4 -- raising the Cuban standard of living.
He also promised the U.S. Ambassador that free elections would be held no later than 1958.
By 1957 the International Monetary Fund ranked Cuba fourth among the 20 Latin American Republics in per capita income. Although it was only one sixth as high as the United States, it was 90% as high as Italy, far higher than Japan, and six times higher than India. The U.S. Department of Commerce reported: "The Cuban national income has reached levels which give the Cuban people one of the highest standards of living in Latin America.4
Batista's biographers agree that the General was not the usual Latin American "army strong man," but was actually very pro-labor and tried to persuade the people that he wanted to carry out policies which would be popular rather than dictatorial. It soon became apparent that Batista's policies were making a highly profitable tourist mecca out of Cuba and attracting vast quantities of American capital for industrial development.
It also became apparent that Cuba was gradually changing from a strait-jacket, sugar-cane culture to a better balanced industrial-agriculture-tourist economy. Wages went up from 10 to 30% and many Cuban workers were covered with health, accident and medical insurance for the first time, between 1950 and 1958 the overall national income jumped 22%. This is after deducting 10% for rising living costs.
This, then, was the promising development of Cuba which was taking place at the time Batista was overthrown.
Politically, Batista's administration was typical of Cuba's past. The Batista regime indulged itself in certain quantities of graft; when there were armed insurrections, Batista met violence with violence; when there were minority uprisings he suspended civil rights and established full military control. Nevertheless he insisted that once conditions were stabilized, he would submit himself to the people in a popular election and would be willing to stand by the results just as he had done in 1944. His opponents, particularly Fidel Castro, jeered at such promises and accused Batista of being opposed to constitutional government. The record shows that several times when Batista tried to slacken the reigns of control there were immediate outbursts of violence and he would therefore tighten them again.
But it was during the Castro Revolution that Batista's political sincerity was actually demonstrated. He announced that in accordance with his previous commitment there would be a general election June 1, 1958. He invited Castro to restore peace so that the will of the people could be determined.
Castro responded with a bloodthirsty manifesto in which be declared that as of April 5, 1958, any person who remained in an office of trust in the executive branch of the government would be "considered guilty of treason." He said candidates for the elections must withdraw immediately or suffer "ten years imprisonment to the death sentence." He authorized his revolutionary militia in the towns and cities to shoot down candidates summarily.
Responsible Cubans such as Dr. Marquez Sterling made contact with Castro in his mountain retreat and pleaded with the revolutionary leader to stop the bloodshed and allow the elections. Castro arrogantly turned him down. There would be no elections.
During the emotional white heat of the revolution many Americans missed the highly significant overtures which Batista was making. As it turned out, these might have made the difference in saving Cuba from the Communist conquest which Castro was planning.
Earlier, U.S. Ambassador Arthur Gardner had been removed because he urged support of Batista until Cuba's Problems could be settled at the polls. He was replaced by Ambassador Earl Smith who soon received a horrified State Department stare when he tried to put over the point that Castro was obviously leading Cuba and the United States into a Soviet-built Communist trap.
These shocked State Department "experts" reflected their complete disdain for their Ambassador's advice by deliberately engineering a tight arms embargo against Batista. Then they went further. To completely assure Batista's defeat they promoted an agreement among the Central and South American republics that they would not sell arms to Batista either. The results were inevitable.
In desperation, Batista tried to buy 15 unarmed training planes from the United States. It was finally agreed that this would be satisfactory. Batista paid for them in advance. Then Castro ordered Raul to launch a project specifically designed to intimidate and humiliate the United States. Raul kidnapped 30 U.S. Marines and sailors, 17 American civilians and 3 Canadians. Threats against the lives of these hostages were used to force the United States to cancel the shipment of training planes to Batista. The experts in the State Department meekly capitulated!
Some American citizens were bold enough to suggest that if Teddy Roosevelt had been alive he would have taken the U.S. Marine Corps and landed in the middle of Castro's mountain retreat with such an earthshaking velocity that the Cuban tyrant would have gladly released the Americans -- and without any price.
The Castro Coup D’état
When Batista first took over in 1952, Fidel Castro had immediately projected himself into the front lines of opposition. As indicated previously, Castro had been working behind the facade of the Orthodox Party, but after the Batista Coup he insisted that this organization include the Communist Party and set up a "popular front" against Batista. The Orthodox Party leaders refused to do this. Castro promptly bolted the party and said he would form his own movement.
It was only a short time after this -- July 26, 1953 -- that he made his disastrous attack on the Army barracks at Santiago. This turned into a real tragedy for the men in the barracks hospital (who were cut to pieces by Castro's raiders) and also for Castro's men. They were met with overwhelming odds and captured or killed. Survivors were subjected to torture and eventual death in retaliation for their attack on the wards in the hospital. Thus the "26th of July Movement" was born.
Castro had managed to assign himself to a less dangerous post in the 26th of July attack and when he saw the assault was failing he fled, shouting, "Every man for himself!" His brother Raul also escaped. Later both of the Castro brothers were captured and sentenced to prison. Fidel was sentenced to 15 years and Raul to 13. However, both of them served only 22 months because after Batista had put down the attempted insurrection he commuted their sentences.
For this gesture of political generosity by Batista, the Castro brothers displayed only contempt. During July, 1955, they left Cuba declaring that they would organize an invasion force and soon return to pull down Batista and "liberate" Cuba.
The headquarters for this invasion movement was established near Mexico City. All kinds of people flocked there to support Castro's so-called liberation of Cuba. Some were political enemies of Batista, some were opportunists, and many were sincere liberals. But just as with Lumumba in Africa, sinister hard-core Communist personalities immediately moved in close to provide the "guiding hand."
Castro's chief of staff turned out to be Dr. Ernesto "Che" Guevara, an Argentinian Communist assigned to work with Castro by the Soviet apparatus called "Asistencia Tecnica." Raul Castro had received considerable training during a recent trip to Prague, Moscow and Red China. He was therefore made commander of Castro's army. Other trained Communists moved deftly into every phase of the program.
But in spite of all the training, intrigue and planning, the famous "Invasion of Cuba" by Castro's forces turned out to be a real fiasco. Castro's total strength was a mere handful of only 82 men who clambored aboard a leaky yacht on November 19, 1956 and set out to sea. The Captain of the yacht was Hipolito Castillo, well known strategist of the Soviet organization for the subversion of Latin America. The sluggish yacht was slow in reaching Cuba and when the men waded ashore to make their heroic invasion they were cut to pieces with gun-fire. Most of them were captured or killed.
Castro managed to escape into the hills and eventually work his way up into the 8,000 foot heights of the Sierra Maestra. He arrived there with only a handful of his original force. "Che" Guevara took over and began using propaganda and tactical strategy to dominate the immediate area and gr
adually rally others to the cause -- especially young Cubans "full of life, ideals and faith." Thus the strange forces of revolutionary fire began to be built and soon civil war was reaching out across Cuba.
Two major factors led to the final success of Castro's revolution. One was centered in the Soviet Union and the other was centered in the United States.
Raul Castro who had previously been behind the Iron Curtain made several trips to Russia and Czechoslovakia to negotiate for arms and finances. The arms arrived by submarine, the money came through by couriers. During the last months of the revolution, observers were amazed at the quantities of Czech and Russian equipment being used by the Castro forces. They were equally surprised at the vast supplies of money which Castro had available -- money for wages, food, equipment, liquor, bribery and favors.
Batista, on the other hand, suddenly found himself at the other end of the horn. Because of his pro-U.S. policies he had assumed that when the struggle for Cuba became critical he would be able to rely on the United States to sell him arms and supplies. To his amazement he discovered that his request for permission to buy arms in the U.S. fell on deaf ears. What he had not realized was that Herbert Matthews, Edward Murrow, Ed Sullivan, Ruby Phillips, Jules Dubois and a multitude of other writers and opinion makers had been eulogizing Castro and castigating Batista. In Congress, Senator Wayne Morse, Representative Charles O. Porter and Representative Adam Clayton Powell had thrown their combined weight behind the Castro cause. All this "Robin Hood" propaganda definitely had its effect.
At the same time Assistant Secretary of State Roy Rubottom and Caribbean Director William Wieland -- the two persons who were supposed to know what was going on -- blandly assured all inquirers that Fidel Castro was the hope of Cuba and had no Communist taint whatever. As late as June, 1959 (and that was extremely late), Congressman Porter was assuring his colleagues: "No one in the State Department believes Castro is a Communist, or a Communist sympathizer, nor does any other responsible person who wants get his facts straight."5
Of course, as time marched on toward Cuba's inexorable doom, the course of history embarrassed the Congressman and also the State Department. In the closing months of the conflict American policies followed blind alleys which authorities have since attributed to either "stupidity, incompetence, or worse."
The Communist Take-Over
It was January 1, 1959, that Fidel Castro became the political steward of a dazed, war-weary Cuba. Batista had fled. All opposition was crushed. In many circles of American liberals and confused newspaper readers there was a great huzza as though liberty and constitutional government had come to Cuba at last.
But many students of international problems saw ominous signs that the suffering and blood-letting for Cuba had barely begun. The first warnings were exultant boasts from the Communist press that "they" had won. In Moscow, Pravda pointed out that from the very beginning of the Castro movement "our party considered it its first duty to aid the rebels, giving them the correct orientation and the support the popular masses. The party headed the battles for land and thereby increased its authority among peasantry. Our party ... appealed to the popular masses Fidel Castro in every way...."6
The Communist Party of Cuba also came out in the open to boast that they had provided an important part of the revolutionary action "to overthrow the bloody tyranny of Batista which served as the instrument of imperialistic interests and was supported by imperialism."7
If General Batista read this statement he may have wondered where this "imperialistic" support was supposed to have come from. He knew that if the Communists were accusing him of enjoying U.S. support they were really confused.
As soon as Castro took over he used his revolutionary courts of mob justice to send over 600 persons to the firing squads. American liberals described the punishment as "harsh, but deserved." Then he reached out and began a "reform" movement of typical Communist dimensions:
Confiscation of land and settling Cuban workers on what turned out to be large, Soviet-type collectivized farms.
Confiscation of more than a billion dollars worth of American industry which Castro had neither the technicians nor finances to operate.
Breaking up of Cuban family life and placing medium-aged children in special farm communes so "the children will be under the influence of teachers and not their families."
Reorganization of the schools to serve as propaganda transmission belts to dispense Communist doctrine and the "Hate Yankee" line.
Suspension of civil liberties and other constitutional guarantees.
Elimination of free elections.
Capture of all press, TV and radio for government propaganda purposes.
Termination of all cultural, political and economic ties with the United States.
Alliances with Russia.
Recognition of Red China.
Trade with the Communist bloc.
While all of this Communist machinery was being put into operation during 1959 and early 1960, many American apologists for Castro continued to insist that he was neither Communist nor dictatorial, just "misunderstood." They snatched at every hopeful atom of news from Cuba indicating that Castro might be "getting more reasonable now," or "Castro is changing."
But all of these dreams of hopeful illusion were smashed by Castro himself when he dutifully answered the call of Nikita Khrushchev in the summer of 1960 and went to the United Nations as part of the Red Bloc "show of strength." At Castro's Harlem headquarters the two dictators warmly embraced each other. They were brothers and comrades.
Now that the Iron Curtain has come rumbling down on little Cuba perhaps some Americans occasionally reflect on the glowing description of Castro which Herbert Matthews wrote for the New York Times in 1957: "Castro," he said, "has strong ideas of liberty, democracy, social justice, the need to restore the constitution, to hold elections."
Other Americans who chose the wrong side have since said, "It is all so unfortunate. Perhaps it was inevitable."
This last statement has a familiar ring. This is precisely the theme which Dean Acheson put in his White Paper when he tried to explain why we lost China. He excused it as "inevitable." But the Wedemeyer Report revealed that China was also lost because of stupidity, incompetence or worse. China was lost when the State Department promoted an arms embargo against this long-standing U.S. ally at a time when she was fighting for her very existence. The same kind of thinking put the arms embargo on Batista. Both were lost. Both were casualties of Communism.
All of this led former Ambassador Gardner to remark sadly:
"We could have prevented it all and we didn't. If we'd carried out normal relations with Batista, just carried out our contracts, he (Batista) would have got out as scheduled, come to live in Florida, and been replaced by an ideal candidate."
"A pro-Batista man?" Gardner was asked.
"No, Marquez Sterling, a doctor, whom everybody loved, was Batista's opponent. Ironically, although against Batista, he had to flee Cuba because of Castro."8
Events during 1961 demonstrated that the United States was still not giving the Cuban situation sufficient attention. None of the tragic errors of the past were any worse than the fatal blunder which occurred on April 17, 1961, when an abortive invasion of Cuba was attempted at the Bay of Pigs under circumstances which doomed it to failure before the attack was even launched.
Badly organized, poorly equipped, and carrying the sagging prestige of the United States with it, a little band of less than 1400 Cubans landed from antiquated ships to spark an "uprising against Castro." Castro was waiting for them with Soviet tanks, jet planes and Soviet guns. When the shooting was over the "invaders" were captured in a body. Communist propaganda machinery all over the world went into hysteria of screaming headlines against American imperialism. "A first-class disaster for U.S. prestige" wailed the free world press.
In the panic atmosphere which followed, Castro facetiously said he might trade tractors for the prisoners. Immediately misguide
d U.S. liberals began collecting money for tractors to pay off Castro's blackmail demand. Castro was so pleased to see citizens from the most powerful nation in the world cowering at his feet that he gleefully tantalized the negotiators by boosting his demands. As should have been expected, the negotiations came to nothing.
Responsible Americans began to demand a halt to all this ridiculous pampering of a Soviet puppet. Serious political leaders began to set down the plans for a long-range strategy which would eventually liberate the beleaguered people of Cuba.
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1. Thus far the best political history on Fidel Castro is Red Star Over Cuba, by ex-Communist Nathaniel Weyl, Devin-Adair, 1960.
2. Alberto Nino, Antecentes y Secretos del 9 de Abril, Editorial Pax, Bogota, 1949, p. 77.
3. Nathaniel Weyl, Red Star Over Cuba, p. 33.
4. U.S. Department of Commerce Report, Investments in Cuba, p. 184.
5. Nathaniel Weyl, Red Star Over Cuba, p. 157.
6. Pravda, Moscow, February 29, 1960.