In August of 1928, a position as sergeant-stenographer opened at the Seventh Military District at La Cabaña Fortress in Havana. Such positions were always filled by competitive examinations. Corporal Batista filed for the examinations. He was called, stood the tests, and got the report. He had passed with a percentage of one hundred. That was the beginning of Batista's career as a sergeant. His next promotion came in September, 1933, after he had led the Revolt of the Sergeants, and he made quite a jump in rank from sergeant to colonel. In his career in the Army Batista has held a total of six ranks: private, corporal, sergeant, colonel, brigadier general, and major general. The ranks he held as a commissioned officer, the colonelcy and the generalships, gave him a great deal of prestige and were appropriate to the high positions he held in the affairs of the nation. But the rank he liked most was the rank of sergeant. Among his souvenirs-and he is somewhat of a collector, there are no insignia representing the ranks of colonel or general. But the stripes of the first sergeant-taken from the shirt he wore on the fourth of September, 1933, the day of the Revolt of the Sergeants-are there, framed and hung above the entrance door.

In this same year, 1928, it became evident that Cuba was in for serious political trouble. The iron-fisted tactics of the government of President Gerardo Machado, popular when it went into power three years before, bad caused great resentment among the people. For some time there had been signs of uneasiness among the people and the anti-Machado feeling came out in the open in 1928. When Machado manipulated his puppet congress into extending his term in the Presidency to 1935, there were nation-wide protests, and, as his opposition grew, Machado became more defiant. Those who opposed him did so at the risk of their lives. The Machado secret police, the strong-armed porra, became more active as the Machado opposition increased and several leaders of the opposition were killed by Machado trigger men. There was the ambush slaying of the newspaperman, Armando André, in August, 1925, and the shotgun murder of Colonel Blas Masó as he relaxed in the roof garden of his home. A number of anti-Machadistas were subjected to the vilest kind of tortures and the killers of Machado reached into neighboring countries to eliminate enemies of the dictator. Julio Antonio Mella, a leader of the anti-Machado student group, who fled Cuba in fear of the cruelties of Machado, was assassinated in Mexico in 1929 by Machado gunmen sent from Havana to take care of the matter.

By 1930, the fight between Machado and his opponents had become a running battle and much of the anti-Machado feeling was centered in the student body at Havana University. In September of that year the students staged an anti-Machado demonstration and one of the students, Rafael Trejo, was killed by the police. Machado tried to suppress the student opposition by closing the university, as well as the high schools and normal schools throughout the republic. In August of 1931, the hatred of the Machado regime broke into open revolt. The movement, which was beaded by General Mario Menocal, was opened in Pinar del Rio Province. But it was a short-lived uprising. It was put down with the arrest of Menocal, Carlos Mendieta, and several other insurgent leaders.

After the failure of the Menocal revolution, the Machado opposition went underground. It was during this period that Sergeant Batista became affiliated with the anti-Machado movement. The campaign against the dictator was carried on by small groups of individuals and it was not inspired by any particular political party. The feeling against the President was more personal than political, and it grew out of a common feeling, shared by a great many Cubans, that Machado's ruthless manner of disposing of his political enemies had to be stopped. In the early stages the movement was not effectively coordinated but later, in 1932 and 1933, the opposition groups were consolidated and dedicated to a well-planned campaign against Machado.

Batista's position as a headquarters secretary and his work as court reporter in the Machado Councils of War gave him an opportunity to see the dictatorship from the inside. The information lie was able to pick up became very valuable to the revolutionaries on the outside, and Batista was regarded as a key man in the anti-Machado campaign. Batista, who would have preferred to fight Machado in the open, had difficulty restraining himself when he saw the brutalities and injustices of the Machado regime. On one or two occasions his hatred of Machado's methods almost got Batista into serious trouble. One of the incidents happened early in 1933, in the town of Artemisa.

On the morning of the twenty-first of May, 19313, First Lieutenant Enrique Díez Díaz sat down at his desk in the Rural Guard station at Artemisa to open his mail. Lieutenant Díez Díaz was the commanding officer of the post at Artemisa, a rich little town in the heart of the farming area of Pinar del Rio Province, thirty-five miles west of Havana. The day before had been a holiday-Cuba's Independence Day-and considerable mail had piled up on the officer's desk. There were the unstamped official communications of the Army, a few personal letters, and one or two small packages. After checking through the letters, the Lieutenant picked up one of the packages and broke the wrapping. There was a loud report. The explosion of the bomb inside the package almost destroyed the small army post, and the body of Lieutenant Díez Díaz was removed from the debris and given a military burial.

The killing of Lieutenant Díez Díaz aroused great excitement and the people knew there would be reprisals. Four well-known revolutionaries-Señora Mercedes Morales de Corrons, Francisco Corrons Canalejos, Luis Pérez Hernández, and Ignacio González de Mendoza-were arrested and charged with the murder of Lieutenant Díez Díaz. The trial was held before a Council of War in the town of Artemisa. Attorneys for the defense were Ricardo Dolz, Carlos Manuel de la Cruz, Gonzalo Freyre de Andrade, and Pedro Cué, all civilian attorneys and all identified with the revolution. Three sergeant-stenographers were assigned by the Army as court reporters, among them Sergeant Batista. The presence of Batista on the list of court stenographers pleased the lawyers for the defense. Batista was already a member of the ABC revolutionary society and he had been working very closely with the anti-Machado elements. As the trial progressed, bitterness developed between opposing counsel. During one of the court sessions one of the military lawyers and Dr. de la Cruz got involved in a violent argument. When the military lawyer threatened to attack Dr. de la Cruz, Batista jumped from his desk to defend the distinguished attorney. Batista was risking his position as a noncommissioned officer, and perhaps his life, in defending the lawyer, but he was determined that Dr. de la Cruz should not be mistreated. About this time Batista heard reports that an attempt would be made to assassinate the civilian lawyers in the case. He went to the attorneys and warned them, suggesting that they allow him and a fellow sergeant to accompany them on their automobile trips back to Havana. Each day during the trial Batista and his fellow sergeant offered to accompany the lawyers to and from Havana in order to protect them from attack.

 Lieutenant Díez Díaz was killed because, in a moment of carelessness, he had forgotten the first rule of self-defense-at least that was the rule observed by most of the officials of the despised Machado government, who, through experience, had developed a fine respect for the ingenuity of the anti-Machado bomb experts. The revolutionaries of the Mac ado days terrorized the Machadistas through the use of explosives. The package bomb, which was the weapon used in the killing of the Lieutenant at Artemisa, was soon outmoded by newer, more effective types. The most effective type of bombing was, perhaps, the wired-telephone technique. This method was especially useful in eliminating police and army officers whom the revolutionaries believed were identified with acts of torture. The operation was simple. Revolutionaries would rent a furnished house and rig a series of bombs to the telephone. They would then abandon the house, after making sure that the detonation devices were in good working order. Once outside they would make an anonymous telephone call to police headquarters, "tipping off" the police that a group of revolutionaries were meeting in the house. The call invariably resulted in a raid by a detachment of police or soldiers. When the officer leading the raid found no revolutionaries in the house, he would reach for the telephone to report to his superiors. The lifting of the receiver did the rest. There were several variations on this method. One was to rig closet doors and dresser drawers with bombs and then advise the police that arms were hidden in the place. Once a closet door was opened or a dresser drawer pulled out, the explosion was set off.

Another device of the revolutionaries was the "one-two bomb." This was most effective and it was a difficult trick to combat. The one-two method was developed when revolutionaries noticed that a bomb explosion in a public place, especially in downtown Havana, always drew a large number of police. Immediately, the bombers bad an idea. They would set off a small bomb first, slightly more than a petard, and time a second bomb of great force to explode ten minutes after the small one. The second bomb was, of course, set to blow up when the maximum number of police officers were on hand.

As the campaign against Machado continued, the forces opposing him became more and more effective. They had consolidated themselves into secret revolutionary societies and they bad informers in almost every branch of the government. The societies were organized along cellular lines to provide the members with maximum safety. A cell was composed of a small group of men, who knew only the members of their own cell. Their leader in turn, knew only the next highest ranking officer in the organization. The revolutionary intelligence units were able to get a great deal of information about Machado, some of it rather personal. The secret agents of one of the revolutionary groups, for example, found out that Machado had the habit of going to the bathroom at a certain pre-dawn hour every morning. So it was decided to take advantage of the information. The bombing experts were called in and a plan of action was agreed upon. A few nights later, or rather a few pre-dawns later, a valiant revolutionary climbed to the roof of the Presidential Palace with a bomb and a long piece of string hidden under his jacket. Someone bad discovered that a ventilation pipe ran directly from the roof to the bathroom to which Machado made his daily early morning visit. The revolutionary checked his watch, located the strategic pipe, attached the bomb to the end of the string and inserted it into the ventilator. Holding the other end of the string in his hand, he fed out the line, little by little, until it reached the grilled ventilator opening in the ceiling of the bathroom. He turned, ran down the stairway, and escaped. The bomb exploded on time and there was considerable confusion in the Presidential Palace. But the youth who placed the bomb made one slight error. He put the explosive down the wrong ventilator. It destroyed all the bathroom accouterments in one of the palace guest rooms, unoccupied at the time.

By mid-winter 1932-1933, the crisis in Cuba had become acute. The unscrupulousness of Machado had caused some of Cuba's outstanding men and women to leave the island. Others had been arrested, others had been punished or killed, and still others had just disappeared. In New York a group of exiles had set up the New York junta to direct the campaign against Machado. The situation worried the United States more than anything that had happened in Latin America since the Good Neighbor Policy had been enunciated. So alarmed was Washington that United States Ambassador Henry Guggenheim was asked to make regular reports on developments in Havana. As spring came on, conditions became even worse-more bombings, more atrocities, and more bombings. There seemed to be no solution to the problems of Cuba.

In April, President Roosevelt decided to send one of his top diplomats, Sumner Welles, to Cuba to represent the Washington government. When Welles was named, Cordell Hull, Secretary of State, issued a statement explaining the American government's attitude with regard to the Cuban problem. After declaring that the United States was "forced to view with gravest concern the situation now existing in Cuba," Mr. Hull instructed Welles to "point out to President Machado, in the most forcible terms, that in the opinion of your government there can be expected no general amelioration of conditions in Cuba until there is a definite cessation of that state of terrorism which has existed for so long a period throughout Cuba and particularly in Havana." In the same note of instructions Hull told Welles to offer the good offices of the United States in an effort to mediate the quarrel between Machado and his opposition. These were the instructions which sent Welles into the longest, most complicated set of mediation efforts Cuba has ever known. From the day Welles presented his credentials, May 11, until August 12, 1933, the day Machado was forced to leave the Presidency and flee the country, and for months thereafter Welles was the center around which whirled the most violent political hurricane ever to move through the tropics.

Upon his arrival in Cuba, Welles conferred with various political and revolutionary leaders and offered his services as mediator. By July 1, be had the acceptance of the majority of the political factions as well as the government of Machado, and the negotiations were started. For a month and a half Welles negotiated with no results. just when the solution seemed near, something would happen and Machado would back away. At one point, Welles learned that a group of Machadistas was considering assassinating the Ambassador in order to provoke American intervention. Finally, on August 12, Machado fell. His resignation and escape from Cuba were not entirely the result of a "Welles Plan." Machado had lost the support of the Army and was told by the military to step down. He turned the Presidency over to General Alberto Herrera, a cabinet minister, who, in accordance with a prior plan, delivered the Presidency to Carlos Manuel de Céspedes.