FULGENCIO BATISTA FLEES CUBA
Havana, Cuba (JFK+50) Fulgencio Batista fled the island where he has held power since 1952 in the face of a revolution led by Fidel Castro.
Batista 1st rose to power in 1933 & served as chief of the Cuban armed forces until his election as president in 1940.
Fulgencio Batista &
US Army Chief of Staff Marlin Craig
Armistice Day, 1938
Harris & Ewing Photo
Library of Congress
At the end of his term, Batista lived in the United States until his return to Cuba in 1952.
Upon the start of Batista's 2nd reign of power, the United States government supported him, as it has continued to do during the recent revolution because of Fidel Castro's leftist ideology & potential threat to American investments & property in Cuba.
Historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. wrote in response to an analysis request of the Batista regime by the U.S. government:
"The corruption of the (Batista) government, the brutality of the police, the regime's indifference to the needs of the people for education, medical care, housing, for social & economic justice.....is an open invitation to revolution."
Batista reportedly has a relationship with American mobsters Meyer Lansky & Lucky Luciano. Under his leadership, Havana has become known as "the Latin Las Vegas."
Fulgencio Batista was born in Banes, Cuba in 1901. He was educated at an American Quaker school.*
*In the presidential campaign of 1960, Senator John F. Kennedy was critical of the Eisenhower administration's support of Batista. On Oct 6, 1960, JFK said:
"Batista turned democratic Cuba into a complete police state--destroying every individual liberty. Yet our aid to his regime, & the ineptness of our policies, enabled Batista to invoke the name of the United States in support of his reign of terror."
Speaking to French-Jewish journalist Jean Daniel on Oct 24, 1963, President Kennedy said:
"To some extent it is as though Batista was the incarnation of a number of sins on the part of the United States. Now we shall have to pay for those sins. In the matter of the Batista regime, I am in agreement with the 1st Cuban revolutionaries."**
Castro Sign
photo by jim (2006)
"Fight Against Which is
Impossible & Win"
**On Jan 1, 1959, US companies owned 40% of the Cuban sugar lands--almost all the cattle ranches--90% of the mines & mineral concessions, 80% of the utilities--practically all the oil industry--& supplied 2/3 of Cuba's imports.
Fulgencio Batista eventually moved to Lisbon, Portugal. He died in 1973 near Marbella, Spain.
January 1, 2012
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