July 29, 1957. p. 11.
HAVANA, July 28—Government troops under Col. Pedro Barrera, chief of operations in Oriente Province, have not yet made contact with Fidel Castro, the rebel leader, and his insurgents, Army headquarters said late today.
About 400 soldiers are pursuing Señor Castro and his band, which made a lightning attack yesterday morning on Colonel Barrera’s former field headquarters at the Estrada Palma sugar mill and then withdrew to their Sierra Maestra hide-out in that eastern province.
A report circulated in Havana that the Castro forces were reinforced yesterday by a group of youthful insurgents headed by Pelayo Cuervo, Jr., son of a prominent lawyer and leader in the Opposition Ortodoxo party, who was taken from his home and killed the night following the attack on the Presidential Palace last March 13.
In Havana, civic associations appealed to President Fulgencio Batista in an open letter to intervene to stop a hunger strike of political prisoners in Principe Fortress jail.The strikers are protesting alleged ill-treatment of political prisoners in the Isle of Pines prison, Col. Ugalde Carrillo.A court here Friday ordered the release of six of the Principe prisoners.