Before Fidel

CONTENTS

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pp. ix-

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

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pp. xi-

PROLOGUE

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pp. xiii-xiv

The plane was about to take off—a Super-Constellation on its daily run from Havana to New York. The four propellers whirling at half throttle, the doors closed, the stewardesses making sure the passengers were not walking up and down the aisle on takeoff, as Cubans were prone to do if left unattended, and shepherding them towards their assigned...

FIRST BIRTH

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pp. 1-

CHAPTER ONE

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pp. 3-15

I was born twice. Same country—two worlds. The first time I was delivered into a feudal family in a time that no longer was; the second, I was hurled into a revolution in a time that was never to be. I was brought into the first world in 1934 by a white doctor, into the second in 1952 by a black soldier. Eighteen years separated the two births, but in the tropics...

CHAPTER TWO

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pp. 16-31

Calling me thin as a rail would have been an understatement. I looked more like a toothpick with an olive on top, and being underweight was my most salient trait as a child, at least in my family’s eyes. I liked food, some of it anyhow, but I didn’t eat much, to the consternation of a group of people for whom eating well, and by “well” they meant both...

CHAPTER THREE

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pp. 32-49

By 1940 Cuba was a democracy—sort of. The Platt Amendment was long gone, a new constitution had been adopted and Batista was elected president by popular suffrage—but with the army counting the votes. For most of the next four years the contours of Cuban political life were molded by the reality and impact of World War II. Glenn Miller and...

CHAPTER FOUR

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pp. 50-64

The presidency of Carlos Pr�o Socarr�s suffered all the ills of the previous Aut�ntico administration without retaining the few safeguards that had prevented the country from plunging into total chaos between 1944 and 1948. Now as the 1940s were approaching their end, Cuba seemed more like a large raft adrift at sea than a securely anchored piece of land,...

CHAPTER FIVE

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pp. 65-87

On Sunday evenings Eduardo Chib�s, the firebrand politician who had founded the Partido Ortodoxo (Orthodox Party) and had run as a protest presidential candidate in the 1948 elections, spoke on the radio, although it was actually shrieking and ranting and raving, condemning political corruption and government inefficiency and pointing out the...

SECOND BIRTH

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pp. 89-

CHAPTER SIX

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pp. 91-104

The first time you are born you are not conscious that you are being born, and awareness arrives gradually, in stages, giving your senses time to adjust and time for things to fall into place. The second time your awareness is instantaneous and overwhelming, and all your senses and nerves and systems of perception and manners of discerning burst out at...

CHAPTER SEVEN

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pp. 105-114

Aureliano! The most wanted man in Cuba, his picture on the front page of the newspapers and his powerful-sounding name, with almost as many syllables as letters, flying the flag of revolution and symbolizing the promise of retribution—the talk of the town. Where was he? What was he up to? When would he march on the government? He seemed to...

CHAPTER EIGHT

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pp. 115-123

My fellow employees at the bank were rapidly becoming a nuisance. They expected me to solve their petty individual problems: change vacation time, secure a transfer to a more convenient location, argue for a raise or promotion—all problems I had no interest in, and which Iwould delegate to my second in command, Feliciano. Feliciano, “the happy...

CHAPTER NINE

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pp. 124-144

As months went by, Batista’s grip tightened, and the dark and tired political landscape gave way to new vibrant colors, fueled by youthful enthusiasm, idealism and candor. At the University a new set of student leaders was beginning to push aside the corrupt clique that had previously controlled the student federation. Union politics took a...

CHAPTER TEN

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pp. 145-160

I had run into Kiko, completely by chance, the previous Saturday afternoon on my way to the University to pay the tuition for the year, forty-five dollars. He asked me what I was doing and when I told him he suggested I put the money to better use—to a good meal. There would always be time for paying the tuition and, in the overall scheme of...

CHAPTER ELEVEN

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pp. 161-182

Their guns were drawn, pointing at us, and there were four or five or maybe six of them, it was hard to tell, and as their guns came out, they yelled at us to get up and keep our hands where they could be seen, and to stand against the wall. Everyone else in the restaurant sat frozen in their seats, their faces betraying the same confusion and fear I felt, and...

CHAPTER TWELVE

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pp. 183-196

There was no way I could defeat Juan Nuiry for the presidency of the Social Sciences student body, since he had the election sewn up. Not that it was going to be rigged, just that he held all the cards. He had been around for a while as a full-time student and as a candidate whereas I was a newcomer in both respects; he was already vice president, I had...

EPILOGUE

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pp. 197-198

The Cuban political situation continued to deteriorate. Cities became battlegrounds between the government’s repressive forces and urban guerrillas that surged in all forms and shapes. By December 1956 Fidel Castro was back in Cuba, in the Sierra Maestra. In March of the following year, in a move to counterbalance Fidel’s increasing political...