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It will no doubt prove a most interesting book and a model of historical writing, as was de la Cova's previous Cuban Confederate Colonel. Unlike his biography of 19th century filibuster Ambrosio José Gonzales, the book on Moncada, as it is written upon unsettled (and, indeed, mined) territory, is likely to prove more controversial. I really don't know how it is possible to reconcile the two national mythologies about Moncada, or if it is even desirable. On the one side we have the traditionalist version: that the Moncada rebels attacked the infirmary of the barracks and butchered convalescing men in their beds before scattering in panic when Batista's soldiers advanced on them. Then there is the revolutionary version: that Batista's soldiers quickly overwhelmed the inexperienced rebels and butchered most of them before and after the fighting. Then there are the collateral questions: Did Castro actually participate in the attack or did he use the excuse of a broken car to evade it? The fate of the survivors on both sides: Aren't most of the rebel participants now in Miami, having long ago disowned their part in the attack? And weren't most of the military defenders executed by Castro after he seized power in 1959 with no semblance of the justice he himself had received from Batista? What was the role of Americans and the CIA in promoting and financing Castro's movement? Why did Batista really spare Castro's life after the attack? Ultimately, should this event be commemorated in any way in a free Cuba or is it only the horrible prelude of our endless national nightmare?

Henry, thanks for the plug. Manuel, all of your questions are answered in detail in the book.
The myths created about Moncada were initially disspelled during the subsequent trial. The proceedings were thoroughly covered by the newsmedia, especially the English-language Havana Post, which was not subjected to government censorship. All the surviving rebels freely testified and none of them, including Haydee Santamaria, made the accusations of torture and dismemberment that they would later fabricate as rebel propaganda. Three military medical doctors (two of whom I later interviewed) testified on direct and cross examination that no soldier died as a result of stab wounds. Manuel Bartolome, the funeral director who retrieved all the rebel cadavers and actually lives in Miami, told me that none had signs of torture or mutilation. I also interviewed magistrate Adolfo Nieto, who presided the tribunal. Until now, historians have neglected the published historical record.

The brutal repression unleashed by the Moncada and Bayamo army commanders, in response to the sneak attack that killed nineteen soldiers and policemen and wounded thirty, allowed Fidel Castro to turn his military defeat into a political victory. The summary execution and murder of more than fifty rebel prisoners and innocent civilians during four days of vengeance prompted the intercession of the Catholic Church, the Freemasons, and civic organizations. They petitioned Batista, who responded by reproaching the Moncada commander and ordering him to spare Castro’s life.

There was no CIA link to the Moncada events. The American Embassy in Havana, prompted by Cold War fears, investigated possible Communist involvement in the insurrection and the effect that the army’s brutal response had on the population. Their assessment to the Department of State described Fidel Castro as “an extremely ambitious and ruthless opportunist, obviously not adverse to violence when it serves his purpose.” This ominous warning was lost or ignored five years later when the Department of State changed its Cuba policy in favor of the rebels.

Here is a list of the surviving ebels I interviewed:
Arcos Bergnes, Gustavo, telephone interview, Havana, Cuba, May 6, 1997. *
Bustillo Rodríguez, Carlos A., personal interview, West New York, N.J., June 3, 1984. *
Castro García, Orlando, personal interview, Miami, Fla., December 5, 1983.
Chanes de Armas, Mario, personal interview, Miami, Fla., August 12, 1993. *
Costa Chávez, Jaime, personal interview, Miami, Fla., August 7, 1984.
De Armas Errasti, Héctor, personal interview, Miami, Fla., August 4, 1984. *
Díaz-Francisco, Angel, personal interview, Miami, Fla., March 3, 1988. *
Granados Lara, Gerardo, personal interview, Orlando, Fla., August 10, 1984.
Martínez Ararás, Raúl, personal interview, Miami, Fla., December 5, 1983.
Mafut Delgado, Moisés, personal interview, Miami, Fla., August 7, 1984.
Montano Benítez, Eduardo, personal interview, Passaic, N.J., June 17, 1995.
Pérez-Puelles Valmaseda, Gerardo, telephone interview, Miami, Fla., July 4, 1990.
Rosete, Elio, telephone interview, Miami, Fla., February 28, 1988. *
Suardíaz Fernández, Manuel, personal interview, Queens, N.Y., April 29, 1990. *
(* Have passed away since being interviewed)
I also interviewed 47 military and government personnel, and 54 civilians and politicians who were direct participants in the events.
Here is the book promo written by the University of South Carolina Press:
No account of Fidel Castro's rise to power is complete without mention of the failed attacks of July 26, 1953, on the Cuban army garrisons at Moncada and Bayamo. Yet no single volume to date has offered a comprehensive assessment of the assault that set the Cuban Revolution into motion and for which the 26 of July Movement was named. In this thorough study, Antonio Rafael de la Cova views this initial overthrow attempt as a propaganda victory that marked the start of Castro's ascent to national power. Drawing from three decades of interviews with more than one hundred participants—including surviving rebels, military and government personnel, and politicians—de la Cova screens historical facts from popular fictions to build an accurate
account of this turning point in Cuban history and the cold war.
In July of 1953, aided by his brother Raùl, Fidel Castro led 160 sparsely armed and poorly trained followers in simultaneous assaults on two Cuban army posts, declaring as his goal the restoration of constitutional democracy
on the island. Skirmishes lasted only minutes on both fronts as the insurgents failed to take the garrisons and were killed, captured, or dispersed without contingency plans. A master of manipulation, Castro was later able to recast
this humiliating military defeat as a political victory when Major General Fulgencio Batista's troops summarily executed more than fifty rebel prisoners, garnering the ire of the people.
De la Cova chronicles the assaults and their aftermath as they happened, with a special focus on countering false statements later made by Castro at his subsequent trial and in his published defense speech History Will Absolve Me
—a required text for Cuban schoolchildren to this day. Through research and interviews, de la Cova brings to light the persistent falsehoods told of
atrocities committed by Batista's soldiers and Castro's rebels. He proves that Castro invented a legend of prisoner torture, mutilation, and dismemberment and that likewise Batista falsified the historical record of the attack. The
myths surrounding the assault provided superb fodder for building support for the successful guerrilla campaign that brought Castro to power in 1959. Assessing the impact of this mythology, the divided loyalties of the Cuban soldiers, and U.S. policy toward Cuba in the 1950s, de la Cova presents a detailed and candid survey of the lasting importance of the Moncada attack
and its place in history as the birth of the Cuban revolution.

Prof.de la Cova:
(please correct me if I'm wrong)
the Havana Post was published by one Carlos Todd, who later moved to Coral Gables a published a newsletter called the Cuban Information Service.
I've never seen a copy of the Havana Post, but I read several volumes of the CIS and found these to be an excellent source of information. Are you familiar with the CIS and do you know if they are available anywhere?

Omar,
If you are in or near Miami, check out the Cuban Heritage Collection at the University of Miami Library. Otherwise, you can obtain those publications thru interlibrary loan. The Havana Post is available on microfilm.

Thank you. Your upcoming book is at the top of my "to read" list.

Batista was very bad for Cuba in a lot of ways, and that started long before the Moncada attack, but at least if he'd been as ruthless and no-nonsense a dictator as Castro was after him, he would have eliminated Castro over Moncada, and Cuba would have been spared half a century of tragic suffering and destruction. If the roles had been reversed, there is absolutely NO question that Castro would have executed Batista, no matter who or how many pleaded for him to be spared (and few if any would have dared, because they would been in for it as well).

Asombra:

I have never been able to understand your position, though it is a commonly-held one. On the one hand you criticize Batista for being "very bad for Cuba" and then you criticize him for not being bad enough. Which is it?

I have often said that I would have preferred to live a 1000 years under Batista rather than one single day under Castro. One thousand years would not have sufficed for Batista to destroy Cuba. One day was all that Castro needed.

Batista made Castro possible, among other things. Of course there's no comparison; nobody who's well informed and in his right mind would fail to pick Batista over Castro if that was the only choice. My point was that Batista, in addition to providing the foundation on which Castro erected his takeover, couldn't even act sufficiently "in character" to eliminate Castro when he could have easily done so. In other words, he was bad for Cuba all around.

Batista, regardless of what he did as the dictator of Cuba (good or bad), opened a pandora's box when he took power in 1952. And out of that pandora's box emerged fidel castro. Batista is culpable in that sense for the modern-day Cuban tragedy.

Asombra:

Batista made Castro possible. Prío made Batista possible. Grau made Prío posible. Batista made Grau possible... and so forth. What is the point? That March 10th begot July 26th? Castro was a gangster, murderer and international terrorist before Batista's bloodless 1952 coup. Therefore, Batista did not turn Castro into something that he wasn't already. And why not blame Prío for Castro? Prío financed Castro's Revolution to the tune of $12 million. On Jan. 1, 1959 Prío suffered his second coup. Castro, whom Prío thought was his surrogate, turned against him and cut him out.

Of course, neither Batista nor Prío is responsible for Castro's deeds. Castro alone is responsible. You are in fact diminishing Castro's guilt when you assign any blame for his deeds to Batista or anyone else.

Henry:

We are all always opening Pandora's boxes. I am sure you are not suggesting that Batista wanted Castro to emerge from the Pandora's box. In fact, no one did more to prevent Castro than Batista, thwarted at every turn by Eisenhower's State Department, which placed an arms embargo on Cuba, refused to recognize the elected successor to Batista, and ultimately threatened to withdraw recognition from Batista in order to compel him to surrender power to Castro.

It is the U.S. that opened that Pandora's box, ignoring Batista's warnings that Castro and his brother were Communists.

Manuel,

To my way of thinking, Fidel doesn't gain any traction as a leader in Cuba if the March 10 coup doesn't happen. I didn't live the events but everything I've read reinforces the fact that the Batista coup almost instantly set off a series of conspracies and spawned the Revolutionary movement. A corrupt democracy is one thing, but I don't think it spawns a revolution. Fidel would not have survived in a democratic Cuba.

Manuel,

By definition the contents of a Pandora's box are unknown by the person that opens it. But it's a cautionary tale that perhaps constitutions and the democratic process and institutions shouldn't be tossed aside because of a threat (real or perceived).

Of course Batista wasn't responsible for Castro's character and actions. Of course he doesn't diminish Castro's guilt one iota. Of course he tried to defeat Castro (at least once he figured out Castro was a serious threat to his position). I never meant to imply otherwise. The fact remains that, despite what Batista did or did not foresee, he created and sustained the conditions Castro needed to seize power.

Yes, there were other factors involved, like wrongheaded US foreign policy, but the basic problem (which was predominantly a domestic Cuban political problem) was squarely Batista's doing. He, like President Machado before him, just didn't know when to leave well enough alone. Even after his 1952 coup, Batista could have stepped down after a few years, loaded to the gills with loot, and bowed out more or less gracefully, possibly even looking noble and patriotic in the bargain. Unfortunately, he couldn't let go of the power and position until he had no choice.

As for Prio, he was an affable but ultimately weak and foolish man, who completely caved in to Batista in 1952 and later added major insult to injury by bankrolling Castro (who totally duped him) in a disastrously misguided attempt to regain what he'd thrown away. He didn't wind up committing suicide for nothing. I trust it's clear I'm not implying that Prio in any way excuses Castro's behavior.

The bottom line is that there's plenty of blame to go around, especially in the political arena, which has historically been one of Cuba's greatest weaknesses. We need to face that, learn from it, and not repeat the same mistakes. The price we've paid has already been much too high.

Asombra:

When Machado died in exile in Miami in 1939 his estate was probated in Miami. His total assets were valued at $86,000. Machado was our other Honest President. I think that needed to be clarified in case anybody thought that "loaded to the gills with loot" also applied to him. As for Batista, his investments in Cuba and abroad made him rich (perhaps in the same way Hillary Clinton made a fortune in one day by profitting from insider tips). He did not, however, steal from the National Treasury. That was the work of the president whom he toppled, as most Cubans said at the time, "en buena hora."

Batista did attempt to re-start the electoral process that he had thwarted. In 1955, two years after the bloodless coup, elections were held in Cuba. Batista stepped down to participate in those elections since no sitting president could run for re-election under the Constitution of 1940. He won the elections fairly because all the other candidates withdrew at the last moment to embarrass him. Of course, one couldn't blame them for not trusting Batista or wishing to avenge themselves on him. But the opposition committed the same mistake that the democratic forces did in Venezuela when they withdrew en masse from the Congress and let Chávez run the show by himself. Even one symbolic voice of reason would have made a difference.

You are right: there is a great deal of blame to go around and a great deal of that blame accrues to the Cuban people, who deluded themselves as few people in history ever have about a political figure. Everything was known about Fidel Castro then that we know now.

My only complaint is that everybody reflexively blames Batista for Castro, and, as you rightly acknowledge, he was not alone to blame. Far from it.

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