Fidel Castro Read online

  It wasn’t just the weather that wore them down those seven days at sea. There was never enough to eat and no space to lie down. The fact that it wasn’t smooth sailing meant many of the men got sick, and just had to suffer it out. There was no seasickness medicine. There was very little of anything.

  The boat itself was a mess. There definitely seemed a reason it was called “Granma”—it was old and falling apart. Truly an $18,000 wreck. The engines didn’t work properly. There was a crack somewhere in the boat; perhaps it had cracked under all the weight it was bearing. When the men weren’t throwing up over the side, they were bailing water out of the hull. Later, the boat would become an important symbol. It would be preserved and displayed, and the name “Granma” would grace provinces and newspapers and parks. But at this time, it was, well, hell on keels.

  Finally, the crew arrived at Cuba, on December 2, 1956, undetected, or so they thought. They grounded the boat in the swamp, about 15 miles off their intended target, and headed for the mountains, where they could be safe and begin making contact with supporters. Three days into their journey, they had found a spot that seemed like a good resting place, where they could try to regain their strength. “Some of the compañeros were totally exhausted,” Castro recalled. “I decided to camp on a little hill with smooth, soft soil a few yards from a field of sugar cane that you could chew and suck on. The men spread out with their platoons to rest and wait for night to come on.”

  Butt the spot they chose was about 100 yards from an army post—Batista’s army post. Within hours, planes began flying overhead and soon enough, shots were fired at the rebels, but not from the planes—from the ground.

  The men scattered. Many were killed. They broke into smaller groups that had to work together to survive. Castro himself was left with two men who had stayed relatively close to the field, as he had. “The three of us who were hunkered down in the sugar cane waited for night to fall—it wouldn’t be long—and then we headed for those big woods. There, we slept as best we could. Total forces: three men. Total weapons: my rifle with 90 rounds and Universo’s with 30. That was all that was left of my command.”

  It was true. As far as he knew, his brother Raul and Che had both gone down. There was no way to communicate with any of the other soldiers. It was Castro and these two men, and his mind was a mess. He wasn’t thinking clearly. “It’s not hard to imagine what a terrible state of mind I was in after seeing all the work we’d been doing for two years go up in smoke in a question of minutes,” he said.

  He wasn’t making the decisions, wasn’t standing firm on decisions he could make, and their chance of survival seemed fleeting with each passing minute, and each encounter with the enemy. He recalls hiding out with his two men, Universo and Faustino, and the terror that never left them: “[The soldiers] could not know who the men were out in that field. But whoever they were, they attacked them with everything they had. All that happened a little after midday—I don’t know the exact time. But I do know that we were underneath those leaves and straw, because they kept circling overhead in those little spotter planes all the time, watching the area. Under the sugar cane, lying there like that, the exhaustion from all the tension you’ve lived through for days and days just comes over you.”

  Those days, as he struggled to make it to the mountains with Universo and Faustino, were some of the worst he has ever lived, including the events of the Moncada attack. Not only was he living in near-certainty that he would never make it to the mountains, but all he had devoted his life to over the past couple of years and had been building to for at least a decade was crumbling to dust. He had very little hope that things would right themselves again. “Under those circumstances, what did I do? When I realized there was no way I could stay awake, that I was sure to fall asleep, I lay down on my side and put the rifle butt between my legs and the end of the barrel under my chin. I didn’t want to be captured alive if the enemy should come upon me while I was asleep.”

  It didn’t come to that. Fidel, along with both Universo and Faustino, finally made it to the camp at Sierra Maestra where some of the others waited—though not many of the others. While Che and Raul survived, and would in time make their way to the group, in total, less than 20 made it. Within days, this small group of men, now Castro’s most trusted inner circle, would use their wits and whatever weapons they could scavenge to bring down Batista and his army.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  THE TAKEDOWN

  “We started organizing with two rifles. Raul, on the other hand, met us two weeks later with five guns. With the two we had, that meant we had seven. And that’s when I said, for the first time, ‘Now we can win this war.’”

  Once reunited with his soldiers, with Raul and Che, Fidel felt he had the ground back beneath him. Evading Batista’s army, armed with just one rifle and hiding with only two out of what had been 80 men—and originally more than 100 men, many of whom had to be left behind in Mexico because everyone couldn’t fit on the Granma, Fidel had allowed himself, if only briefly, to believe that all was lost. That the battle being waged was hopeless. That perhaps it had all been a mistake.

  He was happy to be reunited with his men in the Sierra Maestra, but their lack of weaponry was frustrating, to say the least, especially considering how much work had gone into training with those weapons, and how much work Fidel himself had done getting them ready. Castro said, “On the Granma, I calibrated those 55 rifles for accuracy at 600 meters, over 650 yards. We have three makes of rifles, and each of them had a different variation, depending on the steel and the bullet, and on the Granma, at a distance of 10 yeards and with a geometric formula, I calibrated all the weapons. I spent over two days calibrating those rifles.”

  But even stripped down to the skeleton crew they had left, less than 20 men, a quarter of their original battalion, and even left with a small number of weapons, Fidel once again had hope. Of course, strategy changes were now necessary. Castro recalled, “If we’d landed with 82 men in the right place, the place we’d planned to land at, the war might have lasted just seven months. Why? Because of experience. With those men and the experience we had, 55 weapons with telescopic sights, excellent marksmen, the war would not have lasted seven months.”

  Eventually they secured more weapons and even more men. So their efforts were divided between re-strategizing and re-training, along with the actual fighting of Batista’s men. But again, things were moving more slowly than had been anticipated, and there would be issues aside from these that got in the way.

  One of these things was Che’s asthma. A lifelong sufferer of the respiratory condition, Dr. Che was not usually without his inhaler, though at one point he had gone to battle and left it behind, and this had become an issue for him when he came down with an asthma attack. It was bad for Che, but it was bad for everyone. Fidel recalled, “Our march was dangerously slowed down to a severe attack of asthma that suddenly overcame Che. At that point, he could hardly walk. We had to climb a steep mountainside; we were making our way up the incline toward a wooded area when a column of about 300 soldiers was swinging around our left flank … Despite the shooting, we continued up the hill, practically dragging Che, trying to reach the wooded area before the enemy column.”

  While some may feel Fidel is a ruthless dictator who stopped at nothing to seize and maintain power, his humanity is hard to mistake when it came to his men, and especially when it came to Che. Fidel was not one to leave men behind. On the Granma voyage, there had reputedly been a man that fell overboard. Precious time and fuel were expended to try to retrieve him; and after hours spent, they finally pulled him back into the boat. It’s unknown whether this soldier survived once they landed in Cuba. The important thing to note, though, is that they would have landed in Cuba earlier, and there would have been more room on the boat! But Castro did not leave men behind.

  But eventually, Che’s asthma was overwhelming them all, Che especially. He really could not go on. So Fidel made arrangements to k
eep him safe and have medication sent. He then was forced to forge on without him, at least temporarily. Soon Che would get his medication and would be back on his feet, leading his own men again.

  Even with a smaller crew and less than half their original weapons count, Fidel and his men fought strong and, more importantly, smart. Instead of relying on massive numbers of troops to overcome Batista’s men, they had to make the most of what they had. They mastered the art of the ambush, and used tricks to surprise the other army, throwing them off their game, and to great success. It was amazing. Castro explained, “After the first combat we set up an ambush for those paratroopers; by now we had almost 30 men, as I said. There were no casualties in the first combat, none in the second. As a doctor, Che had nothing to do.”

  As the months went on, they had some casualties, naturally, but their numbers continued to grow. Still, Fidel felt for the fallen. He said, “In our defense against [Batista’s] offensive we lost several brave, combative commanders who’d been extremely distinguished leaders.”

  Luckily for Fidel, it would not be during this war against Batista that he would lose Che. Fully recovered, armed with the medication he needed as well as strong men and a strong will, Che was ready not only to act, but to help the rebels win. Fidel said of one mission in particular, “Che carried out the mission I’d sent him on. The battle at Uvero lasted about three hours. The enemy had 11 dead and 19 wounded, among them the lieutenant commanding the barracks. We lost seven combatants and had eight wounded, several of them seriously. Once we’d achieved our victory, we provided aid to those who needed it. Che and the garrison doctor treated the enemy wounded, which there were more of than our own, and then they treated ours. Che treated all of them. You can’t imagine that man’s sensitivity.” Fidel would remain impressed with Che, with his strength and sensitivity, throughout the war against Batista, and Che would prove to be not only a great doctor but an essential player in their efforts in taking down Batista.

  Battles were waged, and Fidel and his men only seemed to get stronger with every one. As the months passed, Batista’s troops dwindled while Fidel’s force grew bigger and stronger. Fidel’s men were stronger and better trained in fighting in the mountains, and they also had the ears of the locals, who were tired of oppression and thus fired up to join Castro and his crusade. From an army of barely 20 left from the rigorous training in Mexico, they grew to hundreds of soldiers and hundreds more supporters.

  Batista was done. As Fidel recalled of the last attack made on them, “Once this last offensive was defeated, our forces, equipped with weapons seized by the enemy, grew from 300 to 900 armed men, and with them, we invaded practically the whole country.”

  They were unstoppable now, Fidel and his men. The revolution was in full effect. Fidel had taken back Cuba. Batista fled to the “safety” of the Trujillo-ruled Dominican Republic on December 31, 1958, and without Batista in command, his army ultimately folded.

  The July 26th Movement was a success, though it would be days after the victory that Castro and his men would officially close the books on the battle, and a new leader would be installed to replace the dictator Fidel and his troops had finally been successful in overthrowing.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  BATISTA FALLS

  “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.”

  —President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, October 1963

  It would be some time before JFK would be elected president of the United States, inheriting the Cuban situation from his predecessor, Dwight D. Eisenhower, but his words are fitting here as they show that what was going on in Cuba in the last part of the 1950s wasn’t seen outside of Cuba as just something that was simply happening there and having no bearing on the rest of the world. It wasn’t something isolated happening on a Caribbean island; it was a movement the world noticed.

  JFK spoke these words in an interview some time after Fidel and his men began bringing revolution to Cuba, but it helps give a perspective to what was going on as Castro’s small guerrilla army expanded in numbers and power, and began to overcome Batista’s army. How was this ragtag group of guerrillas succeeding in taking down a powerful and established army? Castro said, “I always trusted the possibilities of an irregular war. Throughout history, in all wars since the times of Alexander and Hannibal, victory was always within the grasp of those who used the wiles of secret in their movements, and surprise in their deployment of men and arms, terrain, and tactics.”

  That was the secret: the element of surprise. It didn’t matter that Batista’s troops were so well trained and well armed; they were no match for the inspired strategies of Castro and they were demoralized trying to navigate and wage war in the unfamiliar jungles where most of the battles were waged. “We soon developed the art of confusing the enemy forces, to force them to do what we wanted them to do,” Castro recalled.

  It didn’t matter that Batista’s men nearly tripled Castro’s compañeros; Castro’s armies grew by the day. New weapons were amassed from every successful attack. Batista’s traditional army was weakening, while impoverished Cubans were joining with Castro by the day. Castro said, “Our army grew very quickly at the end, because in December 1958, I had, according to my calculations, just 3,000 armed men, but when we seized all those weapons on 1 January 1959, our army grew within just weeks to 40,000 men. But the war was won, in less than two years, by 3,000 men. One mustn’t forget the time [it took].” Or, more like how little time it took, all things considered.

  The fact that Castro and his army were gaining support as they went was commendable, though if only the people were able to come together before the fighting began, before the revolution came, even before the Moncada attacks, things might have been different. Castro said, “If the political front that we had proposed, the union of all anti-Batista forces, had happened from the beginning, the Batista regime would have collapsed on its own accord, maybe without another drop of blood being spilled.” But that was the only way it could be.

  Despite what some might think of Castro and his Batista takedown, it’s important to know that Castro prided himself always on fighting like a gentleman. His guerrillas had been trained to fight to win, but not to resort to any tactics that would make them seem even remotely like terrorists. They were not terrorists; they were revolutionaries. “For … years, since we disembarked from the Granma, those guidelines have been in place: no assassination, no civilian victims, no use of the methods of terror,” Castro said. “Why should we have done those things? It never occurred to us.”

  After seven months of fighting, Castro’s guerrilla army had expanded from the less than 20 soldiers who had survived the attacks since the Granma landing and swelled in number to the thousands. Batista’s army was overwhelmed, and Castro arranged to meet with one of Batista’s generals, Chief of the Joint Staff Eulogio Cantillo.

  General Cantillo had tried to take down the guerrillas by devising strategies he’d hoped would drive them out of the jungles and bring them down to the south coast where his men, about 14 battalions with about 12,000 soldiers, would be better able to fight them. When the situation began to seem hopeless, Cantillo agreed to a meeting with Castro, and a truce was made.

  Castro had thought of Cantillo as a respectable man, not like most of the savages who worked on Batista’s staff. However, when Batista fled Cuba on December 31, it was clear that it had been Cantil
lo who had enabled Batista to leave undetected, and Castro quickly changed his mind about Cantillo. Later, during Castro’s tribunals, Cantillo would be sentenced to serve 15 years in prison, for which he served a portion, then left Cuba for Miami.

  Batista left Cuba on December 31, 1958; the following day, Castro declared victory. “What did we do on 1 January, 1959? Five years, five months, and five days after the attack on Moncada on July 26, 1953? Exact numbers. That’s the time that had passed since the attack on Moncada, including almost two years in prison, another almost two years outside Cuba preparing for an armed return, and another two years and one month at war.”

  At last, victory was theirs. The government had been overthrown, the president had sneaked away, and Castro was now in control. It was time for him to make his way from the jungles of the Sierra Maestra to Havana, where change would finally start to begin. It wouldn’t be easy to get there, though. Castro said, “It took me eight days to reach Havana, because at every provincial capital I had to stop and make a speech and so on—there were crowds waiting for us everywhere along the line. A tank was the only thing that could get us through—you couldn’t get through in a truck or you’d be crushed.”

  Crowds of people wanted to embrace this new leader and his compañeros who had overthrown the dictator who had oppressed them, anxious to know what the future had in store for them. Would Castro and his revolution really change things for these people, or was a different kind of oppression about to govern them? That would all depend on perspective.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHANGING THE GOVERNMENT

  “I had no interest in being president. What I wanted to pursue was at the Revolution, the army, the development of our heroic Rebel army. I mean, an election might come along at some point and I might run, but I wasn’t really thinking about that at the time.”