Fulgencio Batista

Upon his seizure of power, Batista inherited a country that was relatively prosperous for Latin America. According to Batista's government, although a third of Cubans still lived in poverty, Cuba was one of the five most developed countries in the region.[47] In the 1950s, Cuba's gross domestic product (GDP) per capita was roughly equal to that of Italy at the time, although still only a sixth of that of the United States.[48] Moreover, although corruption and inequality were rife under Batista, Cuban industrial workers' wages rose significantly. In 1953, the average Cuban family only had an income of $6.00 a week, 15% to 20% of the labor force was chronically unemployed, and only a third of the homes had running water.[49][48] Despite this, according to the International Labour Organization, the average industrial salary in Cuba became the world's eighth-highest in 1958, and the average agricultural wage was higher than some European nations (although, according to one sample from 1956-7, agricultural workers could only find employment for an average of 123 days per year while farm owners, rural tenants and sharecroppers worked an average of only 135 days per year).[50]

Brothels flourished. A major industry grew up around them; government officials received bribes, policemen collected protection money. Prostitutes could be seen standing in doorways, strolling the streets, or leaning from windows. One report estimated that 11,500 of them worked their trade in Havana. Beyond the outskirts of the capital, beyond the slot machines, was one of the poorest, and most beautiful countries in the Western world.

— David Detzer, American journalist, after visiting Havana in the 1950s [51]

Throughout the 1950s, Havana served as "a hedonistic playground for the world's elite", producing sizable gambling, prostitution and drug profits for the American mafia, corrupt law-enforcement officials, and their politically elected cronies.[52] In the assessment of the Cuban-American historian Louis Perez, "Havana was then what Las Vegas has become."[53] Relatedly, it is estimated that by the end of the 1950s the city of Havana had 270 brothels.[54] In addition, drugs, be it marijuana or cocaine, were so plentiful at the time that one American magazine in 1950 proclaimed "Narcotics are hardly more difficult to obtain in Cuba than a shot of rum. And only slightly more expensive."[52] As a result, the playwright Arthur Miller described Batista's Cuba in The Nation as "hopelessly corrupt, a Mafia playground, (and) a bordello for Americans and other foreigners."[55]

In a bid to profit from such an environment, Batista established lasting relationships with organized crime, notably with American mobsters Meyer Lansky and Lucky Luciano, and under his rule Havana became known as "the Latin Las Vegas".[56] Batista and Lansky formed a friendship and business relationship that flourished for a decade. During a stay at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York in the late 1940s, it was mutually agreed that, in return for kickbacks, Batista would give Lansky and the Mafia control of Havana's racetracks and casinos.[57] After World War II, Luciano was paroled from prison on the condition that he permanently return to Sicily. Luciano secretly moved to Cuba, where he worked to resume control over American Mafia operations. Luciano also ran a number of casinos in Cuba with the sanction of Batista, though the American government eventually succeeded in pressuring the Batista government to deport him.[58]

Batista encouraged large-scale gambling in Havana. In 1955, he announced that Cuba would grant a gaming license to anyone who invested US$1 million in a hotel or $200,000 in a new nightclub—and that the government would provide matching public funds for construction, a 10-year tax exemption, and waive duties on imported equipment and furnishings for new hotels. Each casino would pay the government $250,000 for the license, plus a percentage of the profits. The policy omitted background checks, as required for casino operations in the United States, which opened the door for casino investors with illegally obtained funds. Cuban contractors with the right connections made windfalls by importing, duty-free, more materials than needed for new hotels and selling the surplus to others. It was rumored that, besides the $250,000 to obtain a license, an additional "under the table" fee was sometimes required.[59]

Lansky became a prominent figure in Cuba's gambling operations,[30] and exerted influence over Batista's casino policies. The Mafia's Havana Conference was held on December 22, 1946, at the Hotel Nacional de Cuba; this was the first full-scale meeting of American underworld leaders since the Chicago meeting in 1932. Lansky set about cleaning up the games at the Montmartre Club, which soon became the "place to be" in Havana. He also wanted to open a casino in the Hotel Nacional, the most elegant hotel in Havana. Batista endorsed Lansky's idea over the objections of American expatriates such as Ernest Hemingway, and the renovated casino wing opened for business in 1955 with a show by Eartha Kitt. The casino was an immediate success.[60]

As the new hotels, nightclubs, and casinos opened, Batista collected his share of the profits. Nightly, the "bagman" for his wife collected 10% of the profits at Santo Trafficante's casinos, the Sans Souci cabaret, and the casinos in the hotels Sevilla-Biltmore, Commodoro, Deauville, and Capri (partly owned by the actor George Raft). His take from the Lansky casinos—his prized Habana Riviera, the Hotel Nacional, the Montmartre Club, and others—was said to be 30%.[61] Lansky was said to have personally contributed millions of dollars per year to Batista's Swiss bank accounts.[62]

Batista's Golden Telephone is now in Havana's Museum of the Revolution as a symbol of Batista era corruption.

At the beginning of 1959 United States companies owned about 40 percent of the Cuban sugar lands—almost all the cattle ranches—90 percent of the mines and mineral concessions—80 percent of the utilities—practically all the oil industry—and supplied two-thirds of Cuba's imports.

— John F. Kennedy[49]

In a manner that antagonized the Cuban people, the U.S. government used its influence to advance the interests of and increase the profits of the private American companies, which "dominated the island's economy".[49] By the late 1950s, U.S. financial interests owned 90% of Cuban mines, 80% of its public utilities, 50% of its railways, 40% of its sugar production and 25% of its bank deposits—some $1 billion in total.[53] According to historian Louis A. Pérez Jr., author of the book On Becoming Cuban, "Daily life had developed into a relentless degradation, with the complicity of political leaders and public officials who operated at the behest of American interests."[53] As a symbol of this relationship, ITT Corporation, an American-owned multinational telephone company, presented Batista with a Golden Telephone, as an "expression of gratitude" for the "excessive telephone rate increase", at least according to Senator John F. Kennedy, that Batista granted at the urging of the U.S. government.[49]

Earl E.T. Smith, former U.S. Ambassador to Cuba, testified to the U.S. Senate in 1960 that, "Until Castro, the U.S. was so overwhelmingly influential in Cuba that the American ambassador was the second most important man, sometimes even more important than the Cuban president."[63] In addition, nearly "all aid" from the U.S. to Batista's government was in the "form of weapons assistance", which "merely strengthened the Batista dictatorship" and "completely failed to advance the economic welfare of the Cuban people".[49] Such actions later "enabled Castro and the Communists to encourage the growing belief that America was indifferent to Cuban aspirations for a decent life."[49]

According to historian and author James S. Olson, the U.S. government essentially became a "co-conspirator" in the arrangement because of Batista's strong opposition to communism, which, in the rhetoric of the Cold War, seemed to maintain business stability and a pro-U.S. posture on the island.[9] Thus, in the view of Olson, "The U.S. government had no difficulty in dealing with him, even if he was a hopeless despot."[9] On October 6, 1960, Senator John F. Kennedy, in the midst of his campaign for the U.S. presidency, decried Batista's relationship with the U.S. government and criticized the Eisenhower administration for supporting him:

Fulgencio Batista murdered 20,000 Cubans in seven years ... and he turned Democratic Cuba into a complete police state—destroying every individual liberty. Yet our aid to his regime, and the ineptness of our policies, enabled Batista to invoke the name of the United States in support of his reign of terror. Administration spokesmen publicly praised Batista—hailed him as a staunch ally and a good friend—at a time when Batista was murdering thousands, destroying the last vestiges of freedom, and stealing hundreds of millions of dollars from the Cuban people, and we failed to press for free elections.[49]

Batista with U.S. Army Chief of staff Malin Craig in Washington, D.C., riding in an Armistice Day parade, 1938.

I believe that there is no country in the world including any and all the countries under colonial domination, where economic colonization, humiliation and exploitation were worse than in Cuba, in part owing to my country's policies during the Batista regime. I approved the proclamation which Fidel Castro made in the Sierra Maestra, when he justifiably called for justice and especially yearned to rid Cuba of corruption. I will even go further: 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 first Cuban revolutionaries. That is perfectly clear.

— U.S. President John F. Kennedy, to Jean Daniel, October 24, 1963.[64]

On July 26, 1953, just over a year after Batista's second coup, a small group of revolutionaries attacked the Moncada Barracks in Santiago. Government forces easily defeated the assault and jailed its leaders, while many others fled the country. The primary leader of the attack, Fidel Castro, was a young attorney who had run for parliament in the canceled 1952 elections. Although Castro was never officially nominated, he felt that Batista's coup had sidetracked what would have been a promising political career for him.[65] In the wake of the Moncada assault, Batista suspended constitutional guarantees and increasingly relied on police tactics in an attempt to "frighten the population through open displays of brutality."[30]

Batista held an election in 1954, running as the candidate of a political coalition that included the Progressive Action Party, the Radical Union Party and the Liberal Party.[66] The opposition divided into abstentionists and electoralists. The abstentionists favored boycotting the elections regardless of the circumstances in which they were held, whereas the electoralists sought certain rights and guarantees to participate.[67] The CIA had predicted that Batista would use any means necessary to ensure he won the election. Batista lived up to their expectations, utilizing fraud and intimidation to secure his presidency. This led most of the other parties to boycott the elections.[68] Former President Ramón Grau San Martín, leading the electoralist factions of the Cuban Revolutionary Party, participated through the political campaign but withdrew from the campaign days before election day, charging that his supporters had been terrorized.[69] Thus Batista was elected president with the support of 45.6% of registered voters. Despite the boycott, Grau received the support of 6.8% of those who voted. The remaining voters abstained.[70]

By late 1955, student riots and anti-Batista demonstrations had become frequent, and unemployment became a problem as graduates entering the workforce could not find jobs.[71][72] These were dealt with through increasing repression. All youth were seen as suspected revolutionaries.[73] Due to its continued opposition to Batista and the large amount of revolutionary activity taking place on its campus, the University of Havana was temporarily closed on November 30, 1956 (it did not reopen until 1959 under the first revolutionary government). On March 13, 1957, student leader José Antonio Echeverría was killed by police outside Radio Reloj in Havana after announcing that Batista had been killed in a student attack on the Presidential Palace. In reality, Batista survived, and the students of the Federation of University Students (FEU) and the Directorio (DR) who led the attack were killed in the response by the military and police. Castro quickly condemned the attack, since July 26 Movement had not participated in it.[74]

Batista in March 1957, standing next to a map of the Sierra Maestra mountains where Fidel Castro's rebels were based.

In April 1956, Batista called popular military leader Col. Ramón Barquín back to Cuba from his post as military attaché to the United States. Believing Barquín would support his rule, Batista promoted him to General.[75] However, Barquín's Conspiración de los Puros (Conspiracy of the Pure) was already underway and had already progressed too far. On April 6, 1956, Barquín led hundreds of career officers in a coup attempt, but was frustrated by Lieutenant Ríos Morejón, who betrayed the plan. Barquín was sentenced to solitary confinement for eight years on the Isle of Pines, while some officers were sentenced to death for treason.[75] Many others were allowed to remain in the military without reprimand.[76]

The purge of the officer corps contributed to the inability of the Cuban army to successfully combat Castro and his guerrillas.[75][77] Batista's police responded to increasing popular unrest by torturing and killing young men in the cities. However, his army was ineffective against the rebels based in the Sierra Maestra and Escambray Mountains.[30] Another possible explanation for the failure to crush the rebellion was offered by author Carlos Alberto Montaner: "Batista does not finish Fidel out of greed ... His is a government of thieves. To have this small guerrilla band in the mountains is to his advantage, so that he can order special defense expenditures that they can steal."[30] Batista's rule became increasingly unpopular among the population, and the Soviet Union began to secretly support Castro.[78] Some of Batista's generals also criticized him in later years, saying that Batista's excessive interference in his generals' military plans to defeat the rebels hampered Army morale and rendered all operations ineffective.[76]

It is clear that counter-terror became the strategy of the Batista government. It has been estimated that perhaps as many as 20,000 civilians were killed.[79]

Batista's soldiers executing a rebel by firing squad in 1956.

In an effort to gather information about Castro's army, Batista's secret police pulled in people for questioning. Many innocent people were tortured by Batista's police, while suspects, including youth, were publicly executed as a warning to others who were considering joining the insurgency. Additionally, "Hundreds of mangled bodies were left hanging from lamp posts or dumped in the streets in a grotesque variation of the Spanish colonial practice of public executions."[73] The brutal behavior backfired and increased support for the guerrillas. In 1958, 45 organizations signed an open letter supporting July 26 Movement, among them national bodies representing lawyers, architects, dentists, accountants, and social workers. Castro, who had originally relied on the support of the poor, was now gaining the backing of the influential middle classes.

The United States supplied Batista with planes, ships, tanks and the latest technology, such as napalm, which he used against the insurgency. However, in March 1958, the U.S. announced it would stop selling arms to the Cuban government.[80] Soon after, the U.S. imposed an arms embargo, further weakening the government's position,[81] although land owners and others who benefited from the government continued to support Batista.[35]

Elections were scheduled for June 1958, as required by the Constitution, but were delayed until November 1958, when Castro and the revolutionaries called for a general strike and placed several bombs in civilian areas of the country. Three main candidates ran in the elections: Carlos Márquez Sterling of the Party of the Free People, former President Ramón Grau San Martín of the Cuban Revolutionary Party-Authentic, and Andrés Rivero Agüero of the government coalition. According to Carlos Márquez Sterling, all three were threatened by Castro, and several assassination attempts were made on both Ramón Grau San Martín and Carlos Márquez Sterling. On Election Day, estimates on the turnout range from 30 to 50% in the areas where voting took place, which did not include parts of Las Villas and Oriente, which were controlled by Castro.[82] Márquez Sterling also stated that the initial results were favorable to him, but the military ordered the counting to stop as they changed the actual ballots for fraudulent ones.[82] However, Grau San Martín, as he had previously done in the 1954 elections, withdrew his candidacy within a few hours of the election day. Batista declared Rivero Agüero the winner.

The U.S. rejected the results of the elections and announced plans to withhold diplomatic recognition of the Rivero Agüero government.[81] The American ambassador to Cuba Earl Smith informed Agüero that the United States would not give aid and support to his government.[81] Smith also informed Batista that the U.S. believed him incapable of maintaining effective control and that he should retire.[81]

On December 31, 1958, at a New Year's Eve party, Batista told his cabinet and top officials that he was leaving the country. After seven years, Batista knew his presidency was over, and he fled the island in the early morning.[83] At 3:00 a.m. on January 1, 1959, Batista boarded a plane at Camp Columbia with 40 of his supporters and immediate family members[84] and flew to Ciudad Trujillo in the Dominican Republic. A second plane flew out of Havana later in the night, carrying ministers, officers and the Governor of Havana. Batista took along a personal fortune of more than $300 million that he had amassed through graft and payoffs.[85] Critics accused Batista and his supporters of taking as much as $700 million in fine art and cash with them as they fled into exile.[86][87]

As news of the fall of Batista's government spread through Havana, The New York Times described jubilant crowds pouring into the streets and automobile horns honking. The black and red flag of July 26 Movement waved on cars and buildings. The atmosphere was chaotic. On January 8, 1959, Castro and his army rolled victoriously into Havana.[88] Already denied entry to the United States, Batista sought asylum in Mexico, which also refused him. Portugal's leader António Salazar allowed him to settle there on the condition that he completely abstain from politics.[89]

Historians and primary documents estimate between hundreds and 20,000 Cubans were killed under the Batista regime.[14][13][16][17][18][90][91]

Batista married Elisa Godínez y Gómez (1900–1993) on July 10, 1926. They had three children: Mirta Caridad (1927–2010), Elisa Aleida (born 1933), and Fulgencio Rubén Batista Godínez (1933–2007).[92] By all accounts, she was devoted to him and their children throughout their marriage, and their daughter remembered them as a "happy, young couple" until their sudden divorce. Much to her surprise, he divorced her in October 1945 against her will in order to marry his longtime mistress Marta Fernandez Miranda.

He married Marta Fernández Miranda (1923–2006) on November 28, 1945, shortly after his divorce became final, and they had five children: Jorge Luis (born 1942), Roberto Francisco (born 1947), Carlos Manuel (1950–1969), Fulgencio José (born 1953) and Marta María Batista Fernández (born 1957).

Batista was an inveterate philanderer who engaged in numerous extramarital affairs throughout his first marriage. He cheated on his first wife with multiple women, and his children eventually became aware of his relationships.[93] His first wife, who supported her husband throughout his political career and found his philandering humiliating, never considered divorce and tolerated his multiple affairs.[93] However, Batista became enamored with the much younger Marta Fernandez Miranda, who became his longtime mistress. He filed divorce papers shortly before his first grandchild was born. His first wife and their children were astounded and devastated by the divorce.[94]

In 1935, he fathered an illegitimate daughter, Fermina Lázara Batista Estévez, whom he supported financially.[87][95] Biographers suggest that Batista may have fathered several more children out of wedlock.