I have known Fulgencio Batista as a friend for twenty years, and we have done a bit of growing up together. When his name first appeared in the headlines of the world's newspapers in 1933, he was just a young Army Sergeant from the country and I was just a young newspaper reporter from the country assigned to cover the Island of Cuba. Perhaps the fact that he was a top sergeant had something to do with our early friendship. I had held the identical rank in the American Army some years before. Maybe there is some sort of an affinity between old top sergeants.

During the years Batista spent in exile, I was with him a great deal of the time. He was not the President of Cuba then. Nor was he even Chief of the Cuban Army. He was the same fellow I knew back in 1933-a good friend, the kind of fellow you like to have with you on a fishing trip. In those days he was not surrounded by military aides in gold braid or even by protocol in striped pants. I found him just as charming sitting alone with him on a park bench in Spring Lake, New Jersey, or in a small dinner party in New York, as I did when I sat with him in his magnificent office in the Presidential Palace in Havana.

Whatever political or official faults he has are a matter of public record. His political enemies have taken care of the publicizing of his errors, and the historians of 1975 will have no trouble finding full details in the old files of the Cuban newspapers. In Cuba, as in every other country, the faults of a public figure are frequently more interesting to the people than are his virtues.

The charge has been made many times that Batista is a dictator. If he is, he's a different kind of dictator. Certainly he is the first dictator of record who takes his inspiration from the Bible and from Abraham Lincoln. Batista knows more about Lincoln than any non-American I've ever known, more than a great many Americans. He reads everything he can get his hands on about Lincoln, and his librarian has a standing order to buy all books published on the life of Lincoln.

In his years in the Presidency, Batista participated in the two freest and most honest national elections in the history of Cuba. In the first he was elected to the Presidency; in the second he presided over the elections in which his own party's candidate was defeated. Batista, while serving as President, has never, except during World War II, imposed a censorship; never placed a restriction on free speech; never placed a restriction on religious worship; never persecuted his political enemies; and never established a concentration camp.

The charge has been made that Batista is a usurper of authority, that he twice seized control of the country from established governments. It is true that he seized the power on two occasions. But it is also true that in each case he took the power from a weak, ineffective government which had shown no capacity for leadership. In one case at least, the government he overthrew was thoroughly immoral, and, in both cases, the governments he deposed lacked popular support. Leadership, morality, and popular support are as essential to good government in Latin America as they are to good government in other parts of the world.

Batista's personal habits are about normal. He has an active though not fanatical interest in religion, and he is profoundly devoted to his family. He likes books, good music, people, and bright conversation and his personal faults are neither greater nor more numerous than the average man's faults. He has a great deal of charm, a sparking personality, and he likes, and is intensely interested in, people. He is trustful, perhaps to a fault, and he is splendidly tolerant of the other fellow's weaknesses.

Batista has a great sense of humor and is a talented storyteller. His humor is noticed once in a while in some of his official acts. For example, there was the time when an opposition leader was arrested for inciting rebellion and held in default of a bond of a thousand pesos. Members of the detained leader's party were jubilant because it gave them a chance to make a martyr out of their leader. Their first move was to start a penny-collecting campaign to raise the thousand-peso bond. Any one of a dozen of the party leader's friends could have put up the money, but it was much more dramatic, they felt, to raise the money by penny contributions. The party got a great deal of publicity out of the campaign, and after several days of collecting, they finally had enough pennies. With newspapermen and photographers following them, they set out for the police station, with bags full of pennies, to bail out their leader. When they reached the police station, they found that an hour before Batista had released the leader without bond.

On another occasion, in the spring of 1953, a group of leftist students at Havana University announced that they were going to stage an unauthorized torchlight parade in an attempt to upset the official ceremonies incident to the observance of the one hundredth anniversary of the birth of the Cuban patriot José Martí. The students let it be known that they wanted to provoke an "incident" with the Police. The people of Havana were worried. It looked as though there would be more disorders. Batista and his government said nothing. When the hour arrived, the militant students left the university, shouting and carrying torches, and headed for the center of the city. After marching a few blocks the youths realized that they had been oumaneuvered. Batista had removed all members of the Police Force from the streets of Havana and ordered them to stay out of sight of the students. Since there were no Police, the students could not provoke an incident and the parade fizzled out. Batista is very apt at confounding his political enemies.

During the latter part of 1952, he agreed to make a speech to the Armed Forces and everyone was interested in what he might have to say. For some weeks before he had been the subject of a great many opposition attacks, some of them of a personal character, and up to, the time he was to make the speech to the Armed Forces he had ignored the critics. A great many people believed that in his speech to the soldiers he would tear into his opponents and answer their charges, one by one.

But Batista had another idea. He devoted most of his speech to stories about the dogs he has on his farm. He told his listeners that he had a large Saint Bernard dog and a very small Pekingese. He said the Pekingese was an illtempered little fellow who went around snarling and nipping at the Saint Bernard's legs most of the time. On the other hand, he said, the Saint Bernard had a very tolerant disposition. He would put up with the nipping and snarling of the little Pekingese for days and days, without showing the slightest bit of anger. But once in a while, the President said, the Saint Bernard would decide the little dog's bluff should be called. On those occasions, the Saint Bernard had only to slap the little dog with his big paw and the Pekingese would scream and run forcover. For several days, at least, the Pekingese kept out of sight of the Saint Bernard and peace reigned in the Batista kennels.