"Dictator with the People"

(See Cover)

One dazzling day last week, the 40-year-old gunboat Cuba steamed out of Havana harbor, coasting close under the grey, weathered walls of Morro Castle, and set course northeast through the blue Atlantic. At her foremast flew a pennant the Cuban breezes had not played with for seven years: the blue, white, red, yellow and green personal banner of General Fulgencio Batista. Aboard the Cuba was the general himself. He was headed for an Easter weekend holiday with his family on palm-lined Varadero Beach.

Relaxing on the awning deck in shorts, the Strong Man was in his best bluff humor. Once again he was undisputed dictator of Cuba. In an almost bloodless coup last month, the tough ex-sergeant had toppled President Carlos Prio. Now Prio was in Miami exile; his powerful labor movement had knuckled under to the new ruler; Congress was suspended (on full pay), and Batista was dictator and "Provisional President" under a brand-new set of "statutes" he himself had proclaimed to the Cuban people. Nobody seemed perturbed by the coup, and throngs of other Cubans followed their boss's lead by flocking off to their own carefree weekends, as though they had never had it better in their lives.

The prize Batista recaptured is a lush green tropical treasure island, producing record amounts of sugar and an annual governmental income of some $350 million. Its exuberant Havana is one of the world's fabled fleshpots. The whole world dances to its sexy rumbas and mambos. Its socialites dine off gold plate, and its sumptuous casinos are snowed under by the pesos of sugar-rich playboys. The "dance of the millions" that Cuba knew in its brief post-World War I sugar boom is going again full blast. Batista brought off his coup at the top of Cuba's market.

Power and prestige are two things Batista understands and values. It has been said of him that he has limitless ambition, plenty of ability and no respect for his fellow men. With those who do not cross him, he can be pleasant and even jovial. At 51, he is a hairy, muscular man's man, with the swarthy brow and barrel chest of a smaller Max Schmeling. He revels in the authority he has won back.

His return followed the classic pattern of Latin American "revolutions." Every traditional element was present: a bold, shrewd Strong Man, a hard core of army malcontents, a weak government. Similar combinations have brought armymen to power in many other Latin countries (see box). In this case, it remained only for Batista & friends to write in the characteristically Cuban touches.

Who, Me? Early this year, a group of junior army officers, claiming to be disgusted by the careless way in which the cynical Prio government was running Cuba, called on Batista and asked him to lead a revolt. As one of three candidates campaigning for the presidency at elections scheduled for June 1, Batista declined. But late in February, Batista got word that the army revolt might be attempted whether he led it or not. By that time it may also have dawned on him that he had small chance of winning at the polls. As the Strong Man blandly explained the situation: "The young officers became restless, and they put themselves in touch with me." Batista heeded his countrymen's importunate pleas and plunged into conspiratorial planning with some of his old comrades.

There were 27 men in the plot but, until the night before the rising, only Batista knew who all of them were. He himself wrote out the master plan and orders, employing a kind of ecclesiastical code. If any outsider got a look at the plans, they must have read like an outline for a religious pageant. Each reference to an archbishop or a priest signified an individual; each "ceremony" a place to be captured. At the final night meeting, in a house not far from Havana's all-important Camp Columbia army base, the plotters swore an oath of secrecy. Batista told the conspirators to check their watches against Radio Reloj, the Havana radio station that ticks off time signals day & night. The revolution would start at exactly 2:43 a.m. on March 10.

"Are You with Us?" Early on the appointed night, Batista returned from the old colonial seaport town of Matanzas, where he had made a routine campaign speech. At his suburban estate, Kuquine, he told his pretty wife Marta that he was tired, and went to bed. Around 2 a.m., four officers called for him. He dressed in the dark; there was a shaky laugh when a nervous aide who thought he was holding the chief's jacket tried to help him slip his arms into a pair of trousers. The conspirators climbed into a car and headed for Camp Columbia. At the gate, the driver leaned out and said: "It's Batista! Are you with us?" The sentry joined the revolt on the spot.

It was a symbolic moment; Batista had got past democracy's sentries as well as Camp Columbia's. And he had achieved complete surprise. The Prio government had not the slightest inkling that the Strong Man was on the prowl. The U.S. State Department, which takes an understandable interest in Cuba's affairs, was caught completely unaware. One Cuban, sourly reflecting on events the morning after, gibed: "The town is full of FBI agents trying to find out what happened."

Once inside the camp, the rebels' first act was to capture the "archbishop"--Chief of Staff General Ruperto Cabrera, who was taken in his ornate, cream-and-gold bed. Several "bishops" (colonels) were also arrested. Batista set up his command post at camp headquarters. Within an hour, the camp was his. The troops were roused, and Batista addressed them, swaying them to his side with one of the oldest of military maxims: he doubled their pay.

"We Are the Law." Picked officers took downtown Havana's Cabana fortress. Others seized naval and air centers. From these bases they took control of police stations, communication centers, the labor palace. The rest of the island--there were only two regiments outside Havana--fell soon afterward. The young officers crowded round Batista at his table in Columbia and crowed: "Fulge, we're in!" Prio took refuge at the Mexican embassy. "We are the law," proclaimed Batista, sending tanks and armored cars through the streets of Havana.

Cubans hardly needed to be told. Political foes rushed to make deals with the new boss. Gangsters stopped shooting at each other. Employers reported an abrupt end to such familiar nuisances as wildcat strikes and absenteeism. Cubans remembered Batista. In the past, he had used castor oil, midnight arrests or gunplay; his soldiers had ruthlessly put down abortive rebellions. He could afford to be economical with the weapon of terror. "It is my destiny to make bloodless revolutions," he bragged--and added a significant qualification: "The only blood spilled will be that of those who oppose us."

In the old days, Batista liked to roister long past midnight with ex-sergeant cronies. Now the ex-sergeants are out of the picture, and Batista is alone. The Strong Man is a big boy now. As one Cuban says: "Batista does not love and does not hate. He will sacrifice his best friend and pardon his bitterest enemy if it serves his purpose." This political formula has not made him popular, but it works. Smiles Batista: "I am a dictator with the people."

The Stenographer Dictates. With or against the people, the Strong Man, at any rate, came from them. The son of a poor farmer of mixed blood, he was born in 1901, while his country was still under U.S. occupation, at the eastern sugar town of Banes. Quitting Banes' Quaker School at twelve, he worked as a tailor's apprentice, bartender, barber, banana picker, cane cutter and railroad hand. At 20 he joined the Army. To other soldiers, he was virtually a literary type: there was always a book or magazine under the pillow of his bunk. When he got the chance, he studied shorthand and became a sergeant-stenographer, handling secret papers, working with high officers, traveling around.

Batista was still a sergeant at 30, as the great depression settled down on Cuba. Sugar then sold for 1/2-c- a pound, banks foreclosed on planters, cane cutters roamed the island seeking a few weeks' seasonal work at 20-c- for a dawn-to-dark day. Those were the years of the tyrannous President Machado and his infamous gangs of gunmen hired to repress the people by terror and torture. Rebellion was in the air. Students led strikes, and the ABC revolutionary society hurled bombs at Machado's hated police. President Roosevelt sent Sumner Welles to help ease Machado out without an insurrection. Machado went, and Cuba exploded in the celebrated "Sergeant's Revolt." On Sept. 4, 1933, Sergeant Batista, the ringleader, walked into Camp Columbia headquarters, pistol in hand, and told the army chief he was relieved of duty.

Battle of the National Hotel. Waving away the presidency, Batista put the students' idol, Professor Ramon Grau San Martin, at the head of the government. But the sergeant upped himself to colonel and chief of staff, and fired almost the entire army officers' corps. The ousted officers holed up in the National Hotel. Batista sent soldiers to disarm them. Welles, who lived at the hotel, stopped that showdown by seating himself midway between the rival forces in the long lobby and imperturbably discussing Emily Dickinson's poetry with Adviser Adolf Berle until the soldiers withdrew. But 25 days later, fighting broke out at the hotel. After Batista's soldiers had lobbed 200 shells into the building, the officers surrendered. Batista, then only 32, was master of Cuba.

Back in Washington as Assistant Secretary of State, Welles arranged for U.S. recognition, a quota for Cuba in the U.S. sugar market, and abrogation of the odious Platt Amendment, which gave the U.S. the right to intervene to keep order in Cuba. Though Batista had endless trouble finding the right President (he tried out seven in seven years, and finally took over the job himself), order and prosperity gradually returned to the island.

Down with Dynasties. With prosperity, a new decorum settled on Batista. His table manners improved, he got a tailor and a manicurist, acquired millionaire friends and some notions of good taste. Visiting Washington in 1938, he found out that his official host, Chief of Staff General Malin Craig, usually wore just two decorations. Tossing his own beribboned tunic to an aide, he roared: "Rip off all but the two top rows."

When he called on President Roosevelt a few days later, he confided that he was getting up a new constitution and asked F.D.R.'s opinion on whether Presidents should succeed themselves. F.D.R. solemnly assured him that they should not, and what is more, should not even succeed their successors. It's the only way, said F.D.R., to prevent dynasties. Batista was much impressed. He wrote a non-succession provision into his constitution. So after finishing his own four-year term in 1944, he could not lawfully stand again for the presidency till this year.

Off to Florida. In 1944, democracy was on the march in all the main theaters of war, and dictators were out of season. In that winy atmosphere, Batista tried something brand-new in Latin American dictator politics: he ran off a free and fair election. His man was soundly beaten. This was annoying, but there was nothing to do but graciously turn the presidency over to the winner, his old colleague Grau San Martin, and get out. Besides, staying in Havana at the time would have been asking for a Tommy-gun clip in the back.

The ex-Strong Man departed for Florida and applied himself to setting his personal affairs in order, notably arranging to divorce his first wife, Elise, and marry again. Money was no problem. Eleven years of managing payrolls, contracts, the national lottery, sugar quotas and other traditional means of political enrichment had made him enormously wealthy. Havana insiders estimate his fortune at $50 million, and credit him with one of the handsomest gestures ever made by an active, vigorous man who wanted a younger and prettier mate: he reportedly gave Elise a twelve-story apartment house, other valuable property and $8,000,000 in cash.

Soon afterward, Batista married his present wife, Marta Fernandez. The President had literally run into her with his car a few years earlier while she was riding a bicycle down Fifth Avenue in Havana's swank Miramar district. She has borne Batista three children. He also had three children by his first wife.

In exile, the Batistas lived at Daytona, where the ex-President liked to row in the Halifax River and browse in his library. He also looked after his extensive Florida real-estate investments, which reportedly include several big Miami Beach hotels.

He ran for Senator in absentia in 1948, and was elected. In 1949, Grau having given way to Carlos Prio as President, Batista finally went home. Guarded by 20 soldiers, he lived at Kuquine, talking with politicos, playing canasta, and keeping in trim by working out daily on an exercise machine. There he bided his time until last month's revolt.

Pork & Passports. Why was there practically no opposition when Batista pulled his coup? The basic answer is that seven years of riotously rotten government had left the average Cuban too cynical about democracy to fight in its behalf. When Grau San Martin was swept into office in 1944 on a wave of popular demand for housecleaning, he said: "There is nothing wrong with Cuba that an honest administration can't cure." Then the scholarly professor and his successor proceeded to give the island, which has seen plenty of corruption in its time, the most graft-and gangster-ridden government in its history.

Cuba's freewheeling democrats operated according to the rule, stated by a former Grau minister: "It's a credit to you if you're honest, but it's no great discredit if you're dishonest." Everybody helped himself. Senators who had spent half a million buying enough votes to win got their investment back in millions. For the President's congressional pals, there was a $4,000,000-a-month ration from the state lottery pork barrel. Sticky-fingered politicos picked up fortunes on contracts, customs deals, sugar quota allocations.

Suits & Suitcases. It was wonderful fun for the highbinders who could get it. Still pending in a Havana court is a lawsuit brought by an Orthodox (Reform) Party Senator demanding that Grau and his ministers, including Prio, explain what happened to $174,241,840.14 that seemed to have disappeared during Grau's regime. The Senator's title for his case: "The greatest theft in history." But the greatest of the thieves is not named in the suit. Jose Manuel Aleman, Grau's favorite minister, who stole not one but an estimated hundred million dollars, died in 1949.

One story told of Aleman in Havana: on the afternoon of Oct. 10, 1948, he and some henchmen drove four Ministery of Education trucks into the Treasury building. All climbed out carrying suitcases. "What are you going to do, rob the Treasury?" joshed a guard. "Quien sabe?" replied baby-faced Josee Aleman. Forthwith, his men scooped pesos, francs, escudos, lire, rubles, pounds sterling and about $19 million in U.S. currency into the suitcases.

The trucks made straight for the airfield, where a chartered DC-3 stood waiting. Aleman and three henchmen took the U.S. money aboard, leaving the rest to be changed later at Cuban banks. In Miami, he carried the currency to the Du Pont Building headquarters of his $70 million Florida real-estate empire where, an employee has said, "bundles of $1,000 bills were tossed around like wrapped packages of pennies." Later a reporter asked Aleman, "How did you get all that money out of the Treasury?" "It was easy," said Aleman. "In suitcases."

Pleasures & Palaces. Ex-President Prio also did well for himself, apparently without the use of suitcases. When he was a student and budding politico, Prio said, "there wasn't a peseta in the house to go to the movies." By the time he was Senator, he was a millionaire, owning at least two houses and two country estates. While President, he quietly built one of the hemisphere's most fabulous mansions at La Chata, near Havana. The place has an air-conditioned barbershop, a zoo, a stable of Arabian horses and a swimming pool with a small waterfall on one side and a dining terrace, bar, and kitchen on the other. Its estimated value is somewhere between $1,000,000 and $3,000,000. Prio's presidential salary: $25,000 a year.

In spite of its graft and corruption, there was some good to be said for Cuba's seven-year-old democratic regime. Havana under Grau and Prio was a haven of free speech and free thought. They built schools, hospitals and highways. They gave Cuba a national bank, made loans to expand industry and diversify agriculture, and improved labor standards in a land plagued by seasonal unemployment. And, despite fantastic sums spent to sway elections, they kept the way open for democratic change.

There was at least an even chance that an honest man would have won the June 1 election. The result of Batista's coup is that the cynical old political practices will go on as before. Batista gave the lottery to the same lieutenant who handled it for him under his earlier dictatorship; he placed the customs, a traditional source of political enrichment, in army hands. In scrupulous conformity with the existing code, he left Prio's personal properties untouched--just as Prio had never laid a hand on his.

Southern Democrats? The U.S. people like to believe that the whole Western Hemisphere is safe for democracy. The fact is that, with a few such exceptions as Uruguay, Chile and Costa Rica (the list is always subject to change), most Latin American countries are not democracies in the sense understood in the U.S. The notion that they are is an illusion fostered during World War II under the Good Neighbor policy.

In Latin America, democracy has special meanings. In Juan Peron's Argentina, democracy is a boss and his wife on a balcony plus "social justice" (wage rises, free cakes at Christmas, old-age benefits) for all who bow down to them. In some of the Andean countries, democracy tends to be government by a majority of the white minority. Under the Honduran formula, ex-Dictator "Bucho" Carias once explained, "Personal safety is as important as personal liberty." Rafael Leonidas Trujillo, last of the oldfashioned, "monster-type" dictators, calls his regime in the Dominican Republic "freedom and democracy in the Caribbean." Said a tough U.S. businessman, hardened by 20 years in Latin lands, "When a guy says 'democracy' down here, he means any government that's run the way he wants it run."

For some Latinos, of course, democracy has more significant meanings. The Uruguayans recently exchanged their President for a committee-style government, akin to the Swiss. Mexicans have given the Indian absolute political equality. Brazil, the land of 50 million whites and Negroes, carries day-by-day racial democracy to a point far beyond anything the U.S. can match.

Is It Workable? But Latin American countries are a long way from being democratic in the U.S. sense. Their history, geography, climate, religion, race are all different. As colonies of Spain and Portugal, they had none of the prior experience in self-government that the 13 North American colonies enjoyed. In such countries as Bolivia and Ecuador, backward, illiterate, aborigines who do not even speak Spanish far outnumber the whites. The entire area sags below the standards of health, education and economic development that political scientists consider essential for durable democracy. Even in relatively prosperous Cuba, per capita income is $300 compared to the U.S.'s $1,600; average life expectancy is almost 15 years less than in the U.S.; illiteracy is seven times as great.

Self-discipline in the exercise of political liberties is also needed to keep democracy stable. Latinos are individualists, insistent upon personal as distinct from political liberty. They are men of passion, men of honor. Lord Bryce, writing in 1912, noted in them "a temper which holds every question to be one of honor." Sometimes, in the flurry of upholding honor and individual rights, some of the quieter ground rules of social conduct have a tendency to get lost in the shuffle. A Cuban joke defines democracy as "having a good job and the right to drive on the wrong side of the street." The great world capital of Buenos Aires (pop. 3,000,371) has no traffic lights; the authorities tried the signals out some years ago, but had to remove them because drivers simply would not obey them.

If the Latino individualist seems ever ready to fight, or at least duel, for his sacred personal rights, the record shows that he also goes in heavily for hero worship. Since Bolivar's day, Latin Americans have tended to follow men rather than parties or principles. They call themselves Peronistas, Arnulfistas (in Panama), Ibanistas (in Chile). Most of their caudillos, their strong men, have come from the army. Currently, military men preside over eleven Latino governments. Instead of confining themselves to the job of defending their country, Latin American militarists are entrenched as "the only well-organized political party" in every country except Costa Rica, Uruguay, Chile and perhaps Colombia. In many countries, the army consumes an inordinate share of the national income, and fosters the belief that it alone is fit to rule. It was armed power that put Batista back in Cuba. Other men had the votes; he had the guns.

Is It Wanted? Because revolutions often become epidemic, some fear that the Batista coup and last week's Bolivian revolt may be followed by explosions elsewhere, possibly in Ecuador or Colombia. But nobody in Latin America, except the Communists and the neo-fascist fringe, professes to want any other kind of government except democracy. In the long run, as hunger and ignorance are dealt with, democracy may yet win in Latin America, though it is likely to be quite different from the U.S. variety.

That democracy must come from within, not from without. It is up to Cubans, not the U.S., to make military coups obsolete. Meanwhile, so far as Latin America is concerned, the U.S. can only be the Good Neighbor, avoid undue interference, practice Point Four and cultivate the long view. The making of democracy takes, among other things, time.

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