CUBA

After 16 months of sabotage and threats, Rebel Fidel Castro vowed to start his vaunted "total war" this week against the regime of President Fulgencio Batista. As Cubans waited the call to a general strike and armed attacks, the usual wave of bombings and skirmishes gave way to ominous silence. Batista made ready for the showdown by asking his obedient Congress to vote him emergency powers, including the right to impose martial law, govern by decree, and use troops to meet any strike.

In Santiago, the rebel hotbed, streets were quiet, bars deserted. All outgoing-plane space had been taken for a week in advance. The Texas Co., which runs a refinery near Santiago, chartered a plane to get 44 dependents of U.S. employees away in time. As the army pulled back its outposts, the dun walls of Moncada Barracks, six blocks square in the heart of Santiago, bristled with troops. Only twelve miles across Santiago Bay, a 150-man column of rebels was boldly encamped.

In Havana, which Castro must crack to win Cuba, every available police prowl car roamed the streets, and few citizens ventured out after dark. The 630-room Habana Hilton, opened with fanfare last month, had just 44 guests. General Pilar García, Havana's tough new police chief rounded up suspected rebel sympathizers by the dozens, while hundreds more went into hiding at the homes of friends and relatives.

If Castro sticks to his schedule, the normal round of pre-Easter holy days and holidays will give him a natural assist in closing down the country. The rebel chieftain has long delayed his big move in the hope of winning over enough of organized labor, still officially pro-Batista, to ensure the strike's success. But now he faces another problem: if he postpones the big push again, his Havana network, which must lead the strike, may be fatally weakened by mass arrests and killings.