A Sergeant Named Batista

Chapter 20

In the fall of 1938, Colonel Fulgencio Batista, Chief of the Cuban Armed Forces, received one of the greatest honors of his career. He was invited to visit the United States as the guest of General Malin Craig, Chief of Staff of the United States Army, and he accepted. The invitation was unprecedented in military diplomacy and Batista considered it a great compliment to Cuba. In his invitation, General Craig expressed the hope that Batista could be in Washington for the Armistice Day celebration on November 11.

Batista left Cuba bound for Miami aboard a Pan American Airways clipper on the morning of October 29, and arrived in the Florida city a few hours later. At Miami he boarded a special car on one of the regular Miami-to-New York passenger trains and arrived in Washington the following afternoon. He was received at the station by General Craig and an official party, including Undersecretary of State Sumner Welles, one of the sponsors of the Céspedes government which Batista had overthrown five years before. Batista was given a fine reception in Washington, and one of his first official calls was at the White House, where he spent several hours in private conference with Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Batista and Roosevelt got along well from the minute they met and they remained friends until Roosevelt died. During the war years, when Batista was President of Cuba, he collaborated very closely with Roosevelt in the defense of the Western Hemisphere.

On Armistice Day, 1938, Fulgencio Batista stood with the highest ranking officers in the American Army and reviewed a huge military parade in Washington. He was the honored guest. His leap from the enlisted ranks of the Cuban Army to the position of honor on a reviewing stand in Washington had never been achieved by another, and Batista was proud. He was proud because be was a Cuban, proud that he, as a former enlisted man, was able to represent the Cuban people and the Armed Forces of Cuba on such an important occasion. It was a glorious moment in the life of the boy who was born in poverty in the remote village of Banes, Cuba, thirty-seven years before.

The official visit to the United States gave Batista considerable personal satisfaction, and it made a tremendous impression on the Cuban people. Just five years before, Batista had had the courage to attack the much-disputed Platt Amendment and bring about its abrogation. In doing so he took from the United States the legal right to intervene in Cuban affairs, and in effect, gave Cuba complete freedom for the first time in her history.

Batista returned to Havana on November 25, and was received as a conquering hero. Thousands of Cubans were on the waterfront to receive the Army Chief who had returned from Miami aboard the Cuban gunboat Cuba, and several thousand of them paraded past the Presidential Palace, where Batista was received by President Laredo Brú.

At the time Batista visited the United States, a number of nations bad been calling on Washington for economic aid and some of Batista's political enemies thought that Batista should have done the same. But Batista bad no such thought, and, for the benefit of all, he clarified the purpose of his mission to the United States in typical Batista fashion: "I have not brought gold coins of a thousand pesos," be said, "because I did not go to sell even one small corner of Cuba. I went to participate in negotiations between two peoples which would bring benefits to both. It must be understood once and forever that we want and intend to obtain only benefits which are just to both parties."

On his trip to the United States, Batista was received with honors by the City of New York. He met the late Mayor Fiorello La Guardia at that time and the two men became good friends. Some years later, during a visit to New York, a friend of mine gave a small dinner party for Batista and La Guardia at his club. Batista and La Guardia hardly had time for food. The minute they got together they started an enthusiastic conversation-about world affairs, about economics, about Cuban sugar problems, and about international politics. Batista told me later that it was one of the most interesting evenings he had spent in New York and that he was impressed by La Guardia's wide knowledge of world affairs. He even had a good idea of the economic problems of the Island of Cuba.

Upon his return from the United States, Batista went back to his work with new vigor. The official recognition accorded him by the United States government encouraged him in his task of getting the country back to normalcy. By this time some of the chaos in the government had been overcome, the Armed Forces were reorganized and well disciplined, and the future looked brighter. Batista wanted the country to return to the constitutional form of government as quickly as possible. In order to do that, it was necessary to hold a constituent assembly for the purpose of working out plans for national elections and writing a new constitution. A number of the old political parties had been reorganized and new ones had been formed. The election of a constituent assembly would be an important one because the assembly's powers would be almost unlimited. It was also fairly certain that the members elected to the Assembly would have a good chance of becoming members of the new Congress.

Election day was fixed for November 15, 1939. Batista's government had its own slate of candidates and the opposition was formidable. The voters of Cuba went to the polls and voted for their candidates without the slightest intimidation from any quarter, and when the ballots were counted, Batista's opponents had won. There was no doubt about the result because the opposition had a clear plurality of votes. Prior to the election, some of Batista's enemies had predicted all sorts of bad things. They did not believe the Batista followers would allow a free election to be held. They could not have been more mistaken. They also predicted that Batista would find some way of nullifying the elections if his candidates lost. That was the second mistake his enemies made and he dismayed his foes the minute he knew the results of the election.

In a post-election day message to his followers, Batista spoke frankly and laid down the party line. "The elections," he said, "have been lost. Perhaps that was a good thing. The ballot boxes have been honored and the people have responded, giving a greater number of votes to the opposition. It is true, as has been argued logically by some of our leaders, that the names of national leaders of the opposition, some of them Presidential candidates, were carried on the ballots in the six provinces. While this is irregular, to say the least, such an eventuality should have been anticipated in the electoral laws. The laws, in the end, will have to resolve that problem. But the fact is, we've lost the elections. I call you to notify you of my decision not to permit or sponsor any movement designed to alter the results of these elections. For many years we have worked to get a decision which would be the product of the will of the Cuban people, thereby lodging the sovereignty with the people themselves, and we have at last achieved it. To us, the men of government, it becomes a duty to guard, even more jealously than the opposition, this right of the people, so as to point the way to a future based on respect, on dignity, on sovereignty, on liberty, and on independence."

The fact that the opposition might have committed certain technical violations of the electoral law would have been reason enough for Batista to throw the whole election operation into a court battle. Or, since he controlled the country completely at the time, he could just have refused to accept the verdict. There was no authority to dispute whatever action he took. He chose not to do either of these things, for two reasons. First, he was jubilant over the public response to the election, and second, he knew he would be playing right into the hands of his political enemies, who, though usually articulate, were left speechless by Batista's complete conformity with the results of the elections.

The fact that his opposition controlled a majority in the Assembly represented a challenge to Batista's political astuteness. He had consoled some of his followers just after the election with the statement that "there is no such thing as a dignified defeat which cannot be turned into a brilliant triumph." In the third meeting of the Assembly the opposition pushed through the election of Grau San Martín as president of the body by a vote of forty-one to thirty-five. Grau had been relieved of the Provisional Presidency of the Republic five years before, and he was a strong political foe of Batista. On February 9, 1940, when the Assembly held its inaugural session, it was apparent that the coalition of parties adverse to Batista held the voting strength. Batista considered the situation very carefully and decided to let a few weeks go by before making a move. With the mind of a soldier, he was making a reconnaissance of the enemy forces to find a weak spot in their armor, but with the mind of a politician, he had already determined what course had to be followed. The effective procedure, he knew, was to divide and rule, but until he had developed a plan, the importance of the principle for his purpose was purely academic.

By March 15, the ex-Sergeant was ready to move. On that day he had a long conversation with General Menocal, an old political war horse himself, who had twice been President of the Republic. On the theory that two reasonable men can always get together, Batista decided to talk with Menocal. and the discussions resulted in the reconciliation of several old disputes which had existed between them. A political agreement was reached, but the old General refused to make a move independently. He required the authority of his Republican-Democrat Party, whose National Executive Committee was called immediately to pass on the terms of the Menocal-Batista compromise. After long debate, the committee voted to follow Menocal, and his party thereupon joined the Batista coalition. Thus it was that the ex-Major General banded over the control of the Assembly to the ex-Sergeant. When the enemy awakened, amalgamation had already been made and Batista was in complete command.

The Constituent Assembly concluded its work on June 22, 1940, after having given Cuba a new Constitution and after designating July 14 of the same year as the date for national elections. The coming elections aroused great interest throughout the island. The candidates were to be Fulgencio Batista, the former Sergeant, and Ramón Grau San Martín, the former President.

These two personalities had dominated the Cuban political scene since the Revolt of the Sergeants in 1933. It was Grau who stepped into the Provisional Presidency once the Batista forces had achieved victory in that insurrection, and Grau stayed in the Presidency for four months-the precise length of time be enjoyed the backing of Batista and the Armed Forces. When be left the Provisional Presidency in January, 1934, Grau became a political opponent of Batista. He headed the Auténtico Party, which was one of the most active of the new political groups and was that party's candidate for the Presidency. Batista ran on a coalition ticket composed of seven separate parties. The rivalry between the two men was something more than political. Grau's dislike for Batista apparently became a personal one when Grau was forced from the Provisional Presidency, although the record showed that Batista did all be could to support Grau in office, even when the latter failed to win the support of the majority of Cuban people or the recognition of the United States.

Batista campaigned vigorously with the kind of enthusiasm which had carried him from the ranks of the enlisted men to the Supreme Commandership of the nation's Armed Forces. His capable staff of assistants were frequently amazed at the fast pace he set for them in the campaign. Batista himself traveled up and down the island, making speeches at whistlestops, shaking hands, visiting the country people, and listening to their problems. He had resigned his commission in the Army long before he entered the campaign in order to avoid the charge that he was the candidate of the Armed Forces. He put all his energy into the campaign and he worked as hard at electioneering as he had worked so many years at governing, and the newspapermen who accompanied him frequently were exhausted by a typical Batista campaign day.

It became very evident, early in his campaign, that Batista was the favorite of the youngsters. Everywhere he went he was received by thousands of children of grammar school age and they were definitely his most enthusiastic admirers. Batista was pleased by the enthusiasm of the youngsters of Cuba. On one visit to Oriente Province this popularity with the children was so great that Batista remarked to friends that if the children of Cuba could vote, he would win the elections easily.

Grau, meanwhile, was campaigning just as hard, trying to win the support of the "little man," and up until the day of the voting, it was difficult to predict the winner. But on July 14, 1940, the voters of Cuba chose Fulgencio Batista as President in one of the cleanest, most orderly elections ever held in Cuba. He defeated Grau by several hundred thousand votes. He was inaugurated on October 10, and began his four-year term as Constitutional President of the Republic of Cuba.