by Tad Szulc
After delivering a fiery speech at the José Martí monument in Mexico City on October 10, Castro left for the United States. His first stop was Philadelphia; then he gave speeches to Cuban groups in Union City, New Jersey, and Bridgeport, Connecticut, before arriving in New York on October 23. Cubans had been emigrating to the United States since the latter part of the nineteenth century, but additional thousands had come in the 1950s because of the economic crisis on the island, and they constituted the principal target of the Castro campaign. Fidel evidently had no problems obtaining a United States tourist visa, presumably because Washington (and the American embassies in Mexico and in Havana) did not consider him sufficiently "subversive," and the Batista regime may not have learned of his planned trip in time to request his visa be denied. Castro wanted to make an impact on Cubans in the United States, but at this stage he was perfectly happy to be ignored by American authorities. Actually, Union City police stopped the car bringing Castro to his speaking engagement, briefly interrogating him and his hosts, but it appeared to be a routine check and he was not bothered again. Another version is that the organizers of the Union City rally had forgotten to obtain a permit, and the police came to find out what was occurring. The New York event was called only on a four-day notice, possibly for security reasons.
It went very well. Imposing in his ancient dark-blue wool suit, Castro instilled enthusiasm with his passionate oratory, and at the end of the meeting, cowboy hats atop the head table filled up with dollar bills from the audience. Juan Manuel Márquez, the Ortodoxo leader who had now become one of Castro's favorite advisers, traveled with him during most of the American tour; he had spent some time in Miami in the past, and he was well connected in the exile community. In his New York speech, Castro made the important point of his revolutionary strategy: "We are against violent methods aimed at persons from any opposition organization that disagrees with us. We are also radically opposed to terrorism and personal assault. We do not practice tyrannicide." As he explained many years later in a private conversation, Fidel had taken the view that terrorism, apart from being immoral, is counterproductive because it scares away moderates who otherwise might be potential supporters of the revolution. During the entire anti-Batista war, the Fidelistas eschewed terrorism in the sense of political assassination or bomb throwing in public places (Castro says there were incidents of terrorist bombing in Havana at the outset, but he quickly forbade them; sabotage of power plants, for example, was considered highly desirable by him).
On November 20, Castro spoke to one thousand Cubans at the Flagler Theater in Miami; he had spent three weeks since the New York rally in private conversations and negotiations with exiled Cuban leaders, and seeing old friends. His tourist visa had expired, but the Immigration and Naturalization Service in New York extended it automatically. In Miami Fidel was joined by his sister Lidia who brought along Fidelito, and by their fairy godmother, María Antonia, from Mexico. How Fidelito was able to join his father remains unclear. According to one account, Lidia took him out of school in Havana (and from Mirta's control) and traveled with him to Miami in what Castro detractors called a virtual kidnapping. Another account is that Lidia first took Fidelito to Mexico, where their younger sisters, Emma and Agustina, had followed Fidel during the autumn. In any event, six-year-old Fidelito was present at the Miami speech, and when he started playing with the dollar banknotes being placed inside upturned sombreros, his father said, "Don't touch it, Fidelito, because this money belongs to the motherland." In his speech, Castro said, "My son is here; if he were of age, I would take him with me to the battle." Cuban students in Miami handed Fidel a huge Cuban flag. He wound up the tour with speeches in Tampa and Key West, traditional Cuban communities. In Key West, Fidel spent ten days resting and writing at a boardinghouse on Truman Avenue.
The American expedition was a relative success, though Castro never disclosed how much money he had collected; in a letter from Miami to Raúl Castro, he said he would have a $9,000 "surplus" after the printing of ten thousand copies of revolutionary pamphlets. Everywhere he went in the United States, he asked for funds; in the Miami speech, he said that "it does not trouble us to ask for alms for the motherland, because we ask for it with honor . . . nobody will repent of having contributed, but even if aid is insufficient, we shall go to Cuba, with ten thousand rifles or with a single rifle . . ." Castro remarked that there had been surprise over his disclosure of the year he had set for the revolution, and added, "We said which year, but we did not say the month, the day or the hour, nor how or where . . . Martí never denied his revolutionary plans when he was in exile . . ."
Politically, the tour was also worthwhile. He helped organize "Patriotic Clubs" and "26th of July Clubs" in a half-dozen cities, although he would complain later that the Cubans in the United States were not helping more. His idea was that every unemployed Cuban abroad should give a dollar a week, and that the employed ones should contribute one day of their monthly wages. He also thought that members of his clubs should pay two dollars a week. Nothing was ever enough for Fidel, but when he finally launched the Sierra war, Miami-collected funds paid for many arms shipments. In Havana Bohemia published very long and sympathetic reports on his New York and Miami speeches, and from Nassan in the Bahamas, Castro issued "Manifesto No. 2 of the 26th of July Movement to the People of Cuba," reporting that "seven weeks of tireless effort dedicated to organizing the Cubans from the Canadian border to the glorious [Florida] Keys have produced the best results." He warned against "imposters" trying to collect money in the name of the Movement, threatening they would be punished. Finally, he said, "no alternative remains for the country but revolution."
Castro returned to Mexico to resume building the invasion army. In the nearly six months since his departure from Cuba, he had created rebel structures in Mexico, Cuba, and the United States, and the year 1956 could be entirely dedicated to military preparations.
However, back in Mexico Castro had to cope with Cuban politics and with Cuban politicians who were finally beginning to realize that he was emerging as the principal opposition leader. An article in Bohemia, said that a "Fidelista complex" was developing among politicians (it was the first known use of the expression, derived from Castro's first name). Politicians, it went on, "feel dwarfed by the shadow of Fidel Castro that is becoming gigantic," and see in him "too dangerous a rival for some chiefs of [political] opposition." Those politicians should elaborate a coherent stance against "the revolutionary action of Fidelismo" and seek a peaceful solution to the Cuban crisis, the article said, but they "already feel displaced by the magnitude of the Fidelismo [phenomenon] . . ." Photographs of Castro and Batista illustrated the article, suggesting that they were the only two real power contenders. Two weeks later, Miguel Hernández Bauzá, a political commentator, published an article in Bohemia titled "Motherland Does Not Belong to Fidel," a savage attack on Castro. Hernández warned that if Castro should ever seize power in Cuba, he would become "the only dispenser of civic, moral and spiritual grace . . . God and Caesar in one piece of flesh and bones," and that "all those who are not partial to Fidel, would be executed as immoral." Yet, the author conceded that "nobody can claim that Fidel has profited from public funds" as had most Cuban politicians.
Hernández Bauzá must have touched a raw nerve in Castro by depicting him (rather prophetically) as something of an egomaniac because Fidel replied in Bohemia with a violent diatribe in nine columns, noting that "four years ago, nobody occupied himself with my person . . I went unnoticed among the all-powerful masters who discussed the destinies of the country. . . Today, strangely, everybody rises against me." But this is nor, he wrote, because he had abandoned his ideals, but because "they know my rebelliousness cannot be bought with any money or position." Fidel was furious, but he savored every word of the attacks on him by the Havana Establishment: Finally he was recognized, finally everybody was paying attention to him, finally he was feared. And this was exactly the climate he needed to proceed.
Inside Cuba, tensions and violence were growing during the latter part of 1955, heating up the revolutionary mood. At Havana University a group of students led by José Antonio Echeverría, who before long would die for the revolution and enter the pantheon of great Cuban heroes, formed a secret Revolutionary Directorate (DR) to launch armed urban struggle against Batista. The DR, however, had no links with the 26th of July Movement, and it would remain a fairly independent revolutionary group until after Castro's triumph. In the meantime, the DR almost became trapped in a plot to capture the presidential palace and kill Batista. The plan was apparently designed by former President Prío, who was preparing to return to Cuba in mid-August and had arranged to have large caches of arms and ammunition concealed in downtown Havana, supposedly for an assault on the palace. The DR students were persuaded to carry out the plot, but the secret police seized the caches on August 4 and 5, thereby liquidating the conspiracy. The students were arrested nevertheless, and remained detained for over a month. On his return, Prío announced he was abandoning his commitment to insurrection and would combat Batista politically; this earned him a contemptuous broadside from Fidel Castro in Mexico.
Castro also denounced the efforts by a group calling itself the Society of Friends of the Republic (SAR), headed by an octogenarian politician named Cosme de la Torriente, to negotiate new elections with Batista. To Fidel no negotiations were acceptable, and he announced that the 26th of July Movement would consider elections only if Batista resigned and left before they were held. Confrontation was the only strategy Castro regarded as plausible, particularly as his Movement grew. In Havana students battled the police late in November and early in December, and José Antonio Echeverría was seriously injured in a street affray. The DR responded by firing on the police, wounding a dozen policemen. On December 5, hundred of women belonging to the Women's Martí Centennial Civic Front, an organization allied with the 26th of July Movement, fought the police in midtown as they tried to march to a rally organized by the SAR. Scores of women were beaten, and many arrested. On December 7, the police fired on a crowd of students and workers protesting against Batista; one of the wounded that day was Camilo Cienfuegos Gorriarán, a worker who would soon become another hero for the great revolution.
On December 23, nearly a quarter-million sugar workers in the mills and plantations went on strike over a wage dispute. They were instantly supported by the 26th of July Movement, the students' DR organization, and even the illegal Communist party. As the strike continued over Christmas, strikers and students fought with the police in a dozen towns; at the same time, tens of thousands of leaflets with the Fidelista slogan "In 1956, We Will Return Or We Will Be Martyrs" were disseminated across the island, and the sign "MR-26-7" appeared in red or black paint on walls everywhere.
In Mexico Fidel interrupted his conferences with Che Guevara and Raúl Castro long enough to celebrate Christmas Eve with his friends and fellow rebels. He prepared the traditional Cuban festive meal of rice and black beans, roast pork, nougat, apples, and grapes. But no sooner had the dinner ended than Fidel launched into a nightlong monologue about economic and development projects he planned for Cuba when the revolution triumphed. Hilda Guevara recalled that "Fidel spoke with such naturalness, such certainty, that we had the impression we were already in Cuba in full constructive labor." Then Fidel and Che spoke of the need to nationalize natural resources and the principal sources of wealth. Yes, Fidel told them, "in 1956, we will return . . ."
CHAPTER
8
The training of Fidel Castro's invasion army started in earnest at the start of 1956, when the first "serious" money began reaching the conspirators in Mexico. Pedro Miret had brought about $1,000 from the first collections by the 26th of July Movement when he came to Mexico on a second visit to Fidel in December 1955, and Faustino Pérez, a member of the National Directorate, arrived with $8,250 early in February. The Rev. Cecilio Arrastía delivered $10,000. This hardly represented a revolutionary bonanza, but Castro had been complaining that in the first two months he had been in Mexico he had received only $85 from Cuba, and that "each of us lives on less money than the army spends on any of its horses." Now the Movement was able to pay the very modest living expenses of the rebels concealed in safe houses throughout the city, but the personal weekly allowance per man was eighty cents; the calculation was that it cost eight cents a day to feed each Fidelista. Anyone receiving under $20 monthly from home had to turn over half of it to the Movement's treasurer, and 60 percent was taken from remittances over $20. When Max Lesnick, the chief of the Ortodoxo youth branch and an old personal friend, visited Mexico on December 30, he found an unshaven and hungry Fidel awaiting him at the Regis Hotel; they lunched on steak Milanese, a Fidel favorite.
By mid-January, over forty handpicked men arrived from Cuba and the United States to join the rebel force in Mexico; counting Fidel, Raúl, Che, and those already in place since the previous year, the total stood at over sixty fighters—plus a group of deeply involved Movement supporters, mainly women and several Mexican friends. To house the future guerrilleros, six small dwellings were rented, each just large enough for about ten men; more houses were obtained later. Fidel Castro stayed with Melba Hernández and Jesús Montané (who were engaged to be married), and two bodyguards. Fidelito had gone to Mexico from Miami with his father's sister Lidia, and they lived with a rich Mexican-Cuban couple in a villa with a swimming pool.
Fidel was determined to keep his son with him once Lidia succeeded in flying him out of Havana (though he was not certain where he expected Fidelito to be after he left on the invasion), and he saw him as often as he could. In the Havana revolutionary archives, there is a photograph showing a very serious Fidelito in shirt and tie and an oversize military overseas cap, standing in a safe-house garden with his father, Raúl, Lidia, María Antonia, and several friends. María Antonia's apartment remained the message center and point of coordination, and all the new arrivals were processed there.
For reasons of security and discipline, life in the safe houses was one of monastic rigor and secrecy. It was forbidden for any individual to reveal his personal activities or those of his house group, to any other Movement member, and each house had a commander who was responsible for discipline as well as household and management problems. Members who lived in different houses were not allowed to disclose their addresses when they met at exercises, and they could not visit with each other. Rebels were not allowed to establish outside acquaintanceships, they could not go out except with at least one companion, they could not date women alone (double-dating was usually permitted), they had to be home by midnight, they could not make telephone calls, and alcoholic beverages were strictly banned. Mealtimes were on a rigid schedule, the men took turns cooking and cleaning, and no excuses were accepted. Free time was used for study and lectures, especially on "military and revolutionary themes," according to Castro's instructions. Each house commander was responsible for high morale among his men and for friendly relationships, on the theory that those who could not get along well would not be able to fight together well; there were channels for complaints and suggestions. So severe were the rules that any indiscretion could be regarded as treason; Fidel Castro assumed correctly that Mexico was full of Batista spies and agents seeking to destroy the Movement, and he was accordingly obsessive about security. Betrayal or indiscipline could—and did—result in death sentences in Castro's secret army.
When Fidel collected enough money and gathered enough men in mid-January, he informed General Bayo, the Spanish guerrilla specialist, that he was ready to proceed with the training. At first, Bayo conducted classes and drill exercises in the safe houses; he says in his memoirs that "I was the only one to know the location of all the houses, apart from Fidel, because I had to go to all of them to teach." He pretended to be an English teacher whenever someone in the neighborhood asked him what he was doing there.
In the training, Castro and Bayo's emphasis was on the phy
sical fitness of the fighters. They had to be ready for day and night marches over the worst terrain in the most adverse weather, to sleep on the ground, to go for days with little or no food and water, and to be immensely resistant to fatigue. Nocturnal training was particularly important. Che Guevara decided to improve his physical condition by losing weight although he was already slim, and Hilda recalls that he gave up his Argentine habit of eating a steak for breakfast, confining himself to a sandwich for lunch at the hospital, and a light dinner of meat, salad, and fruit.
First, the rebels were made to walk for long periods because walking was the guerrilla's principal transportation mode; they marched endlessly along Mexico's streets, especially the long Insurgentes Avenue. Every morning, groups of Fidelistas rented rowboats on Chapultepec Lake to row for hours; not only was it good exercise and cheap, but Castro thought experience on the water might come in handy during the crossing to Cuba. Alsacio Vanegas, the Mexican printer who was also a wrestler (like Marí Antonia's husband), was drafted by Fidel to teach the men hand-to-hand combat at the Bucarely Street gymnasium. They also played basketball and soccer in the suburbs to improve their agility. Then, Castro and Bayo ordered mountain climbing, beginning with Sacatenco and the higher Chiquihuite just outside the capital. The men from different safe houses converged in buses at their meeting point in front of the Linda Vista movie theater in the northern section of Mexico City to start the climb; they moved in small groups so as not to attract attention. Gradually, Bayo made the men carry heavier and heavier backpacks. Some of the men, including Che Guevara, went far out of town on weekends to climb the 17,343-foot Iztaccíhuatl and the 17,887-foot Popocatépetl (Che considered it a point of revolutionary discipline never to let his asthma attacks interfere with these physical efforts).
