expression. Finally Moreno was gone. Señora Luchar followed him to the door, bolted it, watched the man drive away.
“Un momento, Señora—”
She turned to Turner. “Let’s speak English,” she said briskly. “Your accent is impossible. What’s on your mind?”
“Uh—”
“Moreno’s a fool,” she said. “A useful fool, but still a fool. You didn’t know I spoke English? I lived in Miami, for five years. Political exile. My family didn’t get along with Batista. His men pulled out my old man’s fingernails. They cut off his testicles, gouged out his eyes, raped my mother and slit her throat. They raped me, too, but they let me go.”
“And now you want to kill Castro?”
“I don’t like dictators. Fascist or Marxist, I don’t like dictators. You two sleep in the cellar. Want to see your room? Follow me.”
They followed her.
FOUR
July 26, 1953.
With his briefs ignored by Batista’s courts, with freedom of speech and freedom of the press forcibly suppressed throughout Cuba, Fidel Castro decided that only revolution would settle the issues at stake—the issues of freedom and liberty. He began meeting with friends in an apartment house in the Vedado district of Havana, planning a military operation which would excite the common people of Cuba and spark a revolt to send Fulgencio Batista running from the island.
The revolutionaries were a small group, a tiny band of idealists and heroes, and, some say, Communists. Ambassador William Pauley has stated on the Jack Paar Show that he heard Castro, very early in his career, proclaim that when it came it would be a Communist revolution. The capital at their disposal was minimal. The men themselves mortgaged their homes, sold their furniture, pawned their watches and their wives’ jewelry, gave up whatever they had in order to place as much money as possible at Castro’s disposal. They armed themselves with pistols and knives; some carried rifles and shotguns. They had no grenades, no explosives. They were, in all, a total force of one hundred seventy men. Their objective, initially, was the fortress at Moncada at Santiago, a fortress quartering somewhere in the neighborhood of fifteen hundred armed troops.
Castro set out for Santiago by automobile and stayed at a friend’s house in the center of the city. On July 25th, more of the revolutionaries began drifting east, converging on the city. Fidel met with them at ten that night, coordinating the attack, synchronizing plans.
The attack commenced the next morning. The revolutionaries moved through Santiago in groups. One task force was dispatched to capture the radio station, preparing to call upon the people of Santiago to join in the revolt and take arms against the government. Another group moved to occupy the Santiago hospital, to hold it in preparation for the care of wounded on both sides. The major group launched an onslaught against the Moncada Fortress.
But the uprising, nobly conceived and fearlessly put into execution, was smashed almost at once. Castro’s little band was undermanned and under-equipped. The radio station was not taken, and the bulk of the citizens of the town were not aware that a rebellion was in progress until it had already been put down.
At Moncada, Castro’s followers fought staunchly in the face of impossible odds, but they were too thoroughly outnumbered to have much effect. Batista’s army retained control, and the rebels scattered for their lives.
Many were killed in the fighting. Others, captured, never reached prison; they were killed on the spot by Batista’s troops. Fidel himself, and his younger brother Raul as well, narrowly missed execution in this manner. Only because the army officer who captured him had been a classmate of his at Havana was he delivered to the civilian authorities instead of being put to death at once.
Castro acted as his own attorney in the trial held that September. He told the court that an attorney appointed by the Havana Bar
“Un momento, Señora—”
She turned to Turner. “Let’s speak English,” she said briskly. “Your accent is impossible. What’s on your mind?”
“Uh—”
“Moreno’s a fool,” she said. “A useful fool, but still a fool. You didn’t know I spoke English? I lived in Miami, for five years. Political exile. My family didn’t get along with Batista. His men pulled out my old man’s fingernails. They cut off his testicles, gouged out his eyes, raped my mother and slit her throat. They raped me, too, but they let me go.”
“And now you want to kill Castro?”
“I don’t like dictators. Fascist or Marxist, I don’t like dictators. You two sleep in the cellar. Want to see your room? Follow me.”
They followed her.
FOUR
July 26, 1953.
With his briefs ignored by Batista’s courts, with freedom of speech and freedom of the press forcibly suppressed throughout Cuba, Fidel Castro decided that only revolution would settle the issues at stake—the issues of freedom and liberty. He began meeting with friends in an apartment house in the Vedado district of Havana, planning a military operation which would excite the common people of Cuba and spark a revolt to send Fulgencio Batista running from the island.
The revolutionaries were a small group, a tiny band of idealists and heroes, and, some say, Communists. Ambassador William Pauley has stated on the Jack Paar Show that he heard Castro, very early in his career, proclaim that when it came it would be a Communist revolution. The capital at their disposal was minimal. The men themselves mortgaged their homes, sold their furniture, pawned their watches and their wives’ jewelry, gave up whatever they had in order to place as much money as possible at Castro’s disposal. They armed themselves with pistols and knives; some carried rifles and shotguns. They had no grenades, no explosives. They were, in all, a total force of one hundred seventy men. Their objective, initially, was the fortress at Moncada at Santiago, a fortress quartering somewhere in the neighborhood of fifteen hundred armed troops.
Castro set out for Santiago by automobile and stayed at a friend’s house in the center of the city. On July 25th, more of the revolutionaries began drifting east, converging on the city. Fidel met with them at ten that night, coordinating the attack, synchronizing plans.
The attack commenced the next morning. The revolutionaries moved through Santiago in groups. One task force was dispatched to capture the radio station, preparing to call upon the people of Santiago to join in the revolt and take arms against the government. Another group moved to occupy the Santiago hospital, to hold it in preparation for the care of wounded on both sides. The major group launched an onslaught against the Moncada Fortress.
But the uprising, nobly conceived and fearlessly put into execution, was smashed almost at once. Castro’s little band was undermanned and under-equipped. The radio station was not taken, and the bulk of the citizens of the town were not aware that a rebellion was in progress until it had already been put down.
At Moncada, Castro’s followers fought staunchly in the face of impossible odds, but they were too thoroughly outnumbered to have much effect. Batista’s army retained control, and the rebels scattered for their lives.
Many were killed in the fighting. Others, captured, never reached prison; they were killed on the spot by Batista’s troops. Fidel himself, and his younger brother Raul as well, narrowly missed execution in this manner. Only because the army officer who captured him had been a classmate of his at Havana was he delivered to the civilian authorities instead of being put to death at once.
Castro acted as his own attorney in the trial held that September. He told the court that an attorney appointed by the Havana Bar
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