Fulgencio Batista

Fulgencio Batista y Zaldívar (Spanish: [fulˈxensjo βaˈtista i salˈdiβar]; January 16, 1901 – August 6, 1973) was the United States-aligned Cuban President, dictator and military leader who served as the leader of Cuba from 1940 to 1944 and from 1952 to 1959, before being overthrown as a result of the Cuban Revolution.^[4]

Batista initially rose to power as part of the 1933 "Revolt of the Sergeants" that overthrew the authoritarian rule of Gerardo Machado. Batista then appointed himself chief of the armed forces with the rank of colonel, and effectively controlled the five-member Presidency. He maintained this control through a string of puppet presidents until 1940, when he was himself elected President of Cuba on a populist platform.^[2][5] He then instated the 1940 Constitution of Cuba, deemed progressive for its time, and served until 1944. After finishing his term he lived in the United States, returning to Cuba to run for president in 1952. Facing certain electoral defeat, he led a military coup that preempted the election.

Back in power, Batista now suspended the 1940 Constitution and revoked most political liberties, including the right to strike. He then went into league with the wealthiest landowners who owned the largest sugar plantations, and presided over a stagnating economy which saw a widened gap between rich and poor Cubans.^[6] Batista's increasingly corrupt and repressive regime then began to systematically profit from the exploitation of Cuba's commercial interests, by negotiating lucrative relationships with the American mafia, who controlled the drug, gambling, and prostitution businesses in Havana, and with large multinational American corporations that had invested considerable amounts of money into Cuba.^[6][7] To quell the growing discontent amongst the populace — which was subsequently displayed through frequent student riots and anti-Batista demonstrations — Batista established tighter censorship of the media, while also utilizing his anti-Communist secret police and U.S.-supplied weaponry to carry out wide-scale violence, torture and public executions; ultimately killing as many as 20,000 Cubans.^[8][9]

Catalyzing the resistance to such tactics, for two years (December 1956 – December 1958) Fidel Castro's July 26 Movement and other nationalist rebelling elements led an urban and rural-based guerrilla uprising against Batista's regime, which culminated in his eventual defeat by rebels under the command of Che Guevara at the Battle of Santa Clara on New Year's Day 1959. Batista immediately fled the island with an amassed personal fortune to the Dominican Republic, where strongman and previous military ally Rafael Trujillo held power. Batista eventually found political asylum in Portugal, where he lived until dying of a heart attack on August 6, 1973 near Marbella, Spain.^[10]

Early life

Batista was born in Banes, Cuba in 1901, to Belisario Batista Palermo^[11] and Carmela Zaldívar González, who had fought in the Cuban War of Independence. His mother named him Rubén and gave him her last name, Zaldívar. His father did not want to register him as a Batista. In the registration records of the Banes courthouse he was legally Rubén Zaldívar until 1939, when, as Fulgencio Batista, he became a presidential candidate and it was discovered that this name did not exist. It is alleged that a judge was bribed 15,000 Cuban pesos (about the same amount in U.S. dollars at the time) to fix the discrepancy.^[12]

Of mixed European, African, Chinese and Amerindian descent, Batista was considered a mulatto socially. He was educated in an American Quaker school.^[1] Coming from a humble background, he earned a living as a laborer in the cane fields, docks and railroads.^[13] He was a tailor, mechanic, charcoal vendor, fruit peddler, and an army stenographer.^[13] In 1921, he traveled to Havana and joined the army.^[14] After promotion to sergeant, he became the union leader of Cuba's soldiers.

The coup of 1933

In 1933, Batista led an uprising known as the "Revolt of the Sergeants", as part of the coup that overthrew the government of Gerardo Machado.^[15] Machado was succeeded by Carlos Manuel de Céspedes y Quesada, who lacked a political coalition that could sustain him and was replaced a short time thereafter.

A short-lived five-member presidency, known as the Pentarchy of 1933, was established, including a representative from each anti-Machado faction; Batista was not a member but was in control of Cuba's armed forces. Within days the representative for the students and professors of the University of Havana, Ramón Grau San Martín, was made president and Batista became the Army Chief of Staff, with the rank of colonel, and effectively controlled the presidency.^[16] The majority of the commissioned officer corps were forcefully retired or, as some speculate, killed.^[16]

Grau himself remained president for just over 100 days before Batista, conspiring with the U.S. envoy Sumner Welles, forced him to resign in January 1934.^[15] Grau was replaced by Carlos Mendieta, and within five days the U.S. recognized Cuba's new government, which lasted eleven months. Batista then became the strongman behind a succession of "puppet presidents" until he was himself elected president in 1940.^[15] After Mendieta, succeeding governments were led by José Barnet (5 months) and Miguel Mariano Gómez (7 months) before Federico Laredo Brú ruled from December 1936 to October 1940.

First presidency (1940–1944)

Batista, supported by the "Democratic Socialist" coalition which included Julio Antonio Mella's Communist Party, defeated Grau in the first presidential election under the new Cuban constitution in the 1940 election, and served a four year term as President of Cuba, the first non-white Cuban in that office.^[17][18] Although Batista was a capitalist and an admirer of the United States, he was endorsed by the old Communist Party of Cuba, which at the time had little significance and no chance of an electoral victory.^[18] This support was primarily due to Batista's labor laws and his support for labor unions, with which the Communists had close ties.^[19] In fact, Communists attacked the anti-Batista opposition, saying Grau and others were "fascists" and "reactionaries"^[20] During this term in office, Batista carried out major social reforms^[18] and established numerous economic regulations and pro-union policies.^[20]

Cuba entered World War II on the side of the Allies on December 8, 1941, declaring war on Japan the day following the attack on Pearl Harbor. On December 11, the Batista government declared war on Germany and Italy. In December 1942, after a friendly visit to Washington, Batista said Latin America would applaud a decision by the United Nations to go to war with Francisco Franco's Spain, labeling the regime as "fascist".^[21][22]

Post-presidency

In 1944, Batista's handpicked candidate for his successor, Carlos Saladrigas Zayas,^[23] was defeated by Grau. In the final months of his presidency, Batista sought to handicap the incoming Grau administration. In a July 17, 1944, dispatch to the U.S. Secretary of State, U.S. Ambassador Spruille Braden wrote:

It is becoming increasingly apparent that President Batista intends to discomfit the incoming Administration in every way possible, particularly financially. A systematic raid on the Treasury is in full swing with the result that Dr. Grau will probably find empty coffers when he takes office on October 10. It is blatant that President Batista desires that Dr. Grau San Martin should assume obligations which in fairness and equity should be a matter of settlement by the present Administration.^[24]

Shortly after the inauguration of his successor Batista left Cuba for the United States. "I just felt safer there", he said. He divorced his wife, Elisa, and married Marta Fernández Batista in 1945; two of their four children were born in the United States.

For the next eight years Batista remained in the background, spending time between the Waldorf-Astoria in New York City and a home in Daytona Beach, Florida.^[15]

He continued to participate in Cuban politics and was elected to the Cuban Senate in absentia in 1948. Returning to Cuba, he decided to run for president and was given permission by President Grau, whereupon he formed the United Action Party. He later founded the Progressive Action Party, upon taking power, but never regained his former popular support, although the unions supported him until the end.^[25][26]

Military coup and second presidency (1952–1959)

In 1952, Batista again ran for president. In a three-way race, Roberto Agramonte of the Ortodox Party led in all the polls, followed by Dr. Carlos Hevia of the Autentic Party, while Batista's United Action coalition was running a distant third.

On March 10, 1952, three months before the elections, Batista, with army backing, staged a coup and seized power. He ousted outgoing President Carlos Prío Socarrás, canceled the elections and assumed control of the government as "provisional president". Shortly after the coup, the United States government recognized his regime.

Upon his return to power, Batista did not continue the progressive social policies of his earlier term. He wanted recognition by the upper strata of Cuban society, which had never accepted him in their social circles. He also worked to increase his personal fortune.

Meanwhile, poverty on the island was growing. In 1953, the average Cuban family had an income of $6.00 a week, 15 to 20 percent of the labor force was chronically unemployed, and only a third of the homes had running water.^[27]

The Dallas industrialist Jack Crichton joined with several other oilmen to negotiate drilling rights in Cuba under the Batista administration. Standard Oil of Indiana signed an agreement with the Cuban-Venezuelan Oil Voting Trust Company, a unit originally established by William F. Buckley, Sr., for access to fifteen million acres. CVOVTC was during the middle 1950s one of the four or five most traded entities on the American Stock Exchange. (Batista's successor, Fidel Castro, reduced the size of claims for oil exploration to a maximum of twenty thousand acres and ended large-scale explorations by private companies.^[28])

Relationship with organized crime

Batista established lasting relationships with organized crime, notably with American mobsters Meyer Lansky and Lucky Luciano, and under his rule Havana became known as "the Latin Las Vegas."^[30] Batista and Lansky formed a friendship and business relationship that flourished for a decade. During a stay at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York in the late 1940s, it was mutually agreed that, in return for kickbacks, Batista would give Lansky and the Mafia control of Havana's racetracks and casinos.^[31]

After World War II, American mobster Lucky Luciano was paroled from prison on the condition that he permanently return to Sicily. Luciano secretly moved to Cuba where he worked to resume control over American Mafia operations. Luciano also ran a number of casinos in Cuba with the sanction of Batista, though the American government eventually succeeded in pressuring the Batista regime to deport Luciano.^[32]

Batista encouraged large-scale gambling in Havana, announcing in 1955 that Cuba would grant a gaming license to anyone who invested US$1 million in a hotel or $200,000 in a new nightclub – and that the government would provide matching public funds for construction, a 10-year exemption from taxes, and impose no duties on imports of equipment and furnishings for new hotels. From each casino the government was to receive $250,000 for the license and a percentage of the profits. The policy waived the background checks that were required for casino operations in the United States and opened the door for casino investors with illegally obtained sources of funding. Cuban contractors with the right connections made windfalls by importing, duty-free, more materials than were needed for new hotels and selling the surplus to others. It was rumored that besides the $250,000 to obtain a license an additional fee was sometimes required under the table.^[33]

Lansky became a prominent figure in Cuba's gambling operations,^[15] and exerted influence over Batista's casino policies. Lansky associate Chauncey Holt described Batista as "always in Lansky's pocket."^[9] Lansky also turned Cuba into an international drug trafficking port. The Mafia's Havana Conference was held on December 22, 1946 at the Hotel Nacional de Cuba. This was the first full-scale meeting of American underworld leaders since the Chicago meeting in 1932.

Lansky set about cleaning up the games at the Montmartre Club, which soon became the place to be in Havana. He also wanted to open a casino in the Hotel Nacional, the most elegant hotel in Havana. Batista endorsed Lansky's idea over the objections of American expatriates like Ernest Hemingway and the renovated casino wing opened for business in 1955 with a show by Eartha Kitt. The casino was an immediate success.^[34]

As the new hotels, nightclubs, and casinos opened Batista wasted no time collecting his share of the profits. Nightly, the "bagman" for his wife collected 10 percent of the profits at Santo Trafficante's interests; the Sans Souci cabaret, and the casinos in the hotels Sevilla-Biltmore, Commodoro, Deauville, and Capri (partly owned by the actor George Raft). His take from the Lansky casinos – his prized Habana Riviera, the Hotel Nacional, the Montmartre Club, and others – was said to be 30 percent.^[35] Lansky was said to have personally contributed millions of dollars per year to Batista's Swiss bank accounts.^[36]

Support of U.S. business and government

In a manner that antagonized the Cuban people, the U.S. government used their influence to advance the interests of and increase the profits of the private American companies, which "dominated the island's economy."^[27] As a symbol of this relationship, ITT Corporation, an American-owned multinational telephone company, presented Batista with a gold-plated telephone, as an "expression of gratitude" for the "excessive telephone rate increase" that Batista had granted at the urging of the U.S. government.^[27]

Earl T. Smith, former U.S. Ambassador to Cuba, testified to the U.S. Senate in 1960 that "until Castro, the U.S. was so overwhelmingly influential in Cuba that the American ambassador was the second most important man, sometimes even more important than the Cuban president."^[37] In addition, nearly "all aid" from the U.S. to Batista's regime was in the "form of weapons assistance", which "merely strengthened the Batista dictatorship" and "completely failed to advance the economic welfare of the Cuban people."^[27] Such actions later "enabled Castro and the Communists to encourage the growing belief that America was indifferent to Cuban aspirations for a decent life."^[27]

According to historian and author James S. Olson, the U.S. government essentially became a "co-conspirator" in the arrangement because of Batista's bitter anti-communism, which in the rhetoric of the Cold War, seemed to maintain business stability and a pro-US posture on the island.^[6] Thus, in the view of Olson, "the U.S. government had no difficulty in dealing with him, even if he was a hopeless despot."^[6]

Senator John F. Kennedy, in the midst of his campaign for the U.S. Presidency, described Batista's relationship with the U.S. government and criticized the Eisenhower Administration for supporting him, on October 6, 1960:

Fulgencio Batista murdered 20,000 Cubans in seven years ... and he turned Democratic Cuba into a complete police state – destroying every individual liberty. Yet our aid to his regime, and the ineptness of our policies, enabled Batista to invoke the name of the United States in support of his reign of terror. Administration spokesmen publicly praised Batista – hailed him as a staunch ally and a good friend – at a time when Batista was murdering thousands, destroying the last vestiges of freedom, and stealing hundreds of millions of dollars from the Cuban people, and we failed to press for free elections.^[27]

Batista, Fidel Castro, and the Cuban Revolution

Just over a year after Batista's second coup, a small group of revolutionaries attacked the Moncada Barracks in Santiago on July 26, 1953. The assault was easily defeated and its leaders jailed, while many fled the country. The primary leader of the attack, Fidel Castro, was a young attorney who had been running for parliament in the canceled 1952 elections. In the wake of the Moncada assault, Batista suspended constitutional guarantees and increasingly relied on police tactics in an attempt to "frighten the population through open displays of brutality."^[15]

Batista held an election in 1954, running as the candidate of a political coalition that included the Progressive Action Party, the Radical Union Party, and the Liberal Party.^[39] The opposition divided into abstentionists and electoralists. The abstentionists favored boycotting the elections regardless of the circumstances in which they were held, whereas the electoralists sought certain rights and guarantees to participate.^[40] The CIA had predicted that Batista would use any means necessary to ensure that he won the election. Batista lived up to their expectations, utilizing fraud and intimidation to secure his presidency. This led most of the other parties to boycott the elections.^[41] Former President Ramón Grau San Martín, leading the electoralist factions of the Cuban Revolutionary Party, participated through the political campaign but withdrew from the campaign days before election day, charging that his supporters had been terrorized.^[42] Thus, Batista was elected president with the support of 45.6% registered voters. Despite the boycott, Grau received the support of 6.8% of those who voted. The remaining voters abstained.^[43]

By late 1955, student riots and anti-Batista demonstrations had become frequent, and unemployment became a problem as graduates entering the workforce could not find jobs.^[44][45] These were dealt with through increasing repression. All youth were seen as suspected revolutionaries.^[46] Due to its continued opposition to Batista and the large amount of revolutionary activity taking place on its campus, the University of Havana was temporarily closed on November 30, 1956 (it did not reopen until 1959 under the first revolutionary government). On March 13, 1957, student leader José Antonio Echeverría was killed by police outside Radio Reloj in Havana after announcing that Batista had been killed in a student attack on the Presidential Palace; in reality, Batista survived, and the students of the FEU and DR who led the attack were killed in the response by the military and police. Ironically, Castro quickly condemned the attack, since the July 26 Movement had not participated in it.^[47]

In April 1956, Batista called popular military leader Col. Ramón Barquín back to Cuba from his post as military attaché to the United States. Believing Barquín would support his rule, Batista promoted him to General.^[48] However, Barquín's Conspiración de los Puros (Conspiracy of the Pure) was already underway and had already progressed too far. On April 6, 1956, Barquín led a coup by hundreds of career officers but was frustrated by Lieutenant Ríos Morejón, who betrayed the plan. Barquín was sentenced to solitary confinement for eight years on the Isle of Pines, while some officers were sentenced to death for treason.^[48] Many others were allowed to remain in the military without being reprimanded.^[49]

The purge of the officer corps contributed to the inability of the Cuban army to successfully combat Castro and his guerrillas.^[48][50] Batista's police responded to increasing popular unrest by torturing and killing young men in the cities; his army, however, was ineffective against the rebels based in the Sierra Maestra and Escambray mountains.^[15] Another possible explanation for the failure to crush the rebellion was offered by author Carlos Alberto Montaner: "Batista does not finish Fidel out of greed ... His is a government of thieves. To have this small guerrilla band in the mountains is to his advantage, so that he can order special defense expenditures that they can steal."^[15] Batista's rule became increasingly unpopular among the population, and the Soviet Union began to secretly support Castro.^[51] However, some of Batista's former generals have also criticized him in recent years, saying that Batista's excessive interference in his generals' military plans to defeat the rebels hampered Army morale and rendered all operations ineffective.^[49]

In an effort to gather information about Castro's army, people were pulled in by Batista's secret police for questioning. Many innocent people were tortured by Batista's police, while suspects, including youth, were publicly executed as a warning to others who were considering joining the insurgency.^[9] Additionally, "Hundreds of mangled bodies were left hanging from lamp posts or dumped in the streets in a grotesque variation of the Spanish colonial practice of public executions."^[46] The behavior of Batista's forces backfired and increased support for the guerrillas. In 1958, forty-five organizations signed an open letter supporting the July 26 Movement, among them national bodies representing lawyers, architects, dentists, accountants and social workers. Castro, who had originally relied on the support of the poor, was now gaining the backing of the influential middle classes.^[9]

The United States supplied Batista with planes, ships, tanks, and the latest technology, such as napalm, which were used in his battle against the insurgency.^[9] However, in March 1958, the U. S. announced it would stop selling arms to the Cuban government.^[53] Soon after, the U.S. imposed an arms embargo, further weakening the government's position,^[54] although land owners and others who benefited from the regime continued to support Batista.^[19]

Elections were scheduled for June 1958, as required by the Constitution, but were delayed until November 1958 when Castro and the revolutionaries called for a general strike and placed several bombs in civilian areas of the country. There were three main candidates in the elections, Carlos Márquez Sterling of the Party of the Free People, Former President Ramón Grau San Martín of the Cuban Revolutionary Party-Authentic, and Andrés Rivero Agüero of the government coalition. All three of these candidates were threatened by Castro, and several assassination attempts were made on both Ramón Grau San Martín and Carlos Márquez Sterling. Castro threatened the candidates in the elections because if any of the non-government candidates won, they would have blocked the Revolution's triumph and his ascent to power, since it would have meant that the elections were free and fair.^[40] In the end, he did not have to worry about this. On Election Day, estimates on the turnout range from 30–50% in the areas where voting took place, which did not include parts of Las Villas and Oriente, which were controlled by Castro.^[55] The initial results showed a Márquez Sterling victory, but the military ordered the counting to stop as they changed the actual ballots for fraudulent ones, and Batista declared Rivero Agüero the winner.^[55] Once Castro came to power, he ordered all records from the elections destroyed, so that Carlos Márquez Sterling could not claim that he should rightfully have been President.^[47]

On December 11, 1958, U.S. Ambassador Earl Smith visited Batista at his hacienda, "Kuquine". There Smith informed him that the United States could no longer support his regime. Batista asked if he could go to his house in Daytona Beach. The ambassador denied his request and suggested instead that he seek asylum in Spain.

On December 31, 1958, at a New Year's Eve party, Batista informed his Cabinet and top officials of his government that he was leaving the country. After seven years, Batista knew his presidency was over and fled the island in the early morning hours.^[56] At three A.M. on January 1, 1959, Batista boarded a plane at Camp Columbia with one hundred and eighty of his supporters and flew to Ciudad Trujillo in the Dominican Republic. With him went his personal fortune of more than $300 million amassed through graft and payoffs.^[57] Critics accused Batista and his supporters of taking as much as $700 million in fine art and cash with them as they fled into exile.^[58][59]

As news of the fall of Batista's government spread through Havana, The New York Times described the scene as one of jubilant crowds pouring into the streets and automobile horns honking. The black and red flag of the July 26 Movement waved on automobiles and buildings. The atmosphere was chaotic. On January 8, 1959, Castro and his army rolled victoriously into Havana.^[60]

Having already been denied entry to the United States, Batista sought asylum in Mexico, which also refused him entry. Portugal's dictator António Salazar allowed him to settle there on condition he completely remove himself from politics.

By the end of Batista's rule, described by U.S. President John F. Kennedy as "one of the most bloody and repressive dictatorships in the long history of Latin American repression",^[27] many claim that up to 20,000 Cubans had been killed.^[61][62][63]

Personal life and death

He was married to Elisa Godinez Gomez de Batista (1900–1993) on July 10, 1926, and they had three children: Mirta Caridad (April 1927–2010), Elisa Aleida (born 1933), and Fulgencio Rubén Batista Godinez (1933–2007).^[64] He later married Marta Fernandez Miranda de Batista (1920–2006), and they had five children: Jorge Luis (born 1942), Roberto Francisco (born 1947), Carlos Manuel (1950–1969), Fulgencio José (born 1953) and Marta Maria Batista Fernández. He also had a daughter, Fermina Lazara Batista Estevez, in 1935.

Batista later moved to Madeira, then Estoril, outside Lisbon, Portugal, where he lived and wrote books the rest of his life. He was also the Chairman of a Spanish life insurance company that invested in property and mortgages on the Spanish Riviera.

He died of a heart attack on August 6, 1973, at Guadalmina, near Marbella, Spain,^[10] two days before a team of assassins from Castro's Cuba could carry out a plan to assassinate him.^[15]

Marta Fernandez Miranda de Batista, Batista's widow, died on October 2, 2006.^[58] Roberto Batista, her son, says that she died at her West Palm Beach home.^[59] She had suffered from Alzheimer's disease.^[59] Batista was buried with her husband in San Isidro Cemetery in Madrid after a Mass in West Palm Beach.

Books written by Batista

• Estoy con el Pueblo (I am With the People), Havana, 1939
• Repuesta, Manuel León Sánchez S.C.L., Mexico City, 1960
• Piedras y leyes (Stones and Laws), Mexico City, 1961
• Cuba Betrayed, Vantage Press, New York, 1961
• To Rule is to Foresee, 1962
• The Growth and Decline of the Cuban Republic, Devin-Adair Company, New York, 1964

References

External links

• Fulgencio Batista from The History of Cuba
• Fulgencio Batista from The Latin American Studies Organization
• What Castro Found by Ana Simo
• January 1, 1959: "Cuban Dictator Batista Falls From Power" by The History Channel
• Fulgencio Batista Zaldívar Collection at the University of Miami Cuban Heritage Collection