must, of course, be protected with the utmost care in these articles for their lives would be forfeit-after the customary torture-immediately if any could be traced. Consequently, no names are used here, the places are disguised and many details of the elaborate, dangerous trail in and out of the Sierra Maestra must be omitted.

From the looks of things, General Batista cannot possibly hope to suppress the Castro revolt. His only hope is that an Army column will come upon the young rebel leader and his staff and wipe them out. This is hardly likely to happen, if at all, before March 1, when the present suspension of constitutional guarantees is supposed to end.

Fidel Castro is the son of a Spaniard from Galicia, a "Gallego" like Generalissimo Francisco Franco. The father was a pick-and-shovel laborer early in this century for the United Fruit Company, whose sugar plantations are on the northern shores of Oriente Province. A powerful build, a capacity for hard work and a shrewd mind led the father up in the world until he became a rich sugar planter himself When he died last year each of his children, including Fidel, inherited a sizeable fortune.

Flight to U. S. and Mexico

Someone who knew the family remembers Fidel as a child of 4 or 5 years, living a sturdy farm life. The father sent him to school and the University of Havana, where he studied law and became one of the student opposition leaders who rebelled against General Batista in 1952 because the General had staged a garrison revolt and prevented the presidential elections of that year.

Fidel had to flee from Cuba in 1955 and he lived for a while in New York and Miami. The year 1956, he announced, was to be the "year of decision." Before the year ended, he said, he would be "a hero or a martyr."

The Government knew that he had gone to Mexico and last summer was training a body of youths who had left Cuba to join him. As the end of the year approached the Cuban Army was very much on the alert, knowing that something would be tried and that Fidel Castro was coming back. He was already, in a measure, a hero of the Cuban youth, for on July 26, 1953, he had led a band of youths in a desperate attack on the Moncada Barracks in Santiago de Cuba.

In the fighting then about 100 students and soldiers were killed but the revolt failed. The Archbishop of Santiago, Msgr. Enrique Perez Serantes, intervened to minimize the bloodshed and got Senor Castro and others to surrender on promises of a fair trial. Fidel Castro was sentenced to fifteen years in prison but there was an amnesty at the time of the Presidential elections of Nov. 1, 1954, and he was let out. It was then he crossed to the continent and began to organize the 26th of July Movement. It is under this banner that the youth of Cuba are now fighting the Batista regime.

The blow, which at the time seemed an utter failure, was struck on Dec. 2, 1956. That day a 62-foot diesel-engined yacht, the Gramma, landed eighty-two young men, trained for two months on a ranch in Mexico, on the Oriente shore below Niquero at a spot called Playa Colorada. The idea had been to land at Niquero, recruit followers and lead an open attack against the Government. However, the Gramma had been spotted by a Cuban naval patrol boat. Planes flew in to strafe and the men on the yacht decided to beach her.

Playa Colorada, unhappily for the invaders, was a treacherous swamp. The men lost their food and most of their arms and supplies and soon were being attacked by army units. They scattered and took to the hills. Many were killed. Of the eighty-two no more than fifteen or twenty were left after a few days.

President Batista and his aides were remarkably successful from then on in hiding what happened. The youths they captured were forced to sign statements saying that they had been told Fidel Castro was on the Gramma with them but that they had never seen him. Thus doubt was cast that he had ever come to Cuba.

Because of the complete censorship, Havana and the other Cuban cities crackle with the most astonishing rumors one constantly encouraged by the Government has been that Fidel Castro is dead. Only those fighting with him and those who had faith and hope knew or thought he was alive-and those who knew were very few and in the utmost peril of their lives if their knowledge was traced.

This was the situation when the writer got to Havana on Feb. 9 to try to find out what was really happening. The censorship has been applied to foreign correspondents as well as Cuban. What everybody, even those who wanted to believe, kept asking was: "If Fidel is alive, why does he not do or say something to show that he is?" Since Dec. 2 he had kept absolutely quiet-or he was dead.

As I learned later, Senor Castro was waiting until he had his forces reorganized and strengthened and had mastery of the Sierra Maestra. This fortunately coincided with my arrival and he had sent word out to a trusted source in Havana that he wanted a foreign correspondent to come in. The contact knew as soon as I arrived and got in touch with me. Because of the state of siege, it had to be someone who would get the story and go out of Cuba to write it.

Then came a week of organization. A rendezvous point and a time had to be fixed and arrangements made to get through the Government lines into the Sierra Maestra.

After the first few weeks the Army had given out the report that the remnants of Senor Castro's forces were being starved out in the Sierra. In reality the Army had ringed the Sierra with fortified posts and columns of troops and had every road under heavy guard. The reports reaching Havana that frequent clashes were taking place and that the Government troops were losing heavily proved true.

Arrangements for Interview

The first problem was to get through the Government road blocks and reach a nearby town that would be a jumping off place. Late on the afternoon of Friday, Feb. 15, Senor Castro's contact man got in touch with me in Havana with the news that the meeting was set for the following night in the Sierra and that Senor Castro and his staff would take the chance of coming a little way toward the edge of the range so that I would not have to do too much climbing. There are no roads there, and where we were to meet, no horses could go.

To get from Havana to Oriente (more than 500 miles away) on time meant driving all night and the next morning, so as to be ready Saturday afternoon to start for the Sierra.

The plan worked out to get through the Army's road blocks in Oriente was as simple as it was effective. We took my wife along in the car as "camouflage." Cuba is at the height of the tourist season and nothing could have looked more innocent than a middle-aged couple of American tourists driving down to Cuba's most beautiful and fertile province with some young friends. The guards would take one look at my wife, hesitate a second, and wave us on with friendly smiles. If we were to be questioned a story was prepared for them. If we were searched the jig would be up.

In that way we reached the house of a sympathizer of Senor Castro outside the Sierra. There my wife was to stay amid warm hospitality, and no questions asked. I got into the clothes I had purchased in Havana "fora fishing trip," warm for the cold night air of the mountains and dark for camouflage.

Weather Turns Bad

After nightfall I was taken to a certain house where three youths who were going in with me had gathered. One of them was "One of the Eighty-two, " a proud phrase for the survivors of the original landing. I was to meet five or six of them. A courier who owned an open, Army-type jeep, joined us.

His news was bad. A Government patrol of four soldiers in a jeep had placed itself on the very road we had to take to get near the point where we were to meet the Castro scouts at midnight. Moreover, there had been a very heavy rain in the Sierra in the afternoon and the road was a morass. The others impressed on him that Fidel Castro wanted me in there at all costs and somehow it had to be done.

The courier agreed reluctantly. All across the plain of Oriente Province there are flat lands with sugar and rice plantations, and such farms have innumerable crisscrossing dirt roads. The courier knew every inch of the terrain and figured that by taking a very circuitous route he could bring us close enough.

We had to go through one Army roadblock and beyond that would be the constant risk of Army patrols, so we had to have a good story ready. I was to be an American sugar planter who could not speak a word of Spanish and who was going out to look over a plantation in a certain village. One of the youths, who spoke English, was my "interpreter." The others made up similar fictions.

Before leaving one of the men showed me a wad of bills (the Cuban peso is exactly the same size and value as the United States dollar) amounting, apparently, to 400 pesos, which was being sent in to Senor Castro. With a "rich" American planter, it would be natural for the group to have the money if we were searched. It was interesting evidence that Fidel Castro paid for everything he took from the guajiros, or squatter farmers, of the Sierra.

Our story convinced the Army guard when he stopped us, although he looked dubious for a little while. Then came hours of driving, through sugar-cane and rice fields, across rivers that only jeeps could manage. One stretch, the courier said, was heavily patrolled by Government troops but we were lucky and saw none. Finally, after slithering through miles of mud we could go no farther.

It was then midnight, the time we were to meet Castro's scouts; but we had to walk some first and it was hard going. At last we turned off the road and slid down a hillside to where a stream, dark brown under the nearly full moon, rushed its muddy way. One of the boys slipped and fell full length in the icy cold water. 1 waded through with the water almost to my knees and that was hard enough to do without falling. Fifty yards tip the other slope was the meeting point.

Patrol Was Not There

The patrol was not there. Three of us waited while two of the men went back to see if we had missed the scouts somewhere, but in fifteen minutes they us ahead, returned frustrated. The courier suggested that we might move up a bit and he led but obviously did not know where to go. Senor Castro's men have a characteristic signal that I was to hear incessantly-two low, soft, toneless whistles. One of our men kept trying it, but with no success.

After awhile, we gave up. We had kept under cover at all times, for the moonlight was strong, and we knew there were troops around us.

We stopped in a heavy clump of trees and bushes, dripping from the rain, the ground under foot heavily matted, muddy and soaked. There we sat for a whispered confab. The courier, and another youth who had fought previously with Castro, said they would go up the mountainside and see if they could find any of the rebel troops.

Three of us were to wait, a rather agonizing wait of more than two hours, crouched in the mud, not daring to talk or move, trying to snatch a little sleep with our heads on our knees and annoyed maddeningly by the swarms of mosquitoes that were having the feast of their lives.

At last we heard a cautious, welcome double-whistle. One of us replied in kind and this had to be kept up for a while, like two groups meeting in a dense fog, until we got together. One of our party had found an advance patrol and a scout came with him to lead us to an outpost in the mountains.

The scout was a squatter from the hills, and he needed to know every inch of the land to take us as he did, swiftly and unerringly across fields, up steep hills, floundering in the mud.

The ground leveled out blessedly at last and then dipped suddenly. The scout stopped and whistled cautiously. The return whistle came. There was a short parley and we were motioned on, sliding down into a heavy grove. The dripping leaves and boughs, the dense vegetation, the mud underfoot, the moonlight-all gave the impression of a tropical forest, more like Brazil than Cuba.

Appointment at Dawn

Senor Castro was encamped some distance away and a soldier went to announce our arrival and ask whether he would join us or we should join him. Later he came back with the grateful news that we were to wait and Fidel would come along with the dawn. Someone gave me a few soda crackers, which tasted good. Someone else stretched a blanket on the ground and it seemed a great luxury. It was too dark in the grove to see anything.

We spoke in the lowest possible whispers. One man told me how he had seen his brother's store wrecked and burned by Government troops and his brother dragged out and executed. "I'd rather be here, fighting for Fidel, than anywhere in the world now," he said.

There were two hours before dawn, and the blanket made it possible to sleep.

With the light I could see bow young they all were. Senor Castro, according to his followers, is 30, and that is old for the 26th of July Movement. It has a motley array of arms and uniforms, and even a few civilian suits. The rifle and the one machinegun I saw were all American--discarded models.

The captain of this troop was a stocky Negro with a black heard and mustache, a ready, brilliant smile and a willingness for publicity. Of all I met, only he wanted his name mentioned-Juan Almeida, "One of the Eighty-two. "

Several of the youths had lived in the United States and spoke English; others had learned it at school. One had been a professional baseball player in a minor league and his wife is still in the United States. [Camilo Cienfuegos]

Logistics of Rebellion

The part of the Sierra we were in grows no food. "Sometimes we eat; sometimes not," one rebel said. On the whole, they obviously keep healthy. Supporters send in food; the farmers help trusted couriers go out and buy supplies, which the storekeepers sell them at great risk and against Government orders.

Raul Castro, Fidel's younger brother, slight and pleasant, came into the camp with others of the staff, and a few minutes later Fidel himself strode in. Taking him, as one would at first, by physique and personality, this was quite a man---a powerful six-footer, olive-skinned, full-faced, with a straggly beard. He was dressed in an olive gray fatigue uniform and carried a rifle with a telescopic sight, of which he was very proud. It seems his men have something more than fifty of these and he said the soldiers feared them.

"We can pick them off at a thousand yards with these guns," he said.

After some general conversation we went to my blanket and sat down. Someone brought tomato juice, ham sandwiches made with crackers and tins of coffee. In honor of the occasion, Senor Castro broke open a box of good Havana cigars and for the next three hours we sat there while he talked.

No one could talk above a whisper at any time. There were columns of Government troops all around us, Senor Castro said, and their one hope was to catch him and his band.

The personality of the man is overpowering. It was easy to see that his men adored him and also to see why he has caught the imagination of the youth of Cuba all over the island. Here was an educated, dedicated fanatic, a man of ideals, of courage and of remarkable qualities of leadership.

The Eighty-two Formed

As the story unfolded of how he had at first gathered the few remnants of the Eighty-two around him; kept the Government troops at bay while youths came in from other parts of Oriente as General Batista's counter-terrorism aroused them; got arms and supplies and then began the series of raids and counter-attacks of guerrilla warfare, one got a feeling that he is now invincible. Perhaps he isn't, but that is the faith he inspires in his followers.

They have had many fights, and inflicted many losses, Senor Castro said. Government planes came over and bombed every day; in fact, at 9 sharp a plane did fly over. The troops took up positions; a man in a white shirt was hastily covered up. But the plane went on to bomb higher in the mountains.

Castro is a great talker. His brown eyes flash; his intense face is pushed close to the listener and the whispering voice, as in a stage play lends a vivid sense of drama.

"We have been fighting for seventy-nine days now and are stronger than ever," Senor Castro said. "The soldiers are fighting badly; their morale is low and ours could not be higher. We are killing many, but when we take prisoners they are never shot. We question them, talk kindly to them, take their arms and equipment, and then set them free.

"I know that they are always arrested afterward and we heard some were shot as examples to the others, but they don't want to fight, and they don't know how to fight this kind of mountain warfare. We do."

"The Cuban people hear on the radio all about Algeria, but they never hear a word about us or read a word, thanks to the censorship. You will be the first to tell them. I have followers all over the island. All the best elements, especially all the youth, are with us. The Cuban people will stand anything but oppression."

I asked him about the report that he was going to declare a revolutionary government in the Sierra.

"Not yet," he replied. "The time is not ripe. I will make myself known at the opportune moment. It will have all the more effect for the delay, for now everybody is talking about us. We are sure of ourselves.

"There is no hurry. Cuba is in a state of war, but Batista is hiding it. A dictatorship must show that it is omnipotent or it will fall; we are showing that it is impotent."

The Government, he said with some bitterness, is using arms furnished by the United States, not only against him but against all the Cuban people."

"They have bazookas, mortars, machine guns, planes and bombs," he said, "but we are safe here in the Sierra; they must come and get us, and they cannot."

Senor Castro speaks some English, but he preferred to talk in Spanish, which he did with extraordinary eloquence. His is a political mind rather than a military one. He has strong ideas of liberty, democracy, social justice, the need to restore the Constitution, to hold elections. He has strong ideas on economy, too, but an economist would consider them weak.

The 26th of July Movement talks of nationalism, anti-colonialism, anti-imperialism. I asked Senor Castro about that. He answered, "You can be sure we have no animosity toward the United States and the American people."

"Above all," he said, "we are fighting for a democratic Cuba and an end to the dictatorship. We are not anti-military; that is why we let the soldier prisoners go. There is no hatred of the Army as such, for we know the men are good and so are many of the officers."

"Batista has 3,000 men in the field against us. I will not tell you how many we have, for obvious reasons. He works in columns of 200; we in groups of ten to forty, and we are winning. It is a battle against time and time is on our side."

Confident of Financing

To show that he deals fairly with the guajiros he asked someone to bring "the cash." A soldier brought a bundle wrapped in dark brown cloth, which Senor Castro unrolled. There was a stack of peso bills at least a foot high-about $4,000 he said, adding that he had all the money he needed and could get more.

"Why should soldiers die for Batista for $72 a month?" he asked. "When we win, we will give them $100 a month, and they will serve a free, democratic Cuba."

"I am always in the front line," he said; and others confirmed this fact. Such being the case, the Army might yet get him, but in present circumstances he seems almost invulnerable.

"They never know where we are," he said as the group arose to say good-by, "but we always know where they are. You have taken quite a risk in coming here, but we have the whole area covered, and we will get you out safely."

They did. We ploughed our way back through the muddy undergrowth in broad daylight, but always keeping under cover. The scout went like a homing pigeon through woods and across fields where there were no paths straight to a farmer's house on the edge of the Sierra. There we hid in a back room while someone borrowed a horse and went for the jeep, which had been under cover all night.

There was one road block to get through with an Army guard so suspicious our hearts sank, but he let us through.

After that, washed, shaved and looking once again like an American tourist, with my wife as "camouflage," we had no trouble driving back through the road blocks to safety and then on to Havana. So far as anyone knew, we had been away fishing for the week-end, and no one bothered us as we took the plane to New York.

Hacia Falta una Revolucion?

Construction booms in Batista's Cuba (click to enlarge).



1958: preparing the economy for the take-off.

Pazos Obituary in NYTimes (2001)

Felipe Pazos, 88, Economist; Cuban Split Early With Castro

By PAUL LEWIS

Published: Friday, March 9, 2001

Felipe Pazos, a Cuban economist who initially supported Fidel Castro because he said he believed that he would restore democracy but broke with him in 1959, died on Feb. 26 in exile at Puerto Ordaz, Venezuela. He was 88.

In February 1957, Dr. Pazos and his son Xavier arranged for a correspondent from The New York Times, Herbert L. Matthews, to interview and photograph Mr. Castro and his guerrillas at their hideaway in the southern Sierra Maestra.

The interviews belied the contentions by the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista that Mr. Castro had been killed and propelled him and his revolutionaries into the international limelight.

In July 1957, Dr. Pazos met Mr. Castro in the mountains. With Raúl Chibas, another Batista opponent, they issued a manifesto intended to reassure the middle classes about the revolutionaries' intentions.

The revolutionaries committed themselves to ''the fine ideal of a Cuba free, democratic and just,'' pledging to restore the democratic Constitution of 1940 that had been abrogated after the Batista coup in 1952.

They promised a free press and free elections in all unions. Uncultivated land was to be redistributed among landless peasants.

Immediately after the manifesto, Dr. Pazos and his family were forced to flee the country.

When Mr. Castro seized power two years later, Dr. Pazos was reappointed president of the Banco Nacional de Cuba, Cuba's central bank, which he had headed in the early 50's, resigning after Batista took over.

But the two quickly fell out, with Dr. Pazos increasingly disillusioned by Mr. Castro's confrontational attitude toward the United States, his failure to make good on his pledge to restore democracy and the growing power of Communists.

Accompanying Mr. Castro on a visit to the United States in April 1959, Dr. Pazos was annoyed at being forbidden to discuss economic aid for Cuba.

In October, he was further disillusioned by the arrest and imprisonment for treason of Maj. Hubert Matos, the former military governor of Camagüey and a leading anti-Communist in the army.

Later that month, when the former air force commander, Díaz Lanz, flew a B-25 bomber from Florida over Havana to drop anti- Castro leaflets, Mr. Castro denounced the United States for complicity in the raid.

On Oct. 23, 1959, Dr. Pazos told President Osvaldo Dorticós that he wanted to resign, saying Mr. Castro had overreacted to the raid and that if Major Matos had been arrested for opposing Communism, he should be, too.

''He realized then that the revolution would be taken over by the Communists and the 1940 Constitution would never be restored as Castro had promised,'' said Ernesto Betancourt, another former Castro supporter who also fell out with Mr. Castro and went into exile.

Mr. Castro's brother Raúl proposed executing Dr. Pazos and Major Matos immediately.

But Dr. Pazos was eventually allowed to leave the country, and his Central Bank position was taken by Che Guevara.

Dr. Pazos was born in 1912 in Havana. He earned a doctorate from the University of Havana in 1938, joined the Cuban foreign service and in 1944 attended the Bretton Woods conference that created the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.

He was on the I.M.F. staff from 1946 until 1949, when he returned to Havana to work on the creation of the central bank there, working as president from 1950 until 1952.

After leaving Cuba, he worked on the Alliance for Progress and then for the Inter-American Development Bank, until his retirement in 1975, when he moved to Venezuela.

His best known publications were ''Economic Development of Latin America'' (1961) and ''Chronic Inflation in Latin America'' (1972).

His wife, the former Fara Vea, died in 1982. His son Xavier, who played the boy in the film of ''The Old Man and the Sea,'' is an engineer in Venezuela. Another son and a daughter also survive.

Fidel: Revolutionary Genius

En el transcurso de la Crisis de Octubre pasé junto a Fidel los
momentos más impresionantes de mi vida. Estuve la mayor parte del
tiempo a su lado. Hubo un instante en que considerábamos cercano el
ataque militar de los Estados Unidos y Fidel tomó la decisión de
poner todos los medios en alerta. En pocas horas el pueblo estaba en
posición de combate. Era impresionante la fe de Fidel en su pueblo, y
de su pueblo y de nosotros, los soviéticos, en él. Fidel es, sin
discusión alguna, uno de los genios políticos y militares de este
siglo.

Alexei Dementiev
Coronel General, primer jefe de los asesores militares soviéticos en Cuba
Entrevista realizada por Luis Báez, La Habana,1963.

USA espia a Fidel en 1958

18. Despatch From the Consulate at Santiago de Cuba to the Department of State [1]

No. 54

Santiago de Cuba, February 21,1958.

REF

CA-6192, January 21,1958 on the same subject [2]

SUBJECT

Fidel Castro, 26 of July Movement

The following comments on the Cuban rebel leader, Fidel Castro and his 26 of July Movement are forwarded to the Department on the basis of an on-the-spot observation of conditions and events in the Province of Oriente during the past three years and conversations with numerous persons in all walks of life in this area. The reporting officer desires to emphasize that he does not know Fidel Castro or any member of his family personally.

Conditions and events in this country are dominated by two Cubans, bitter enemies, each apparently consumed by the desire to eliminate the other in a death struggle if necessary. These two men are President Fulgencio Batista and Fidel Castro, the subject of this despatch. Castro is, at the same time, the most loved, the most hated and the most controversial person on the Cuban political scene at the present time, depending on how the individual Cuban feels about him. Both men come from Banes, a small town on the north coast of Oriente Province which depends on [for] its existence on the United Fruit Sugar Company, an extensive subsidiary of the United Fruit Company.

President Batista acquired fame and fortune after he left Banes and he is a famous graduate of the school of experience. His life history is already well known to the Department.

Fidel Castro came from a family which was much higher on the social scale than Batista's relatives. His father is reported to have been a sugar plantation owner who was originally a manual laborer. He developed a personal fortune by hard work and good luck. According to an American citizen residing in Banes, Castro was a "bum and a ne'er-do-well" who married a nice girl belonging to the Diaz Balart family and then left her. He attended the University of Habana. The Embassy will provide information on Castro's activities while there. Castro is regarded locally as having wild ideas and varying from radical to liberal in his political philosophy. Present adherents are inclined to credit him with having reached political maturity and to having sobered up as he attained stature.

Fidel Castro first made local history when he and a band of young hotheads made a frontal assault on the heavily fortified Moncada Barracks in this city on July 26, 1953. He took the garrison by surprise and he nearly succeeded in capturing the fortress but the important thing now is that he failed then. He and the survivors were taken prisoners. His career would have ended there because the local populace regarded the attack on Moncada Barracks as something that only a fool would have attempted. The Castro legend started only through what is regarded by local residents as an act of brutality by the commanders and forces of the Barracks in slaughtering most of the survivors. Fidel Castro survived and was released in due course in a political amnesty.

Eventually Castro left Cuba to spend most of his time in Mexico.

Throughout most of 1956, the Castro legend grew as a series of abortive incidents attributed to his movement took place. Throughout the year, his supporters kept his flame alive locally with a promise that he would return to deliver Cuba from the "evils of the Batista regime". As the year's end approached, it was obvious to all Santiagueros that Castro would have to make good his boast of returning or they would lose faith in what was the only active and militant opposition to the Batista government. The reporting officer recalls that there was waning interest in his movement as December 1956 approached and Castro was now being regarded also as a braggart.

On November 30, 1956 the city of Santiago almost fell to a small band of young rebels held to be a local nucleus of the 26 of July Movement because of the identifying armbands. They could not have totaled more than 200 in number but their boldness almost carried the day and in fact the city was controlled by the rebels for about two hours that morning for the simple reason that the troops were garrisoned at Moncada Barracks when caught off-guard by the rashness of the young rebels.

This activity in Santiago de Cuba on November 30 must have been either poor timing or else it could have been a diversionary move to draw away Army strength from the landing that Fidel Castro and a band of some 80 men made on the isolated and rugged coastline on the western tip of the Sierra Maestra range two days later. Here again Fidel Castro appears to have been lucky because only a few of those men survived the landing but they fought their way up the unfriendly slopes of the Sierra. The survivors warded off half-hearted attempts by the Cuban Army to draw them out into more favorable terrain.

From this point on Fidel Castro skyrocketed to fame and it became increasingly evident that the Batista Government would not be able or willing to stamp him and his followers out. As this became obvious, his exploits were considered to be those of a latter-day Robin Hood. His successful defiance of the Cuban Army became the source of great delight and satisfaction to less daring Santiagueros.

While he became a symbol of resistance to the Batista Government, he became a hero to teenagers and young Cubans. His exploits provided vicarious pleasure to older and less daring Santiagueros and, as was inevitable, they became a headache eventually as Cuban youngsters began to disappear from their homes with the later knowledge that they had gone to the Sierra to join the Castro forces. As supplies and recruits began to filter through the porous Cuban Army lines, Castro's forces grew in strength and equipment. They began to make attacks and forays on isolated Army outposts and unarmed areas. They expanded their area of operations but always within the shadows of the Sierra Maestra. They knew that they could not defeat the Cuban Army in a pitched battle without artillery and motorized equipment, but they also knew that they were safe from annihilation so long as they remained within the shelter of the mountains where the terrain factor favored them.

At year's end, the Castro forces were reported to number between 500 and 1,000 well-armed, well-trained and rugged troops. They had not defeated the Cuban Army or toppled the Batista Government but they had harassed it and had seriously undermined its morale. In the eyes of the Santiagueros, the Castro forces were the one hope that remained for removing what they referred to as the "Batista yoke".

Enthusiasm for the Castro cause waned and wavered at the end of 1957 as the famous leader failed to make good on his boast to destroy the Cuban sugar crop by burning the canefields. Psychologically this was a bad move because it alienated many of his more effective supporters in the peasant and laboring classes who saw burning of canefields as removal of their livelihood. These were the people who had hidden his men, provided primitive transportation, fresh food and, of paramount importance, loyal guides to traverse the unfriendly terrain of the Sierra. In the cities and particularly in Santiago de Cuba the citizenry began to lose faith again as the attempt on the canefields failed and no successful militant activity was taking place. Santiago de Cuba returned to it most normal pace in two years. On paper the Castro group had disowned the Junta de Liberacion Cubana which had earlier formed a united front in a meeting in Miami. This was followed by the arrest of three rebel leaders, Dr. Santos Buch, Javier Pazos and Dr. Armando Hart while returning to Santiago from the Sierra during January 1958. All of these incidents contributed to the fortunes of the Castro movement reaching the lowest point of the past year.

During the past two weeks the combined militant opposition groups have returned to the fight with renewed vigor and strength, with numerous acts of terrorism and sabotage a daily occurrence. The Castro forces have returned to their tactics of wearing the Cuban Army down with the hope of having the enlisted men turn against the officers or causing such a split among the officer corps that a military junta will emerge upon removal of the Batista Government. In their campaign of destruction the rebels don't seem to discriminate and their recent targets have included a storage tank belonging to Sinclair Oil company which contained about 135,000 gallons of fuel. Two days ago a local branch factory of Cuban Air Products Corporation, an American owned company, was destroyed by flames. At the local level, the railroads and bus lines have sustained heavy losses through derailments, rolling equipment fires, etc.

The rebels' aim seems to be to cause enough destruction and enough damage to the Cuban economy to force a change of government.

Although apparently helpless to deal a death blow to the Batista Government, the Castro Movement and other opposition forces are far from discouraged and continue to nibble away at the Armed Forces. They have managed to maintain a steady pressure on Batista and the man on the street might well wonder how long the bloodshed will continue on both sides. As of this writing, acts of violence have increased throughout the island and there seems to be evidence of greater unity and determination of purpose than ever before by the opposition. It might appear that the Batista Government can only hope for a containing operation in order to survive.

Fidel Castro and his 26 of July Movement appear to have grown from an annoying thorn in the side of the Batista Government to a slowly spreading cancerous tumor. Through persistence and the benevolent attitude of several American reporters and the American press, this man and his movement have managed to become sentimental favorites in the United States to such an extent that the Batista Government is now on the defensive. The Government has made no attempt at the local level to curry favor with the Cuban public, choosing the more direct expedient of recourse to force to maintain itself in power, a move which has only strengthened the opposition's charges of dictatorship. The Fidelistas, too, have resorted to force but, in the main, they have confined their violence to the Armed Forces and the "chivato", a term applied to an informer in the pay of the Government. The Government, instead of apprehending these obvious lawbreakers and submitting them to due process and trial in Cuban courts, applies its own system of justice which is swift, effective and without appeal. As a daily occurrence bodies of young men are found hanged or lying along the roadside with as many as 40 bullet holes.

In Santiago de Cuba, Fidel Castro and his 26 of July Movement are anything and everything to anyone and everyone. The reporting officer has seen a Catholic priest intimately connected with the local youth movement of the Church go into a nervous rapture when the discussion switches to Fidel Castro. Castro, he will say, represents the thwarted aspirations of Cuban youth and he can do no wrong. He will provide Cuban youth with a better and safer Cuba where every Cuban can look at his fellow citizen straight in the eye. Is Castro a dangerous radical or communist? No, this priest will say, Fidel has one or more priests in the Sierra now and more may be on the way. This priest has blessed a number of medallions which were forwarded to the men with Castro.

The reporting officer has seen Army officers go into a blazing rage when Fidel is mentioned. To them Castro is the vilest, lowest form of humanity. They report that Castro and his brother, Raul, are either communists or the nearest thing to it.

The Castro movement has an unusual appeal to all sectors of Cuban society, either legitimate or convenient. Monetary support for Castro and his movement comes from the wealthier classes of this city, many Santiagueros having been quite generous with their pocketbooks. Many of them have hidden newspapermen and free lance writers in their homes while arrangements were being made for completion of their journey to or from the Sierra.

To the youth of Oriente Province, Fidel Castro is not unlike a Pied Piper beckoning to them. He has provided a continuing headache for sober minded parents in this area because their youngsters either want to go to the Sierra with Fidel or want to contribute to the cause at the local level through sabotage, arson, etc. The Consulate is accosted daily by frantic parents who want to get their youngsters to the United States because the local authorities are looking for them or else think that they are.

Perhaps of equal importance to the Department and its observers in evaluating the ultimate outcome in this deadly struggle between Fidel Castro and President Batista, is the future status of the youth of this country. This may well turn out to be the lost decade for Cuban youth in one sense although Cuban youth may argue that their's is a righteous cause. Those youngsters who desire to remain aloof from the present strife cannot remain in this country. Where they or their parents can afford it, they have gone to Europe or the United States. Others have had to flee and are scattered throughout the United States and Latin America biding their time and waiting. The Cuban Universities have been closed or inoperative for the past two years thereby affecting all sectors of Cuban society willfully or otherwise. In some cases the losses arising from this academic paralysis may be irreparable.

Because of an apparent lack of centralized control over these youthful groups, they have not been organized into effective brigades which could strike at the Army. Instead they have struck out blindly and futilely with the result that they are cut down singly with mounting losses as the days go by. Many of these youngsters have been killed as a result of actions and deeds that were pure stupidity.

These youngsters will present another problem which is long range in nature. Many of them have grown accustomed to violence, to hit and run tactics, and to the effective use of weapons and firearms. They may be hard to keep in line when the present civil strife comes to an end and many of them are potential criminals.

It is a foregone conclusion that the average Cuban is remarkably naive when it comes to politics and he prefers to be guided by his emotions than by reasoning. Most of the Cubans that the reporting officer has talked to will not own up to the possibility that the Castro movement might be infiltrated with communists. They will say that such a thing is unthinkable and preposterous. They will state that Castro is Cuban to the nth degree and that he would never allow this to happen. The reporting officer has asked Cubans to comment on allegations that one of Castro's trusted lieutenants, Dr. Ernesto Guevara, an Argentine, is a communist or a sympathizer. Invariably they will counter with vehement denials but will admit that they know nothing of his background and will prefer to dismiss the conversation with suggestions that Dr. Guevara is an idealistic adventurer.

The presence of an estimated one thousand men in the Sierra is a natural opportunity for communist infiltration. Fidel Castro's men must be tired, lonely, living close to nature and facing death at every turn. As such, they must have become bitter against society and with such a frame of mind they could conceivably provide ready reception to Russian agents. This is one of the dangers of the continuing struggle between Fidel Castro and the Batista Government.

While many of the Santiagueros revere Fidel Castro and his Movement, some of them have begun to experience sobering reflections about the rebel leader. They have detected a recent tendency on Fidel Castro's part to behave and to issue instructions with a definite autocratic attitude. With certain misgivings, they are beginning to wonder whether he will be willing to settle for his role as the so-called liberator of Cuba in the final settlement of accounts. Many of them are beginning to fear that Fidel Castro might emerge as the new strong man of Cuba. Many of them are beginning to think that Cuba faces a grim and uncertain future with no political peace in sight.

Oscar H. Guerra

NOTES:

1. Source: Department of State, Central Files, 737.52/2-2158. Confidential. Drafted by Guerra.

2. This circular airgram, sent to Santiago de Cuba, Havana, Bogota, Buenos Aires, Guatemala City, Mexico City, San Jose, and San Salvador, reads in part as follows:

"In order to assist the Department in arriving at an objective and positive evaluation of Fidel Castro and his 26th of July movement it would be greatly appreciated if the addressees would make a special effort to provide information regarding this man and his party. The information now available is contradictory, inconclusive and of.inadequate detail. More knowledge concerning Castro's past associations, past activities and anything which might shed light on his ideology and that of those closest to him is needed. It is suggested that [less than I line not declassified] be utilized whenever appropriate." (Ibid., 737.52/1-2158)

Revolution without Castro

Even though Fidel Castro founded the "26 of July" movement, this book shows that the organizing throughout Cuba fell on the shoulders of an underground leader named Frank Pais, who was also responsible for the survival of the incipient guerrilla force led by Castro in the Sierra Maestra. Pais became not only the National Chief of Action-as portrayed in the official publications-but the top leader of the M-26-7's National Directorate. The antagonism between Castro and Pais may have been the reason for his mysterious death when he was only 22 years of age. This is the true story of his life and legacy. At this crucial time, when historians are trying to arrive at the revolution's final balance, a book like this is essential to read before reaching an impartial verdict.

El juicio de Huber Matos, segun Matos

El Pais (Madrid)
Domingo, 24 de marzo de 2002

HUBER MATOS

'Cómo llegó la noche. Revolución y condena de un idealista cubano'. Tusquets Editores. Tiempo de Memoria.

Matos (nacido en 1918) fue uno de los tres comandantes que lucharon contra la dictadura de Fulgencio Batista y entraron victoriosos en La Habana. Los otros dos fueron Fidel Castro, que acabaría haciéndose con el poder total, y Camilo Cienfuegos, desaparecido en un extraño accidente de aviación. Matos denunció el rumbo que tomaba la revolución castrista. Fue detenido y condenado, en un proceso irregular, a 20 años de cárcel, que cumplió.

Fidel tiene el monopolio completo del juicio. Me juzgará un tribunal militar seleccionado por él mismo en el que todos sus miembros le son incondicionales. También escogió al fiscal y a los funcionarios a cargo de las tareas auxiliares. Tribunal, testigos, lugar y público. Pero él será el verdadero fiscal y también se reserva el papel de testigo acusador. Él ordenará la sentencia al tribunal para que la comunique públicamente. (...)

Día 14 de diciembre de 1959

Todas las noches, tarde, nos llevan de regreso al castillo de El Morro, nos separan y me llevan directo al calabozo. Al día siguiente, al mediodía, nos traen al edificio en que se nos juzga.

Estamos ya en el cuarto día del juicio, en medio de su todavía poco definido curso. Los cargos contra mí han sido débiles y mal organizados, formulados por testigos intrascendentes que han venido al juicio presionados por los Castro o haciendo méritos con éstos. Prefiero ignorar los nombres de algunas de estas personas, mas no a
Jorge Enrique Mendoza Reboredo y a Orestes Valera, quienes en la madrugada del 21 de octubre nos insultaron por la radio de Camagüey con los adjetivos de 'traidores', 'hijos de perra' y otras cosas por el estilo, provocándonos persistentemente para crear una situación de violencia en la ciudad que proporcionara evidencia de subversión. Los dos sujetos canallescos han venido a repetir sus acusaciones.

Avanza la tarde. La sesión lleva varias horas de trabajo. Hay indicios
de que Fidel se dispone a arribar a la sala del tribunal de un momento
a otro. Instalan un micrófono para la red nacional de emisoras cubanas
y se nota la presencia de algunos de sus escoltas. Las cosas han
llegado a un punto delicado para el Gobierno y es necesario que
venga Fidel a impresionar. Entra con sus guardaespaldas, no mira para
donde estoy y comienza una extensísima perorata de varias horas.

Con poses olímpicas y sabiendo que nadie se atreverá a contradecirlo, cuenta la historia de
mi actuación en el Ejército Rebelde, refrescando las disputas que tuvimos en la sierra Maestra y presentándome como un hombre oportunista, irresponsable e ingrato. Luego trae a colación una serie de argumentaciones sobre la revolución y afirma que 'la nuestra no es una revolución
comunista. En Rusia habrán hecho una revolución comunista. Nosotros estamos haciendo nuestra revolución, y nuestra revolución es una revolución humanista, profunda y radical'.

Las mentiras que dice ante la audiencia que colma el salón del tribunal
me hacen salirle al paso. Su cinismo deforma los hechos. Cuenta a su
manera algunos de los problemas que tuvimos en la sierra y relata el
episodio de la ametralladora que Duque tenía que devolverle y que él
creyó que yo había tomado para la Columna 9, pero lo describe
falseando la verdad, silenciando datos y palabras; va añadiendo o
inventando, a su conveniencia, para suplantar la verdad y exhibirme
como un hombre carente de principios e inclinado por mi propia
naturaleza a la traición. Me enfrento a él y a sus mentiras. En un
momento afirma con el mayor descaro:

-Huber Matos tuvo que retractarse.

A lo que respondo:

-¿Y por qué no prueba eso que acaba de decir presentando mi carta
de respuesta? Usted ha venido con unos cuantos papeles.

-No, esa carta no la traje; creo que se ha extraviado, no sé.

-Es de lamentar que no la haya traído para respaldar su afirmación; no
la trajo porque evidenciaría mi condición de hombre honesto y de
principios, todo lo contrario de lo que usted está diciendo.

Fidel se molesta con mis interrupciones y reclama al presidente del
tribunal que se le respete el uso de la palabra. Pero no puede impedir
que yo, durante su interminable diatriba, me ponga de pie una y otra
vez y lo refute, pues más que la magnitud del castigo que me impongan
me interesa que quede clara la verdad.

En su argumentación, que transmiten al pueblo cubano por radio,
insiste en presentarme como un individuo que se sumó a las fuerzas
revolucionarias, donde todo le resultó muy fácil. Que soy más un
aventurero que un hombre de formación ideológica. Argumenta que es
una mentira infamante insinuar que la revolución va hacia el
comunismo. Le resta valor a mi posición mostrándome como un
calumniador, como un sujeto que está dándole un rótulo de marxista a
la revolución, 'cuando es cubanísima, como las palmas'.

En el curso de su exposición, Fidel, involuntariamente, pone al trasluz
la farsa que es este juicio. Llama de entre el público al comandante
Félix Duque, quien ya ha prestado declaración, para que haga otra
diferente.

Félix Duque fue segundo en la tropa mía y conoce bien lo sucedido en
Camagüey, por haber estado allí un día antes de mi arresto. Su primer
testimonio ante el tribunal corresponde a la verdad de los hechos: no
encontró conspiración ni sedición. Fidel lo ha presionado para que lo
cambie y lo presenta de nuevo en el juicio de forma totalmente
arbitraria. Duque comienza con tantas mentiras que, sin hacer caso de
los custodios, me paro y subo al estrado, voy hasta donde está
Duque, le quito el micrófono. Quedo a pocos pasos de Fidel, que con
un micrófono en la mano se queda sin habla. Afirmo al público que se
falsea la verdad con el mayor descaro. Analizo una a una las mentiras
de Duque, que me observa asustado. Es fácil poner en evidencia sus
contradicciones. Fidel, sorprendido, reacciona con temor.

El tribunal, al alterar las reglas de procedimiento, permitiendo que
Fidel haga subir a Félix Duque con esta nueva declaración, pierde por
el momento el control del juicio. Apelo a los presentes para que
entiendan que ésta es una patraña colosal en la que se quiere destruir a
un hombre con el artificio de una acción legal viciada por la
inmoralidad y por el abuso de poder. ¿No es Fidel Castro quien ha
escogido el tribunal, me acusa como testigo y, además, se permite el
lujo de llamar a declarar a quien él quiere? ¿Cómo puede un testigo,
en el mismo juicio, hacer dos declaraciones tan marcadamente
opuestas? Algo inadmisible.

Siguen los testimonios arbitrarios e ilegales. Hasta Armando Hart,
quien en los primeros meses de la revolución en el poder me pidió que
le ayudara a resolver su situación con los Castro, que le habían dado
la espalda, viene de atrás del auditorio, donde están los tramoyistas.
Habla ante el tribunal sin que nadie lo haya autorizado a prestar
declaración. Me acusa sin ser testigo del caso. También sin ser testigo
irrumpe en la sala el capitán Suárez Gayol, iba decir necedades ante el
tribunal. El juicio se vuelve un espectáculo de circo romano. Es el jefe
del Gobierno quien ha provocado este desorden.

Fidel retoma la palabra y habla hasta muy tarde de la noche. Le
interrumpo más de cincuenta veces para poner las cosas en su lugar
cada vez que dice una mentira o presenta un asunto de manera
tergiversada o capciosa, con su acostumbrado cinismo. Está molesto;
no me importa. Me importa la verdad a cualquier precio.

Con su séquito, Fidel abandona el salón. La oficialidad que conforma
el público cree que la sesión ha terminado y que continuará al día
siguiente. Los miembros del tribunal toman parte en el juego porque se
retiran de la sala, dando también la impresión de que la vista ha
concluido y que continuará al día siguiente. No dicen nada y el público
se va. El recinto queda prácticamente vacío. Permanecemos en él los
acusados, los hombres de la seguridad militar que nos vigilan y
nuestros familiares, que por lo general no se retiran hasta que nos
llevan de regreso al castillo de El Morro.

Después de unas dos horas, como a la una y media de la mañana,
vuelve el tribunal. El juicio va a continuar. El ardid les sale bien a los
Castro. Indudablemente, la oportunidad de hablar antes de que se
dicte la sentencia la voy a tener ante un salón desierto. Expondré mi
defensa una vez que el fiscal termine con su exposición, que resumirá
con la petición de la pena de muerte.

El fiscal habla durante dos horas, alargando de forma deliberada su
exposición. Una forma más de irnos agotando física y psíquicamente.
Estamos sentados desde las doce del mediodía de ayer y hemos
pasado más de catorce horas continuas y agobiadoras, que en el
banquillo de los acusados son unas cuantas.

Hace uso de la palabra mi abogado. Con precisión de jurista
experimentado emplea menos de una hora en reducir a nada la
pomposa retórica del fiscal Serguera. Analiza los cargos y deja al
descubierto su inconsistencia y la carencia total de fundamentación.

-El tribunal puede pensar lo que quiera. Lo cierto es que no se ha
podido demostrar ninguna de las dos acusaciones: ni traición ni
sedición. Mucha hojarasca retórica y ninguna prueba concreta,
¡ninguna!

Termina diciendo:

-En el curso de este juicio se ha hecho evidente que mi defendido es
inocente. Solicito del tribunal el veredicto absolutorio que en justicia le
corresponde.

Hablan a continuación los otros dos abogados que tienen a su cargo la
defensa de mis compañeros de causa. Uno de ellos es oficial de las
fuerzas armadas y actúa como abogado de oficio. Contrariamente a lo
que pensábamos, hace un papel brillante y corajudo, enfrentándose al
fiscal con argumentos irrebatibles y entera valentía.

Nos impresiona su valor, y comentamos: 'Inevitablemente, lo
despiden, y suerte si no lo meten preso'.

A las cinco de la mañana, el presidente del tribunal dice que se va a
dictar sentencia y pregunta si alguno de los acusados tiene algo que
decir.

Tengo mucho que decir. Dirijo una mirada a mis familiares, cuyos
rostros expresan claramente su cansancio, aunque en ellos hay una
admirable entereza. Reconstruyo los hechos tratando de ser lo más fiel
posible a la realidad. Uno a uno desmenuzo los cargos que se me
imputan, con autenticidad y respeto a la verdad.

Puntualizo las conclusiones:

-No hay traición. He sido y soy fiel a mi
patria. He servido lealmente a la revolución, y
es mi lealtad a la revolución y el amor a mi
patria lo que me llevan a reclamar,
persuasivamente, primero, y por último, con
mi renuncia, que no se suplante el programa
democrático y humanista de la revolución.

No hay sedición, pues no se ha hecho ningún planteamiento para
subvertir el orden, ni existe un propósito ni un hecho para crear
violencia. La provocación a la violencia vino de la parte oficial de
manera muy notoria. Además, este juicio es ilegal, porque Fidel
Castro, en su función de primer ministro y comandante en jefe, tiene
de su parte el tribunal y concurre como testigo acusador. ¿Qué tipo de
justicia es ésta? Hay algo más que señalar como violación flagrante
que invalida este proceso judicial desde su inicio. Cinco días después
de mi arresto, y encontrándome incomunicado en un miserable
calabozo, Fidel Castro, usando su autoridad de gobernante y su
enorme influencia, me hizo condenar a muerte en un acto público en el
que cientos de miles de cubanos, a instancias suyas, levantaron el
brazo aprobando mi fusilamiento sin tomar en cuenta mi derecho a ser
escuchado. Este juicio es una farsa inmoral desde el comienzo y
deploro que mis compañeros de armas que integran el tribunal se vean
comprometidos en el desempeño de una función que no conlleva ni
orgullo ni honra.

Acabo señalando lo que ya había reiterado en mis declaraciones
previas: si es necesario entregar mi vida para que se concreten en
hechos todas esas cosas hermosas que la revolución ha prometido,
estoy dispuesto a darla en bien de mi patria y de mi pueblo. 'Estoy
convencido de que en el sacrificio de los hombres está el camino que
conduce a los pueblos a la victoria'.

El teniente Dionisio Suárez habla en representación de mis
compañeros y lo hace muy bien, con nitidez y elocuencia.

Termina la sesión a las siete de la mañana sin que se dicte la sentencia.
Nos sacan del edificio, y cuando vamos a tomar los vehículos que nos
llevarán al castillo de El Morro, una claqué de diez o más militares
grita: '¡Paredón! ¡Paredón! ¡Paredón!'... Un estribillo trágico que
repiten y repiten para romperle los nervios a los acusados. Otra
agresión de las tantas que han puesto en función los hermanos Castro.

A estas alturas poco me importan el rencor o las pasiones personales.
Soy un hombre en el momento más crucial de su existencia. Paso
frente a ese grupo hostil y los miro con total indiferencia. Los que no
claudican han de estar siempre preparados para pagar el precio que
las circunstancias demanden.

Nos llevan de regreso a El Morro. Llegamos como a las nueve de la
mañana. Hemos pasado veinte horas ante el tribunal y necesitamos
reponernos un poco para regresar esta tarde y escuchar la sentencia.

Todo lo que tenía que decir está dicho. He analizado previamente la
perspectiva del fusilamiento y me siento preparado para esa
eventualidad, aun cuando soy consciente de que hemos ganado el
juicio. Aunque sé que esto no significa mucho.

Día 15 de diciembre de 1959

A las cuatro de la tarde nos regresan al tribunal. En los momentos
previos a esta última sesión hablo con mi esposa, que se acerca tan
llena de dolor como de secreta esperanza. Ella presenció en las horas
de la mañana aquel insistente '¡Paredón! ¡Paredón! ¡Paredón!'..., que
un pequeño grupo profirió ante las puertas del edificio donde nos
encontrábamos. Eso la quebró un poco, pero ha tenido la capacidad
de reponerse.

-Huber, te van a fusilar porque te has portado como el hombre íntegro
que eres.

-Sí, quieren fusilarme, pero Fidel debe de tener sus dudas. Acuérdate
de que detrás de toda su pantalla es un cobarde, y las cosas no le han
salido como esperaba. Sé lo que está pensando. Sabe que hay mucha
gente en el ejército que me apoya, y si me fusila alguno puede tratar
de cobrárselo. Él le tiene horror a un atentado; es su obsesión.

-Pero él no puede perdonar que lo hayas descalificado delante de
todo el ejército; Raúl estaba fuera de sí. Tú sabes que si te condenan a
muerte ésta será la última vez que nos veremos, de aquí te llevarán
directo al paredón.

-Lo sé, tú y yo hemos estado juntos en todo esto, me has respaldado
siempre. Lo más importante son nuestros hijos, y tú los podrás sacar
adelante. Allá, yo te seguiré queriendo, y después de esta vida nos
volveremos a ver. Te esperaré.

Pendemos de un hilo sobre el abismo. Minutos después abren la
sesión en la que se dictará sentencia. Los Castro, poseídos por una
pasión enfermiza, quieren verme caer ante el pelotón de fusilamiento y
terminar para siempre conmigo.

-Pónganse de pie los acusados, el tribunal va a dictar sentencia.

Escucho estas palabras y me levanto del banquillo. Por mi mente pasa
la idea de que cuando enfrente el pelotón de fusilamiento les voy a dar
a mis enemigos un último ejemplo de lealtad a mis convicciones.

-Huber Matos: veinte años de cárcel.

En este momento, cuando sé cuál es mi condena, siento la inefable
sensación del individuo que cree en su muerte inmediata y se entera de
que seguirá viviendo. Esto, indudablemente, es bien recibido por la
naturaleza humana, que en todos los casos quiere sobrevivir.
Intercambio miradas de comprensión y solidaridad con mis
compañeros de causa. Atravieso por un sinfín de estados
emocionales, imaginándome a la vez la alegría que cubre interiormente
a los míos. Vuelvo mi rostro hacia mi esposa, mi padre y mi hijo. Nos
miramos, reconociendo en nuestras pupilas un brillo que señala una
inesperada puerta al futuro, aun en la condición de prisionero por
largos años en que me encontraré a partir de ahora.