THEY BEAT BATISTA

CUBA'S latest revolution was plotted in gunrunning missions off the Florida coast, in elegant Havana yacht clubs, in the man-trying mountains of eastern Cuba, and in the hushed offices of leading Havana lawyers. The men who made the revolt shared a common hatred of Strongman Batista, but had notably varied backgrounds.

Fidel Castro Ruz, 32, the rebel chief, is a nonpracticing lawyer who began fighting Batista in 1953 by leading a frontal attack on Moncada barracks in Santiago. He named his 26th of July movement for the day the attack failed, went into Mexican exile, returned to invade Oriente province with 81 men aboard the yacht Gramma on Dec. 2, 1956. Castro likes to sit about a campfire and talk military science, citing Rommel and Napoleon, and discussing romantic proposals for Cuba, e.g., a school-city for 20,000 children. In 1953 he called for nationalization of U.S.-owned public utilities in Cuba, land reform and industrial profit-sharing; he now calls these "radical ideas not good for Cuba." He goes on the assumption that Cuba must get along with the U.S.

Raul Castro Ruz, 28, Fidel's brother, took on command of front-line fighting after the rebels decided to keep Fidel as a symbol and out of danger. Raul, who sports a Texas hat and shoulder-length hair but could not manage to grow a beard, matched Batista terror for terror, may find it hard to lay his pistol down. A onetime delegate to a student congress behind the Iron Curtain, he denounces U.S. "imperialism," likes to bait the U.S. (as when he seized 47 U.S. citizens as hostages last summer).

Ernesto ("Che") Guevara, 30, is an asthmatic, Argentine-born, Communist-lining surgeon, and the rebels' best field commander. After slipping in and out of Guatemala on mysterious missions during Guatemala's Red-influenced days, Che joined Fidel Castro in Mexico in time for the invasion. He turned the tide of war with his bloody late-December campaign in the central province of Las Villas, which he commanded in spite of a broken arm.

Manuel Urrutia Lleo, 57, a colorless career jurist from Santiago, gained Castro's admiration 19 months ago by voting to release a group of rebel prisoners on the ground that revolution in Cuba is a constitutional right. Batista forced him into exile; he lived in the New York borough of Queens. He is antiCommunist, pro-U.S. Castro barely knew him before choosing him for the presidency.

Carlos Prio Socarras, 55, is the President who lost his job in Batista's 1952 coup, went into U.S. exile and spent a graft-gained fortune toward Batista's overthrow. Hated by many of the rebels, Prio is back in his $1,000,000 mansion near Havana and counting on a voice in the government.

Behind these men were others with money and brains--the suave front men who operated their revolution across polished desks in Havana, New York and Caracas, gathering money from rich friends, channeling it to the international arms dealers who ran guns to Castro. Last week some of these men were coming to the surface: Economist Rufo Lopez Fresquet, a main channel for rebel money; Broker Ignacio Mendoza, who hid hot rebels in his rich Havana home; Julio Duarte, secretary of the Cuban Bar Association and a top rebel organizer; "Comandante Diego," a still-unidentified rebel who bossed Havana saboteurs.

It was a motley band, and in it Cuba could find either talent for the hard job of government or just angry young men with guns. The choice was mostly up to Fidel Castro, and he has not yet made his intentions clear.

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