Minister but Still a Soldier

Abstract

The situation in early January 1959 requires some description at this stage. The Batista army, Guardia Rural, police and security services were still formally in existence although essentially broken as fighting forces. The US embassy in Havana was still divided as to how best to handle the arrival of Fidel and his barbudos in the capital although Washington was moving towards physical elimination of the problem as the best solution.¹ The oligarchy was troubled but largely passive, hoping doubtless to control any potential reform excesses the still largely unknown Fidel might be planning—although this was already starting to look difficult with Fidel’s repeated calls for vast and sweeping change in Cuba as he spoke at various mass meetings on his way to Havana. The bulk of the middle class appears to have been of guarded support for someone they tended to see as radical but not a major threat to those economically below the traditional ruling elite. And the peasantry and the working classes, to the extent they had a voice, were little less than ecstatic about the reformers getting to power.