ALTHOUGH FULGENCIO BATISTA may have courted the help of the communists for his 1952 coup, he quickly cast them aside when he declared undying hostility to the Soviet bloc. Batista was attempting to legitimize his usurpation of the constitutional government and encourage support from American businessmen and gangsters. Without their continued investment, he could not maintain his hold on the reins of government.

Much like Castro, Batista began his reign with a disavowal of any ambition for power. He insisted that he only acted out of deep affection for his patria and that his only interest was in restoring public tranquility. Batista claimed that the president he had deposed, Carlos Prío Socarrás, was plotting to overturn the upcoming elections and inaugurate a new revolutionary era. His coup thus forestalled an inevitable period of strife on the island. 

President Prío had allowed Batista to stand for election in abstentia, and some claimed that Batista only acted because he feared that he would not be legitimately elected. A prominent political scholar of the time declared that the 1952 seizure was merely an example of the violence inherent in Cuban politics. The real tragedy, wrote Herbert Matthews, a correspondent for the New York Times who found a role in my novel, Rebels on the Mountain, was the loss of faith in Cuban political leadership.

Regardless of anyone's opinion about the legitimacy of his government, Batista seemed more interested in a speedy return to “business as usual” that had won him many friends and supporters, especially among the Americans. To outside observers, Batista's Cuba possessed all the earmarks of capitalism at its best: political stability, encouragement of tourism, protection of foreign investment, and an expanding market for industrial products. Advertisements for goods imported from the United States filled Havana's newspapers: autos, tractors, sewing machines – the list was endless.

Hollywood loved Havana. Movie marquees shone with its impact. In Guys and Dolls, a hit musical, the hero, Sky Masterson, won the heart of a Salvation Army worker after a night on the town in Havana.

Tourists loved Havana. They flocked to the island to gamble in its casinos and play on its beaches.

Batista attracted commercial interest by his support of government agencies such as an Agricultural and Industrial Development Bank, a Cuban Foreign Trade Bank, and a Technological Research Institute. Although the sugar industry still vastly overshadowed other economic areas, announced a U.S. Department of Commerce bulletin, Cuba was not underdeveloped. Its people, they boasted, had the highest standard of living in Latin America.

In truth, Batista's Cuba was a magnificent facade. Behind the facade of prosperity and happiness, was an economic colony. The reformist ideals expressed in the 1940 constitution, that Batista helped craft, especially those relating to land reform, remained largely unsatisfied. 

THERE IS EVIDENCE that Batista had communist backing when he returned to Cuba in 1952. If so, how was Batista the darling of the Americans? Throughout the Cold War Era, Latin American dictators easily solicited help from the United States simply by alleging that communists were lurking in their banana plantations. The Marines would land only days ahead of massive foreign aide for the tyrant. As unlikely as it sounds, that policy may not have applied in Cuba, at least not until Castro took over.

Had the Cuban president who replaced Batista in 1944, Grau San Martín, and his successor, Carlos Prío Socarrás, satisfied the revolutionary promises of 1933 and the reformist plan of the 1940 constitution, Cuba might have avoided the strife of Castro's rebellion in the 1950's. Grau committed his administration to industrialization, debt reduction, and agricultural diversification, but every plan failed. So long as America dominated the island's economy, Cuba would never be for Cubans. To make matters worse, Grau and his ministers began misappropriating public funds just as every administration before them. 

When Grau turned over the presidency to Prío in 1948, the Cuban revolutionary movement had no substance. It soon became apparent to Cubans that Grau's Auténtico party didn't represent the authentic spirit of the 1933 revolution any more than Batista had. Prío did sponsor a national bank, promote crop diversification, and encourage low-cost housing, but these hardly touched the major issues of land redistribution and the power of foreign investment.

In 1950, Cuba was still an economic colony. Only Bolivia and Haiti had a more prolonged period of economic stagnation. Most of the sugar plantations remained in the hands of foreign investors who sent their product to industrialized nations at great profits, profits that never made their way back to the island. In 1950, the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development surveyed the Cuban economy and concluded that sugar dominated the island more than ever. The IBRD pointed to diversification as the answer. They based their findings on Cuba's favorable geography, fertile soil, mineral resources, and, most importantly, its proximity to the American market.

Although Batista did not enjoy popular support, he was able to return to the Presidential Palace via another barracks coup on March 10, 1952. The military, supported by the labor unions, facilitated a lightning-like strike that restored Batista with the loss of just two lives. Everything was well timed and executed. The police headquarters were seized as the military converged on the presidential palace, and a prepared address was read over Havana radio while union leaders rallied the workers to Batista's banner. Batista was so confident that he didn't even bother to have a plane at his disposal to escape should something have gone wrong.

Obviously, Batista had maintained close relationships with the army officers who had helped win his earlier coup in 1930. However, it also appears that he may have had the appreciation of communist leaders whose party Batista had legitimized while he was president. Probably, of even greater importance, Batista had the financial backing of American businessmen and gangsters who never lost faith that he alone could restore stability in Cuban government and protect their interests and didn't care one wit about the communists.

MUCH AS EVERY American politician attempts to position themselves as the true scion of the Spirit of '76, Cuban politicians promoted themselves as the authentic voice of the Revolution of 1933, the year that four successive presidents were deposed beginning with Gerardo Machado in August of that year. Inasmuch as Fulgencio Batista orchestrated that revolution, he could not be blamed for promoting himself as its “first chief”. However, that didn't stop others from pretending to that throne.

Ramón Grau San Martín also had a legitimate claim to the Spirit of the Revolution of 1933. He had led the student protesters until arrested, jailed, and later exiled in 1931. Grau and his associates formed the Auténtico party upon his return to the island. (It doesn't take a linguist to interpret “Auténtico” and infer the implications of the name.) The Auténticos stressed economic nationalism, limitations on foreign property owners, and castigated financial imperialism. They called for immediate national action to regain economic control of the country. Grau condemned American support of the post-Machado regimes and, more importantly, for the Welles mission, which allegedly destroyed the revolutionary goal of Cuba for Cubans. Inasmuch as Batista relied heavily on American backing, it's easy to see that there would be bad blood between the two men. However, Batista allowed the Auténticos to survive during the years of 1940 to 1944 while he was president. 

Batista seemed to feel assured of reelection. He dismissed the Auténticos as inconsequential while Grau roamed the island, calling for an end to Batista's regime and an end to administrative corruption as well as fulfillment of the promise of agrarian reform. Apparently Grau's message resonated with the islanders and Batista's handpicked successor, Carlos Saladrigas Zayas, lost the 1944 elections to Grau.

Batista was stupefied. He departed Cuba for self-imposed exile in America claiming that he no longer felt safe on the island. He would spend the next eight years luxuriating at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York City, and a home in Daytona Beach, Florida. He was well financed having emptied the coffers of the government in Havana prior to Grau's inauguration. 

THE UNITED STATES stood behind Fulgencio Batista as caudillo and as Presidente of Cuba even though he legitimized the Communist Party in Cuba and instituted progressive reforms that might have caused concern among American businessmen. Even though these same acts by Fidel Castro would incur the wrath of Washington, President Roosevelt and his Administration overlooked them. The Americans didn't think they were anything more than political show, and Batista became a valuable ally in World War II.

German u-boats were the scourge of shipping along the shores of North and South America, and throughout the Caribbean. They were attempting to cut the pipeline of strategic supplies to the Allies fighting in Europe and North Africa. Operational cooperation between the United States and Latin American countries allowed America to deploy the greater part of its forces to the front lines. A fleet of U.S. Navy blimps patrolled the coast of South America where merchant fleets from Argentina and Brazil passed before transiting the Atlantic. Their crews coordinated attacks by the Brazilian Air Force and Navy on the u-boats. The American Coast Guard helped the Argentinian Navy patrol its nation's ports.

Batista increased his military: He augmented the army to 14,000 soldiers, the marines to 3,000, the Havana police to 3,000, and the rural police to 3,000. The United States provided him with warships. During World War II, the Cubans helped patrol and protect the strategic shipping lanes from Galveston and New Orleans as well as the waterways to the Panama Canal. A lieutenant in the Cuban Navy, who served on one of these warships and helped sink a u-boat, later became a member of the Fidelistas and piloted their invasion from Mexico to Cuba aboard the motor yacht Granma.

Even Ernest Hemingway, a long time Havana resident, got in on the act. He and his drinking buddies used Hemingway's fishing boat, El Pilar, to mount patrols searching for German u-boats. Their exploits, some contended floating drinking parties, mirrored patrols mounted by American civilians on both the Atlantic and Gulf coasts. (I think that I, too, would have been drinking before I went to sea piloting a 30 foot cabin cruiser, armed with Tommy Guns, searching for German warships.)

Ultimately, Cuba received more than $7 million in arms and ammunition. Furthermore, to offset the loss of trade with Europe during the war, the United States guaranteed a scheme to purchase the entire 1942 sugar crop through the Federal Loan Agency. At least in war, Cuba benefited more from its commercial ties to the United States than at any other time.

FOLLOWING HIS OUSTER of Cuban President Gomez in 1937, Fulgencio Batista began to fear that his political maneuvers on the island were alienating President Franklin Roosevelt. He spoke of plots in the United States against his life. He may have been correct. Batista had begun instituting progressive programs that were not viewed favorably in the United States. Minimum wage laws, an eight-hour workday, paid vacations, extended social security, equal pay for equal work, and the right to strike, were all acceptable. However, Batista also declared sugar to be a national industry, threatening to control foreign ownership and vague promises of land reform. More importantly, he made a deal with the communists.

Batista seemingly turned towards the left. He blamed the failure of economic and social advances on the big sugar planters, predominantly American businessmen. He contracted a political agreement with the communists, agreeing to legalize the party, appoint a member to a future cabinet, and grant the party political spoils. Not even Castro courted the communists this openly until after he was rebuffed by the Eisenhower Administration.

Given these turns of events, how could Batista be acceptable to the Americans? The truth is that Batista was more concerned with power than the ideals of progressivism. The landowning elite were more concerned with stability in government than with political ideology. They recognized that most of his reforms turned out to be nothing more than political show. A $600 million investment in sugar alone in 1939, clearly demonstrated that the Americans were confident that they had hitched their wagon to the correct horse. Cuba, Business Week magazine wrote, would not be able to expropriate foreign holdings, for the island was politically and economically an adjunct of the United States. The American government hedged their bets by withholding economic assistance until both President Laredo Bru and the president-elect, Fulgencio Batista, affirmed that they would honor their obligations to investors.

It was clear that the United States would not intervene militarily in island politics any more. There was no need. They could control Cuba economically. The U.S. Department of State withheld loans to Cuba in 1940 until a thorough study of tax reform, monetary and banking changes, and proposed public works projects was completed. The recommendations of the study were curiously familiar to modern Americans. Cuba, they said, required a fiscal and taxing reorganization and a reduction in budget expenditures. Batista promised change.

CUBA'S MILITARY HEADQUARTERS began to overshadow the Presidential Palace in Havana as another island government failed. Prior to 1933, the Cuban army was a weapon in the hands of the island's presidents to coerce their opposition. However, the sergeant's barracks revolt led by Fulgencio Batista, changed all that. By replacing the commissioned officers corps with noncommissioned officers loyal to Batista, the government lost their allies in the army. When the government threatened the military, Batista was able to depose the president and replace him with his own man. He used votes rather than guns to effect change.

A new succession of political leaders filed through the Presidential Palace in Havana, all hand picked by Batista. When Ramón Mendieta lost favor, he was replaced by José Barnet. Barnet lasted five months and was replaced by Mariano Miguel Gomez. Gomez made the mistake of opposing Batista's program of military control over rural education and was replaced after just six months. 

Although Batista avoided taking political power directly, he remained the leader of the “revolution” and jefe máximo – supreme commander – of the armed forces of Cuba until be became Presidente. Interestingly, the man who ultimately replaced him, Fidel Castro, used the same strategy until he rose to power.

Batista had no interference from the Americans. The Administration of Franklin Roosevelt systematically relinquished the old interventionist policy that had guided American policy since the end of the Spanish-American War. In May, 1934, they negotiated a new treaty with the Cubans that abolished the Platt Amendment whereby the United States maintained legal authority to intervene in Cuban affairs if the island's government was unable to maintain law and order. However, they retained the lease on Guantanamo Bay that had been negotiated under the 1903 agreement.

Batista's opposition tested the American resolve in 1935. They requested United States involvement to derail Batista's dominance and Ambassador Caffrey responded that America did not intend to intervene directly or indirectly in the island's affairs.

The new American stance did not alter American objectives in Cuba. It merely substituted new strategies to attain the same goals it had always sought: To sustain the search for markets on the island but within a different structure. The American Secretary of State, Cordell Hull, decided that high tariffs employed during the 1920's had severely reduced the dollar amount of American exports to Cuba. In 1933, the value of these exports was only one-tenth of what they amounted to in 1924. A new reciprocity treaty, he decided, would regain a potentially valuable market for the products of American farmers and manufacturers.

FOLLOWING THE FAILURE of three separate governments during the last half of 1934, a transition took place in Cuba. The military, which had been used by the government to suppress the people, became a major political force in its own right. A mere sergeant, Fulgencio Batista led the way.

Since the barracks revolt which catapulted Batista to the head of the Army, he distanced himself from the President and emerged as the man who could provide Cuba with law and order. The American Ambassador, Sumner Welles, met with Batista and found him to be reasonable. He had none of the stubbornness of the Cuban politicians or the student directorate – a revolutionary association of island youth. Welles informed Batista that the United States had no partiality to any side vying for power in Cuba. “We would welcome any government in Cuba,” Welles told Batista, “no matter by what individuals it was composed which fulfilled the requirements made clear in the official declarations of the Secretary of State.” Principally, the United States was concerned with law and order to protect American interests on the island to silence the forces of revolution that threatened peace so close to American shores.

Following this encounter, Batista met with student leaders to thrash out an agreement to replace the sitting Cuban President, Ramón Grau. Grau no longer could depend on the military to follow his orders. Talks between the army and the students bogged down and Batista announced his selection of Carlos Mendieta as the person to replace Grau. The students were told to accept the army's choice or be forced to return to the university.

U.S. Ambassador Welles wrote to President Franklin Roosevelt that he expected the transition from Welles to Mendieta to take place immediately. It didn't happen for a month and he was replaced by Jefferson Caffery, another career diplomat. Caffery agreed with Welles' assessment and recommended that the United States grant diplomatic recognition to the Mendieta administration as soon as the change occurred. With the assurance of American backing, the change was made and diplomatic recognition was granted within the week.

At some level, the Cuban public had responded favorably to Grau's reforms. They were unhappy that the Americans granted recognition to Mendieta so quickly after denying it to Grau over a period of several months. It seemed to them that the new president was a puppet of the American government.

Unfortunately, Mendieta had no better luck than Grau in bringing law and order to the island and the question that had been asked repeatedly remained: Can Cuba save herself?

ESSENTIALLY, BATISTA'S COUP was a revolution within a revolution. Tired of waiting for the various revolutionary groups to agree on a plan of action, the young Cuban army sergeant proceeded without the support or agreement of the others. Their action was instigated by a proposed reduction in pay for service members. The noncommissioned officers vied with the commissioned officers for the loyalty of the men among the rank and file, and won. 

The initial goals of Batista and his followers were limited to protesting the proposed pay reductions. However, once they had overwhelmed the officers in their barracks, another anti-government faction, the Student Directory, approached them to continue their march to include government offices. 

Alarmed by events, the American Ambassador, Gordon Welles, cabled for the United States warship in Santiago to join two already in Havana, and telephoned Washington for authority to land 1,000 troops to maintain order in the city and protect the American Embassy. It was time for Roosevelt to step up and support the man he had sent to Havana to intervene. He stepped back.

Secretary of State, Cordell Hull, convinced the President that Welles was exaggerating the danger. Furthermore, intervention was rejected on the grounds that landing troops would be seen as partiality to one faction over another. The President and his Secretary of State feared that any Cuban administration receiving American support would be regarded as Washington's lapdog. However, the President did approve sending the warships to Havana as a necessary and reasonable precaution.

Under threat from the military, led by Batista, as well as student and workers' groups, de Céspedes resigned after just four months in office. He was replaced by Dr. Ramon Grau San Martín, a physician and National University professor. With labor problems closing the sugar mills, and Batista and his army pacing their camps like caged beasts, Grau turned his attention to appeasing the American Ambassador. The unrest grew, and Ambassador Welles quickly grew impatient. All he cared about was finding a chief executive who could bring law and order to the island.

When he realized the error of his focus, Grau implemented reforms. He established an eight-hour workday. He provided for minimum wages and compulsory arbitration in labor disputes. Certain large sugar plantations and public utilities were nationalized. Agrarian reforms were initiated. Unfortunately, all of these reforms were implemented by executive decree and they failed to alleviate revolutionary pressures.

Welles viewed Grau and his reforms as well-meaning but inept. The American Ambassador's critics castigated him for failing to support Grau's reforms. Welles sought refuge in the Platt Amendment, especially the right of intervention, pledging the United States to support a Cuban government capable of safeguarding life, liberty, and property. The Grau administration, he argued, had been unable to perform this task. Diplomatic recognition of Grau's administration, Welles reasoned, would be a breach of faith. Thus, Grau's overthrow by Batista in January, 1934, was as much the result of America's lack of support as well as the fact that his administration was unpopular with the Cuban people.

NO ONE HAS EVER ruled Cuba without outside support. It may be argued that the problem is that no one ever ruled the island for its own benefit. “Voluptuous Cuba,” as many have called it, was exploited for the benefit of another such as Spain, America, or the Soviet Union. Even today, Cuba limps along economically and politically with the titular support of other nations such as Venezuela and China, the former to help spread communism throughout Latin America, and the latter to exploit the island for oil. Thus, when America withdrew its support from Machado, his government quickly fell.

From August, 1933, to January, 1934, the island changed leadership three times. Cuba experimented with socialism, confronted a severe economic stress, and saw the meteoric rise of Sergeant Fulgencio Batista. The revolutionaries who had fought the battles of the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries had prostituted their idealism by accepting American paternalism and economic colonialism. A new revolution arose led by the youth of Cuba – students, young professionals, and the lower echelons of the Cuban army.

A government formed by Dr. Carlos de Céspedes when Machado abdicated inspired the revolt led by Batista. Although Machado and his death squads were gone, public unrest continued. Roosevelt dispatched two American warships to the region as a show of strength and to have forces at the ready to protect American-owned property on the island. However, they were under strict orders to not interfere. Of course, no one on the island was certain of that. Thus, America's Ambassador was able to impose his solution to the problem. All the Cubans needed, he reasoned, was an election to dispel public unrest over their displeasure with de Céspedes' government. It appears that the only thing more unpredictable and uncertain than Cuban politics was America's unpredictable and uncertain policies towards the island.

The several warring factions in Cuba could agree on just one thing: Whoever wrested control of the island needed American recognition and support. That could be won only by satisfying Welles' criteria for good government. As they jockeyed for advantage, unrest grew among the revolutionary factions. Impatient for a solution, the Cuban military abrogated the process by acting unilaterally.

FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT was handed a conundrum when he assumed the presidency in March, 1933. As if the Great Depression wasn't enough, his retiring Ambassador to Cuba, Harry Frank Guggenheim, announced that the island's government was about to collapse. America's protectionist policies had resulted in economic and political disruption on the island, and its president, Gerardo Machado, could no longer maintain order. How then was Roosevelt to protect American interests there?

His conundrum arose from the fact that Roosevelt had campaigned in part blaming Hoover for the problems in Cuba as well as America. FDR has ascribed protectionist and interventionist policies to the former President and had promised to end them. However, Cuba was a vital strategic asset in the Caribbean. How could he abandon it without weakening the United States presence in the region? The situation was an eerie phantom presaging the conflict between his promise to not become enthralled in a European war even though he knew that America would have to become a party to World War II. Ah, the bane of political promises.

Roosevelt seemingly had little problem switching from campaign rhetoric to pragmatic statesmanship. Just one month after his inauguration, he dispatched Sumner Welles, a career diplomat, to intervene between Machado and his enemies. Before his departure to Havana, Welles issued a press release summarizing America's historical relationship to Cuba emphasizing the intervention of 1898, its geographic proximity, and the importance of island markets for American products. There was little question that Welles favored a continuation of American paternalism. The legal basis for inserting Welles into the conflict in Cuba was the same treaty and Cuban constitutional provisions that had been established to support American paternalism.

The State Department and their representative reasoned that the problems in Cuba were the direct result of Machado's arbitrary extension of his presidency and his use of terror squads to inflict reprisals on his opponents, real and perceived. They argued that the president in Cuba had schooled the islanders to believe that violence was the only method available to them to effect political change. If only Welles could convince Machado to work for a peaceful settlement through compromise, and protect American property and business interests, all would be well.

Like his predecessor, Harry Frank Guggenheim, Welles was deluded by his own expectations and Machado's dissembling. He believed the Cuban leader's assertions that he acting reasonably to unwarranted threats on his life and government. Even though he witnessed and reported one occasion when Machado's guards opened fire on a band of peaceful demonstrators, Welles remained convinced that Machado could maintain law and order. He didn't begin to doubt his own judgment until Machado repeatedly denied his recommendations.