As Sergeant Batista visited each company area on that exciting September morning in 1933, he appointed a commander from among the noncommissioned officers and made a brief address in which he cautioned each unit on the necessity of holding its position, come what might. The commissioned officers had not been deposed up to this point and Batista had no idea of what they were up to. Upon returning to the Central District at Camp Columbia, Batista was confronted by a dozen officers, including those who had been present at the meeting in which he had taken command.

He thought he might have trouble with the officers but they did nothing more than plead for moderation. He told them he would act with moderation and patriotism and walked away. A disturbing report had reached Camp Columbia from the city of Havana, several miles away, and it called for action. The First Infantry Battalion, normally based at Camp Columbia but then on special assignment at the Maestranza, had not joined the Revolt of the Sergeants. This was critical because it was an important unit, and, from its position in Havana, it could dominate the Presidential Palace as well as naval headquarters. Batista decided to deal with the problem personally. He turned command of Camp Columbia over to Sergeant José Pedraza, who bad been Batista's principal aid in the planning of the revolt, and made a secret departure from Camp Columbia. He hurried to Havana, and went directly to the Maestranza to see the noncommissioned officers of the First Infantry Battalion. He got a cold reception. First Sergeant Alvarado and several others refused to join the Batista revolution. Batista called for Corporal Oscar Díaz, the Batista delegate in the battalion. He then ordered the Corporal to assemble the entire battalion in the name of the revolution. Once the men were in formation, Batista took over. He ordered the arrest of the sergeants who bad refused to join the movement and then applied the formula which had worked so well in Camp Columbia. He opened a harangue about the lofty purposes of the uprising and announced firmly that the revolution bad triumphed.

Batista was doing a little bluffing, of course, and he admitted as much in a conversation I bad with him years later. He was not certain, at this point, that he would be able to carry the revolution through to complete success but, as be also told me later, "I was creating an impression of certainty." After a final appeal for the support of the men of the battalion, be announced that Corporal Díaz was taking command. His closing word were lost in the deafening viva's for Batista, vivas for the revolution! The Sergeant from Banes bad made another conquest, moved another step closer to complete success.

Once be bad the support of the First Infantry Battalion, Batista became more confident. He made a quick, unannounced visit to his friend and collaborator, Sergio Carbó, at the plant of the latter's magazine. Carbó was surprised when he saw the Sergeant, more so when he beard the story of the success at Camp Columbia. The purpose of Batista's visit to Carbó was to ask the editor's help in inviting civilian leaders to an "assembly" Batista had called for eight o'clock that night at Camp Columbia. The Sergeant felt it was imperative that be have civilian supporters at the meeting, which was to decide the future course of the revolution. The old motion picture theater in Camp Columbia was filled that night. Hundreds of representatives of the Armed Forces were there and Batista, never a man to miss an opportunity, quickly decided that this was the time and place to consolidate the revolution. He walked on to the stage and started talking.

Batista's oratorical talents are natural ones, just as are most of his other talents, and he is able to bold the attention of his listeners from the minute he starts speaking until he completes his address. Like most great leaders, he can move an audience this way or that with little effort.

On this historic night at Camp Columbia he spoke the language of a soldier to comrades he knew and admired. He was talking to the men who had shown a willingness to follow him and he wanted them to follow him to the end. He began by outlining the anarchic situation existing in Cuba at the moment. He talked of the violent disorders raging throughout the Republic, of the revengeful murders in the streets, of barbaric looting and pillaging, and of the complete absence of security for the lives of the civilian population. Calmly but firmly, Batista pointed out that the men responsible for the restoration and maintenance of order, the officers of the Armed Forces, had done nothing to bring to an end the chaos prevalent since the ousting of Machado almost a month before. He berated the American influence which had created the Céspedes government, which, he said, was a government of complacency which tolerated the disorders in order to stay in power. It was a good speech, well timed and brilliantly delivered, and Batista closed it with an appeal-an admonishment to the soldiers in behalf of the commissioned officers, the group which at that moment stood between Batista and success.

Although his critics, particularly those who do not know Batista personally, will never concede that he is a man of great compassion, the record of his deeds shows that he possesses a graciousness worthy of a skilled diplomat. It was this compassion for the bewildered officers, this innate graciousness, which inspired him to issue the following appeal: "Each noncommissioned officer, each soldier, regardless of the offense he may have suffered or the abuses he might wish to avenge, must observe his best behavior toward those who have, until today, been his superiors and his chiefs. Cuban soldiers are known to be good and generous, and now more than ever, they have the opportunity to confirm this. This is the request of a comrade. It is the order of the leader upon whom will fall the gravest responsibilities in these moments of supreme decisions. Sergeants in charge of units will be responsible for the physical well-being and safety of these officers, who, for the time being, will be under surveillance but not under arrest-in their quarters. The families of these officers are Cuban families and whatever the guilt of the officers may be, it does not by any means taint their families. They deserve, and must have, our protection while the situation which we will face after tonight continues to exist."

These were the words of a rebellious Sergeant, a man whose life depended on the success of his undertaking, in behalf of the only organized group with the power, should it choose to exercise it, to destroy him, his insurgent companions, and the Revolt of the Sergeants. Fulgencio Batista has uttered many words, made many decisions since that night in September, 1933. But if any of his utterings were more noble, more worthy of a place in the history books of the future than his appeal in behalf of those officers, they have not come to the attention of those who have followed his life from the very beginning of his political career.

After ordering that the deposed officers and their families be shown every courtesy, Batista turned to the task of reorganizing the government and moving along toward the full development of the revolution. He ordered first sergeants to take command of companies and squadrons and battalion sergeant majors to take over battalions. Military districts in the outlying provinces were turned over to the ranking sergeant major in each area. He placed Camp Columbia under control of the machine gun regiment, put machine gun sergeants in command of other units at the strategic points inside the camp, and assigned to them the responsibility for holding Camp Columbia, key to the whole military organization.

Meanwhile, excitement among the civilian population increased. The people knew that a military movement was under way, but they knew little more than that single fact. Groups of people gathered on the street comers, in the cafes, and around newspaper offices and radio stations, seeking information. At this point Batista issued his first manifesto. It was designed to acquaint the general public with the events of the past few days and explain the status and the purposes of the revolution. The document, like the revolution itself, was conceived and executed by Batista. It referred to the action of August 12, in which President Machado was overthrown, and described the installation of the Céspedes government of "mediation" as a "false movement." The fourth of September movement, the statement said, was a genuine revolution which met the needs of the hour. It solicited the "patriotic help" of the people of Cuba and promised that the movement would be dedicated to the common good of Cuba. The manifesto said that there would be a purge of the Army, Navy, and Police forces and that the de facto government of C6spedes would be deposed. It called for the drafting of a new charter which "shall respond to the immediate and future needs" of Cuba. The closing lines of the manifesto pointed out that the movement was free of any foreign interference and that it was based on the solid principles of patriotism and democracy.

The reference to the freedom from foreign interference was a reiteration of the implied charge that the Céspedes government, which succeeded Machado, was set up with the advice and assistance of the government of the United States. At eleven o'clock on the night of September 4, a meeting was held in Camp Columbia in which a number of civilian political elements aligned themselves with the Revolt of the Sergeants. From the very beginning, Batista had endeavored to get the support of civilian elements. At the meeting in Camp Columbia that night, Batista completed this important phase of the movement. A commission of civilians, beaded by Sergio Carbó, who had gone along with Batista from the start of the insurrection, signed and issued a proclamation to the people of Cuba. It bore the signatures of nineteen people, and eighteen were the signatures of outstanding civilian leaders. The nineteenth, the only military signature affixed to the document, was that of Fulgencio Batista, the Sergeant from Banes.

This single incident of the fourth of September, 1933, established this once-bumble country boy as an international figure and made his name a household word throughout the world. It also did more to change the history-and the future-of Cuba than did anything else that has happened since the island became an independent Republic in 1902. It was this daring, audacious action which established Batista as a figure of importance in his own country as well as in the world at large.

There is no point of comparison between the 1933 movement and the movement of March 10, 1952, in which Batista again overthrew a government in a bloodless coup d'etat. The Batista coup d'etat of 1952 was the work of a skilled, mature, middle-aged statesman and politician who had behind him seven years of service as Chief of the Armed Forces of Cuba, four years of experience as the World War II President of Cuba, and several years as a senator and leader of a major political party. The Batista of 1952 was a widely traveled man of experience, a polished statesman of international fame, a man who knew the answers. The 1933 revolt was staged by a thirty-two-year-old Sergeant who had never been out of his native Cuba, who bad never bad a single day of experience as a politician or a statesman, and whose knowledge of world affairs was confined to what he had read in books and newspapers. To put it briefly, there never could have been a tenth of March in 1952 had there not been a fourth of September in 1933.

The importance of the fourth of September to the members of the Army, the Navy, and the National Police is seen in the fact that the flag which was created to symbolize that movement was later adopted as the official banner of the Cuban Armed Forces.

The proclamation which came out of the big meeting at Camp Columbia on that eventful night of September 4, 1933, became the foundation upon which the revolutionary factions were to attempt to re-establish the normal functioning of the government, and it dedicated the Revolt of the Sergeants to the following propositions:

"First: The reorganization of the economic and political systems of the country through a constituent assembly.

"Second: The immediate punishment of those guilty of misdeeds during previous regimes, whether they be civilians or soldiers, in order to re-establish true order and genuine justice.

"Third: The acceptance and honoring of all debts and obligations, foreign or domestic, contracted by previous governments in the name of the Republic of Cuba.

"Fourth: The immediate establishment of tribunals to carry out the program outlined in this proclamation.

"Fifth: To take all steps not herein foreseen toward the creation of a new Cuba, built on the solid foundation of the righteousness and in accordance with the most modern conception of democracy."

The proclamation closed with the statement that the revolutionary group believed that the Céspedes government, "notwithstanding the patriotism and good faith of its components," did not meet the urgent demands of the revolution. It promised that the revolutionary group would relinquish its control over government as soon as a constitutional government could be established through the actions of a constituent assembly. (Of the nineteen men who signed that original proclamation, three lived to be elected to the Presidency of Cuba. Batista was elected to that high office in 1940, Dr. Ramón Grau San Martíin in 1944, and Carlos Prio Socarrás in 1948. Both Grau and Prio became bitter political enemies of Batista and of each other, and it was the Prio regime which fell from power when Batista staged his second coup d'etat in 1952.)

Throughout these two busy days in Camp Columbia little was heard of the former officers of the Army. A few of them had joined the Batista movement but the great majority, nearly a thousand, bad remained aloof from the entire proceedings. One of those who cast his lot with Batista was a dashing young First Lieutenant named Francisco Tabernilla. Tabernilla was a fine officer and Batista was delighted to have him on his side. He was popular with the troops and enjoyed a fine reputation with the civilian population. Tabernilla remained with Batista throughout the eleven years Batista was in power-from 1933 to 1944-and kept in close contact with the former Sergeant during his period of exile after leaving the Presidency in 1944. When Batista overthrew President Prio in 1952, the man at his right band was his good friend "Pancho" Tabernilla. Once the overthrow of Prio was completed, Tabernilla became Chief of the Army, with the rank of Major General.

At the September 5, 1933, meeting of the nineteen leaders of the Revolt of the Sergeants, the participants sought a formula for government for the interim period, or until a constitutional government could be established through national elections. Batista suggested a presidential form of government. Others preferred a junta form. But both groups favored the democratic system. In the end, a pentarchy was created to share the burdens of governing the nation. The portfolios were divided among five men, as follows: Ramón Grau San Martín, Public Instruction and Fine Arts, and Health and Public Welfare; Sergio Carbó, Interior, War and Navy, and Communications; José M. Irizarri, Public Works, Agriculture, and Commerce; Guillermo Portela, State and justice; and Porfirio Franca, Treasury. First choice for the post of Minister of War was Batista. His colleagues in the group felt that he should accept the cabinet post but Batista declined. Batista expressed his gratitude for the honor but pointed out that the appearance of a sergeant in the cabinet would weaken the government, particularly in the eyes of the diplomatic corps.

Whatever resemblance the Revolt of the Sergeants had to the ordinary revolutionary movement disappeared entirely at that point. The unselfish attitude of the man who had led the victorious insurrection of September 4, his refusal to accept one of the highest posts in government, was, of course, unprecedented.

At various times during these turbulent days of the fall of 1933, Fulgencio Batista demonstrated his desire to remain in the background in matters of national politics. Perhaps this was a form of timidity on the part of the young Sergeant or maybe it was his sincere belief that such matters should be left to more experienced hands.

It should be remembered that when Batista staged the Revolt of the Sergeants he had no idea that he and the small group who supported him would have to assume the authority for running the country after the revolution. He has told me on several occasions that when he found himself as virtual head of the entire government he was the most surprised man in Cuba.

Batista knew, of course, that he had had no training in government and he knew also that running a government for four million people was a much more gigantic task than anything he had faced in his army days or before he entered the Army. He was young, only thirty-two years old, and he would have preferred to let older, more mature statesmen take over the government so that he could return to the ranks of the Army. But when all efforts to find a suitable leader were unsuccessful, and when he knew that he had to assume the authority, he did so with a great deal of courage.