On the morning of March 10, 1952, the people of Cuba awoke to find that the inept government of President Carlos Prio Socarras had been overthrown by Senator Fulgencio Batista, former President of the Republic, former Sergeant of the Army.

In the early hours of the morning this astute ex-cutter of sugar cane had, for the second time in his relatively short political career, ousted a national government without firing a shot or spilling a drop of blood.

In a bold coup d'état, the people of the island learned, Batista had quietly, almost painlessly, deprived the President and all other government officials of all the authority they had ever possessed.

Fulgencio Batista is a controversial figure. His friends regard him as a great hero, the man who twíce saved the nation in moments of peril. His enemies say he is anti-democratic--a dictator. Maybe Batista is a dictator. But if he is, he certainly is a new kind of dictator. He very definitely does not fit the pattern for dictatorship created by the Hitlers and the Mussolinis. If those tyrants of Europe were the true dictator type, then the appellation is neither accurate nor appropriate in the case of Batista. If Batista were just a Latin American copy of the dictators of Europe there would be little reason for writing the story of his life. The fact that Batista is so completely dissimilar to the Hitlers and the Mussolinis of Europe, or even the Perons of Latin America, is, we believe, sufficient justification for the writing of A Sergeant Named Batista.

But regardless of what one may think of Batista's record as a statesman or of his activities as a revolutionary politician, no one can deny that Fulgencio Batista is one of the most interesting public figures Latin America has ever produced.

A Sergeant Named Batista is simply one reporter's effort to tell the story of this remarkable personality, who made so much history during the first fifty years of the life, of the Republic of Cuba-a nation which is so vitally important to the United States-geographically, historically, economically, and politically.

E. A. C.