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MIDDLE EAST, 1979 to 2003

Castro the guerrilla

In April 1955, Allen Dulles, head of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, visited Cuba and complained about the danger posed by the Cuban communists. In early December, 1956, Fidel Castro, his brother Raul and the asthmatic Che Guevara and a few others survived a beachhead slaughter and made it into the Sierra Maestras Mountains on the eastern side of Cuba. A government report claimed that forty of the invading rebels had been killed, including Fidel Castro. People in the mountains helped the rebels survive while outside the Sierra Maestras few knew of the rebe's' existence.

In early 1957, Herbert Mathews of the New York Times sneaked by army checkpoints, interviewed Castro, and returned to New York. Publication of his interview was a sensation and was followed by Cuba's minister of defense calling the story a fantasy.

Cuba's president, Fulgencia Batista, had public opinion to worry about and the loyalty of those who filled the ranks of his army. If a significant number of them went over to Castro then Castro would win. The Eisenhower administration worried about this also. By 1958, the Eisenhower administration was concerned about the war for hearts and minds being lost in Cuba.

It was in May, 1958, that Vice President Richard Nixon made his goodwill tour of Latin America. Young people hostile to dictatorships and American support for them attacked Nixon's motorcade. The president of Costa Rica, José Figueres, said he was sorry about the treatment of Nixon, but he criticized the U.S. for talking much about the human dignity that the people in the Soviet Union should have and nothing about the dignity of people living under dictatorships in Latin America. And he said that the U.S. should not sacrifice human rights for the sake of "investments." The Eisenhower administration saw the attacks as the threat of Communism risen anew. Vice President Nixon described the demonstrators against him in Venezuela as having been led "without any doubt" by communists.

Business leaders in the U.S. sought a more detailed explanation for the hostility. A new policy was formulated, expressed by Nixon: the U.S. would have "a formal handshake for dictators; an embraso (hug) for leaders in freedom." Secretary of State Dulles was opposed but lost the argument.

The Eisenhower administration refrained from intervening militarily to rescue Batista, who was considered a dictator.

In 1958, Batista launched a major military offensive against Castro, sending a force of some 10,000 against him. But his troops performed poorly in the mountains. And, fortunately for Castro, it was not a point in history in which helicopter gunships and their trained crews would be available to Batista's forces.

Batista's forces were more exposed than the rebels who waited for them, striking when they wanted to and then withdrawing. Communications between the various army units was poor, while Castro's communications were superb. Batista's offensive failed. Morale among his troops fell. Castro acquired more weapons, including a tank, and more people saw the coming of a Castro victory and a Batista defeat.

By December, a force under Che Guevara was expanding into central Cuba, and soldiers were deserting Batista's army in droves. Castro's success was creating support for revolution in the cities -- to be described as a little engine (the guerrillas) driving the big engine (the masses). Batista decided that the game was up. On New Year's Eve he and a group he had invited to his party boarded three planes. Batista's plane flew to the Dominican Republic -- ruled then by the brutal and dictatorial Trujillo family. The other two planes went to the United States, avoiding Miami, where many Cubans were hostile toward Batistianos.

On New Year's Day, 1959, people in Cuba were joyed by Batista's departure. In the days that followed, people cheered the rebels riding in trucks coming from the hills to proclaim the success of the revolution. Castro came and walked among the cheering crowds, unafraid of assassination and relishing the opportunity to appear as a man of the people.

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Copyright © 2001 by Frank E. Smitha. All rights reserved.