“Political solutions don’t work.”
—Woody Allen; Sleeper, 1973
Having recently returned to the CIA office in Miami following one of his frequent sojourns to Cuba, on January 10, 1957, agent Frank Sturgis, aka George, busied himself with typing a report on the status of Fidel Castro's desire to seize control of the island's politics with his guerilla force. Then the phone on his desk rang. Answering in hopes of keeping the conversation brief, George was pleasantly surprised to hear a familiar voice on the other end, causing him to smile.
“Hey, ‘George’? Welcome home. ‘Dick Tracy’ here.”
That could be only one man: Bob Maheu, a former FBI agent now serving several A list companies as a private contractor. Also Maheu performed a variety of chores for the CIA, making key connections between Company agents and potential operatives. He received his nickname owing to an uncanny resemblance to an ever popular square-jawed honest-cop comic-book character featured in the Sunday Funnies and B movies. Flattered by the comparison, Maheu had taken to sporting a yellow hat with black band similar to Dick Tracy so as to heighten the comparison.
“Hey, Robert. What have you got for me this time?”
The disembodied voice explained he’d been contacted by a field agent who had recently completed a routine investigation on a marine, seemingly of Red leanings. Instead, Lee Harvey Oswald turned out to be a super-patriot, if an odd one, as such perhaps of potential use to the U.S. government's information-gathering community. The FBI agent contacted the CIA; the top brass there tapped 'Dick Tracy' to get in touch with George and request he look into it, see if there might be something here.
“Of course,” George said. He and his old pal chatted for a few minutes, George jotting down the essential information before returning to more pressing matters. The conclusion of his findings dealt with a Cuban whose friendship George cultivated while in Cuba, a valuable contact named Manuel Artime Buesa.
*
Buesa had been with Castro from the very beginning: i.e., the middle of March, 1952, following a military coup in which Fulgencio Batista seized control of the government and augmented an authoritarian regime to the benefit of Cuba's small moneyed classes if at the expense of the poverty-level multitude. No matter how exploited the dirt-poor masses were, Batista's new regime offered them less; so little that, as always happens when people no longer can feed their families anything but garbage, lacking even that, the likelihood of revolution increases.
Though born to the middle-class, the university educated Castro brothers, Fidel and Raul, felt the people's pain and set about organizing potential rebels in hopes of ousting Batista. Buesa, hearing Castro speak on a Havana street corner, had been attracted by his hulking presence and lawyer’s ability to bandy about words, inspiring all who had gathered to listen. That very day Buesa offered his services. For the next year and a half, Buesa and other volunteers trained for the coming day of revolutionary fervor with whatever rifles they could get their hands on, mostly outdated Springfields and Winchesters. In time they came to number more than 160, mostly drawn from the lower-classes. Buesa noted five university-educated intellectuals among Castro‘s followers. To Buesa’s surprise, Castro, despite his own academic background, appeared uncomfortable around such supporters. Several years later, Buesa would learn why.
Just before daybreak on the 26th of July, 1953, as the entire country readied for summer fiesta, a caravan of rickety cars roared down the highway toward the Monacada Barracks in Santiago de Cuba. Each was filled with stalwarts certain that, before the noon hour, they would capture the military compound.
Then, everything that could possibly go wrong proceeded to do precisely that. Unprepared for such an ambitious undertaking, the men ecstatically leaped out of the transports before Castro gave the order to do so. In moments, they were overrun by forces that outnumbered the rebels ten to one. During this skirmish, fifteen members of Batista's army were killed, as were nine of Castro's men. Others were captured. All were tortured, this including castration with rusty razor blades. Some were executed immediately afterwards, most imprisoned.
Fidel and Raoul managed to make their escape into the Gran Piedra mountains, hoping to reorganize there. These survivors were all captured by government forces three days later. In the early fall of that year, the rebels were tried en masse by an Urgency Tribunal. Castro, with his considerable argumentative skill, managed to wrangle his own separate court case at which he belligerently defended himself. No matter; after being found guilty, all were tossed into Presidio Modelo, a noted hellhole, each man sentenced to serve a one-year term there. This, supposedly, to teach each and all a lesson. In the case of Fidel Castro, the miserable food and filthy surroundings had the opposite effect.
During that horrific year, Castro—sometimes in a group cell, on other occasions relocated in solitary—constantly read. At this point democracy, which he expressed interest in as a university student, disappeared from his writings, the theories of Karl Marx coming to dominate his world-view. Buesa, on the other hand, was not won over. As he and Castro had discussed earlier, Buesa preferred to oust Batista, then call for open and honest elections so as to create a democracy, much like the one in the U.S. The now radicalized Castro scoffed, assuring his comrade that in time Manuel would see the error of his ways.
When Batista staged a fixed election in 1954, winning the popular vote overwhelmingly, Castro now had tangible evidence to convince his comrade that the right to vote clearly did not insure that the people would be heard. Buesa did take that into account, still continuing to believe the problem lay not with the idea of elections, rather the patent dishonesty of this one.
The turning point for Castro came from a source closer to home. Mirta had never bought into her husband’s revolutionary fervor. She married Castro in 1948 owing to his advanced degrees, believing her husband would soon get over such youthful idealism and set to work earning a living as a lawyer. With Fidel behind bars, she set out to obtain a divorce. Worse, Mirta accepted a job in Batista’s government, offered if she would publicly reject her husband's radicalism. Worse still Mirta openly raised Castro’s son in Havana’s most solidly middle-class neighborhood, as if to announce her subscription to the consumer-values of those rare few able to afford an American-like lifestyle.
Now Castro abruptly turned against the U.S., less for its democratic system than its economic base. If capitalism had corrupted his Mirta, it might do the same to anyone. Communism took on a lustre in missives Castro released from behind bars. Nonetheless, Batista, believing the revolutionaries must, after suffering constant torture, be sufficiently humbled, announced that all would be released on schedule. Batista guessed that the Castro brothers would crawl off into oblivion like whipped dogs.
Upon release, a hardened, bitter, more extremist Castro began sending loyalists out to bomb strategic Batista posts. As innocent citizens were harmed and in some cases killed, Castro insisting this was regrettable but unavoidable, he incurred the wrath not only of their fascistic leader but also moderate liberals and progressives who likewise opposed Batista but still subscribed to non-violent methods. Police were instructed to shoot down Movement members on sight. The Castro brothers, realizing they might soon be dead, quickly decided a strategic retreat was in order. On July 7, they and Buesa slipped away into Mexico.
“I shall return,” Castro called out over his shoulder at the moment of departure, the bearded giant who now held the U.S. in contempt ironically echoing a famous American general.
Once in Mexico, where the right-wing government wanted no part of Castro and his insurgent force, the fugitives created a secretive cell dedicated to waging warfare against all dictators everywhere. As a result of this broadening policy, Argentinean doctor Ernesto “Che” Guevera arrived in the mantis-green jungle, joining a burgeoning force that now included several Mexican revolutionaries and people from other Third World Countries. Plus several Americans, claiming to support The Cause.
Among these came a man known only as George. In actuality, this was Frank Sturgis, sent down to infiltrate the guerillas by the CIA. The U.S. had grown concerned as to whether these rangy troops might constitute a viable threat to U.S. interests in the area. Corporations had recently poured immense amounts of money into Latin America, perceiving these as potentially lucrative sites.
Trained in the art of duplicity, George quickly won Castro over. He not only had been accepted into Castro’s force but soon became an officer, always at The Beard's side in public, seated beside him at strategy meetings held in the leader's tent. Soon George made it a point to get to know as many other volunteers as possible, hoping to find some weak link in Castro's chain-of-command which he could then manipulate in favor of the U.S.'s crusade against communism. The moment that George first shared cigars with Buesa he knew that here was the man he'd been looking for, quickly cultivating a relationship. The soft-spoken Cuban shortly admitted his discomfort with the manner in which Castro had grown as authoritarian as Batista on the right.
At long last, Manuel grasped why Castro had distrusted the educated members of his group from day one. Any time one would suggest a democratic election of leaders, Castro tore into a fury, disappearing into his tent where his latest young mistress awaited. When Castro finally stepped out into the daylight, he sullenly stalked about camp, staring down whoever dared to speak such sacrilege. Now, it was Castro's way or the highway, not that there were many of those near their hidden enclave.
Buesa was, as George could clearly tell, wavering. Good!
Seven months later, Castro decided the time had come to strike. He secured a leaky leisure-craft, the Granma, capable of safely carrying twenty men at most. Castro crowded 82 followers into the timeworn hull, Manuel and George among them. Chugging along, the antiquated boat quietly passed along the river during the late-night hours of November 25, 1956, then slipped out into the gulf unseen by Mexican shore patrols.
During the next several days everyone complained of hunger and filth. One man fell overboard and nearly drowned. They were supposed to land at a designated beachfront in Oriente Province, where comrades would be waiting with provisions, weapons, and trucks. Together all would move in-land, the revolution about to ignite. But when a Cuban army surveillance helicopter spotted them below, plans had to be swiftly altered. The Granma, about ready to soon sink anyway, came ashore ten miles away from their mark, swiftly descending in a swamp near Los Colorados.
When the men tried to disembark, some drowned in the bog. Those able to crawl up onto land attempted to push inland only to come face to face with troops, ready and waiting; Batista had been informed of the coming invasion by some traitor in Castro’s midst. Castro turned to his trusted officer, George, swearing that when he found out who had done this terrible thing he’d personally strangle the man. George nodded, apparently in solemn agreement, though not making eye contact, offering no reply.
For the next several days, remnants of Castro’s ever diminishing guerilla force fought its way from one ambush to the next, trying to reach the Sierra Maestra mountain-range. There, Castro knew, like-minded supporters waited. When the two groups combined, this rag-tag army could disappear into the natural camouflage. Federal troops would be afraid to follow into what might turn out to be an ambush behind every tree. Castro counted noses; including his brother, the men numbered fourteen.
Even George was gone now, apparently killed in one of the fire-fights, though no one had actually witnessed the American going down. Likely, his body lay somewhere back there in the brush, among the dead and dying. The loss of so trusted a man only made Castro all the more determined to eventually win.
“I have not yet begun to fight,” he promised, echoing yet another war-hero from the America he ironically despised.
When Batista, sipping wine in his Havana mansion, heard reports of this boast, he laughed out loud, calling Castro a bearded clown. Did this scraggly buffoon actually still believe he could topple a military dictator? The fool!
*
In the epicenter of Havana, a huge building constructed in the manner of an ancient Spanish fort rises above the diverse buildings that compose this age-blighted metropolis. Cut from stone, the imposing city-within-the city can be seen for miles by any resident who glances upward at the high-stretching rock on which the prison was long ago painstakingly erected. Since the first day of its existence, this dark, ominous tower has cast an ever-shifting shadow over Ciudad de las Columnas, the city of columns, Cuba’s most formidable outpost of civilization.
Initially a humble village, Havana had been founded in 1515 by a loose confederacy of conquistadores and priests. For the better part of five centuries, the heart of Cuba’s social and political systems withstood tests against its permanence by natural calamities and man’s ongoing strife with his fellow man. Such people enjoyed victories and suffered defeat; won, lost, lived, loved and died; come and gone as if blown in and out by trade-winds. What remained was Havana itself, some days gay, at other times sad. Always lorded over by that black needle, the initial sign of the city any approaching visitor observes.
Adding to the medieval aura, two wide moats circle this edifice, one midway up the incline, the other closer to the top. Each remained crossable only by the wood-and-iron drawbridges that clank up and down following orders from the bastion’s current commander, whomever that might be. This position of power had for centuries remained subject to change, no matter how solid any reign appeared. El Castillo del Principe was its name, the one-foot-thick walls dating almost as far back as the first crude mission, located several blocks away. Those who over the ages were interred here, like others living in daily fear of at some point doing or saying something that might cause them to be condemned to this ghastly place, refer to it as El Principe.
Until January 1, 1959, the thousands of prisoners held inside during those middle years of the 20th century were suspected revolutionaries. All had been rounded up by strong-armed military envoys and rudely escorted from their homes—enclaves within the city, small farming villages spread across the 761 mile long island—to this dreaded place. Once inside its clammy structure, they were starved, beaten, interrogated and tortured. In some cases, innocent and guilty alike were dragged back out, forced into canvas-covered trucks, the weeping victims, who grasped their coming fate, carried off to stretches of open land ten miles south of the city, there to be executed.
On several occasions, victims of such mass killings were buried. More often, corpses were allowed to rot in the fields so passing farmers and humble tradesmen would bear witness to what might be their future if they were to join, or even offer tacit support, to the insurgents. See and fear. Fearing, continue to work the fields without question.
Conventional wisdom in Cuba prior to ‘59: Do not mention democracy, American style, much less the communism spreading across the post-WWII world. To be heard whispering about such things, even in casual mid-day street conversation or after imbibing too much at some crude cantina during evening hours, might well chart a one-way route to El Principe.
No man in his right mind wanted that!
Everyone in Cuba knew that their current leader maintained friendly relations with the U.S. They also understood Batista had no interest in altering his corrupt state by adapting such a constitutional government. The Americans were to be tolerated as they feared those communists that posed a threat to Batista’s power. The U.S. government not only closed its collective eyes, allowing vicious tyrants to rule in global hot-spots, but supported them. In some cases, openly; in others, covertly.
Dictatorship, Hitler style, which America had not so long ago opposed, was upheld. That was then; this, now. Anything, according to foreign policy, John Foster Dulles style, was better than communism. In the end, it all came down to a simple philosophy: Any enemy of my enemy is my friend.
*
The situation in Cuba in general, El Principe in particular, altered on a New Year’s day that opened the final year of the 1950s. The tower of terror would remain filled with prisoners. What altered was the make-up of those held in the assortment of small, filthy cells, modeled on the interior of a bee-hive. In a period of 48 hours, the constituency in El Principe reversed itself. One American journalist who witnessed all that occurred, Lee Lockwood, immortalized the event in photographs and words.
Batista-friendly American political advisors and Mafia casino owners deserted by plane on December 31, 1958 when their New Year’s Eve celebration degenerated into a bloodbath. The dictator absconded in the darkness as his armed forces hastily threw down their weapons, running away to hide in the hills or reversing loyalties, joining the guerilla invasion. Though Castro remained in the Sierra Maestra range, hundreds of miles away, his 26 de Julio Movement swarmed into Havana's streets.
The rebels waved red banners, wielding rifles above their heads, shouting "Down With Batista!" In the early hours of the following day, droves of humble citizens threw open their doors to the motley crew, offering what little beer and wine they possessed to the guerillas now heralded as ‘liberators.’ Those few who owned cars drove around an open city, honking their horns in unison, eager to let the rebels know that, despite their ownership of such luxury items, they too supported the revolution. It was a great day in the morning, all agreed.
Almost everyone. Ninety-plus-percent of the people had been living in near-starvation under Batista. Less pleased were the one in ten who had achieved middle-class or higher still status, desiring nothing more than to live like their American friends, reveling in the superficial joys of consumer culture. Their first and all-pressing thought: How do I get the hell out of here? Next question: where in the name of God will I go?
“We arrived at El Principe,” Lockwood wrote, where “wives and mothers” of men long imprisoned “could already be seen struggling up the hill, hauling suitcases, shopping bags, and other containers stuffed with civilian clothing” to replace the filthy white cotton uniforms worn by prisoners. “A roar went up as someone found a key to the jail. A moment later, the prison’s massive iron gate was flung open, releasing a hoard of inmates, who surged (out) in a white river, tumbling down the hill.”
“Viva Fidel!” they shouted. “Viva Cuba Libre!” Others chimed in: “Viva la Revolucion!" The current Cuban revolution, also too the great worldwide revolution each present sensed must be right around the corner.
After all, considering what had happened here, who or what could possibly stand in their way?
By noon, those who’d served as prison guards found the tables turned, forced into recently vacated cells at gunpoint. In charge marched former prisoners, each with an ax to grind, in some cases literally. Shortly, the onetime oppressors would be joined in communal misery by wealthy citizens who had supported Batista. The wisest among them had already deserted by any means —planes, boats big or small—heading for Miami.
While all revolutionaries love to shout “Solidarity,” always they prove incapable of maintaining that state for more than one glorious moment. In several days time, those favoring communism gained the upper hand. Recent comrades who now argued in favor of democracy found themselves in El Principe. From the moment that Castro arrived, it was the revolution according to one man, and only one: Castro. Get with him or get out.
Democracy? No. Moderately applied socialism? No. Hardcore communism immediately became the rule, Castro on the far left as totalitarian as Batista had been on the far right.
Communism, Castro style. Love it or leave it!
The majority of Cubans did the former, or at least accepted this as the new order. A minority, the latter. Cubans of means, favoring democracy and capitalism, embarked on an exodus to America. Among them, Manuel Artime Buesa, crossing the waters in a leaky rowboat with two other men, knowing that if and when he arrived in Miami, he would present himself at the offices of the CIA, offering his services. On that day when Buesa announced himself he was led down a hall to an office door identified by the name ‘Frank Sturgis.’
Once inside, Manuel gasped at the sight of an old friend whom he believed had been killed somewhere in the jungle. Standing there with a welcoming smile stood ... George!
*
No one ever moved faster than Johnny Rosselli when he considered himself on a mission from God. It must be noted that the object of Rosselli’s worship was not the wrathful Yahweh of the Old Testament nor gentle Jesus of the New but Sam Giancana, considered by others of a different mind-set to be the anti-Christ. Ruthless, intelligent, confidant, vastly experienced in the ways of the world, supremely in control of organized crime in America, hair-trigger quick to judge though slow to fire any literal or figurative gun, employing this as a final solution to serious problems, Sam 'Gold' Giancana possessed many aspects of some worldly-wise mystic, a contemporary Merlin of the Mob. As such, he sized up every situation with the hard, cold, calculated intellect of a Genghis Khan.
That well described what Sam had been contemplating as to The Cuban Situation since New Year’s Eve, when Meyer Lansky called in a panic from the Riviera hotel to inform Giancana that Batista, along with his sycophants and all CIA personnel, were making hasty getaways. Concerned, Sam had instructed Lansky to get the hell out there fast. For once, Meyer steadfastly refused a direct order. He and his second wife Teddy remained until the bitter end, earning Sam’s immediate gratitude for not doing as told and, afterwards, his lifelong admiration.
As rebels ran wild through the streets, firing guns in the air, shouting the slogans of revolution, drinking themselves into an alcoholic stupor, the hotel’s staff deserting, Meyer calmly stepped into the kitchen and did the cooking himself. Teddy, displaying a facade of calm, pranced from table to table, managing a frozen smile while serving the few American and Cuban customers who hadn’t yet fled. She and Lansky would shortly leave, with dignity intact. Another high-ranking mobster meanwhile slipped in to replace them.
The chaos continued. Giancana called Santo Trafficante in Tampa, since he was in charge of Cuba since Luciano, now living in Sicily, had decreed this in the 1946 Havana meeting. Clearly, the time had come for Santo to get on top of the Castro problem. As soon as he’d hung up the phone, Trafficante called Las Vegas and asked for Johnny Handsome. No one possessed Johnny's gift for pulling off the impossible.
Johnny? Get your ass to Havana and do so fast!
Three days later Johnny arrived, no one save Giancana and Trafficante aware that the man born Fillipo Sacco had even left Vegas. Johnny took up residence in the Hotel Nacional and held steady for orders. Johnny would wait, calm and quiet, until word arrived from Sam the Man, even now pondering what ought to be done. We’ll play it cool for the time being, Giancana decided; wait and see if Castro can be reasoned with. If not? In that case, the Beard must be whacked, and quickly.
*
Rosselli did not have long to wait. On January 7, after Castro had arrived, headquartering himself on the 23rd floor of the Havana Hilton, The Beard ordered all casinos closed, all gambling banned. The United States, in his estimation, had turned his once clean Cuba into a decadent brothel. Shortly after this announcement aired on Radio Havana, picked up by the networks, a call came through from Santo, who had received one from Sam. Trafficante now reiterated Gold’s orders to Johnny.
Minutes later, fully prepared, Rosselli set off on his errand. The streets seemed different than even a day or two earlier, the vivid sense of rich, colorful life that had filled them diminished. People were casting off their bright garb for drab fatigues. Instead of an ecstatic celebration of life Johnny had witnessed, most wandered about in a dull, serious manner. The good ol’ days he had so loved to partake of were gone! Perhaps, though, this current assignment might bring them back.
Rosselli arrived at the Hilton, briefed by Trafficante as to what had already become Castro’s ritualistic daily habits. Johnny took up a position adjacent to the main doorway. Panic overcame him when he felt one of his irregular asthma attacks coming on. As the mid-afternoon heat abated now that sweet breezes wafted in from nearby waters, Johnny spotted a sudden movement at the door. He reached under his coat for the weapon hidden there, a WWII-era German Luger, Johnny’s pistol of choice since becoming one of the Mob's crack shots decades earlier.
Half a dozen figures drifted out of the building, Castro central to the group. Rosselli noted that in front of The Beard a large, rugged man with a Zapata mustache pushed forward. He obviously must have been the chief bodyguard. If only that important call from the states had come two days earlier!
Then Castro, believing himself to have the unanimous support of Havana's citizenry, dared strut about unprotected. That ended when a friend from college days, architect Enrique Avarez, hid in a high/wide modern building across the street from Castro’s favorite dining place, the Casalta over on the east edge of town. Avarez planned to shoot his leader with a high-powered rifle, augmented by a telescopic lens, while The Beard gulped down shrimps, drenched in lemon and butter, roasted over coals, the house specialty. At the moment when he must squeeze the trigger, Avarez experienced a sudden failure of nerve and fled.
Spotted running away suspiciously, Avarez was captured. When Castro, face-to-face with the traitor but as yet unable to grasp what his comrade's motivation might be, demanded to know the reason why, idealistic Avarez defiantly shouted that he’d watched televised executions of confused citizens who, for one reason or another, Castro considered his enemies, in some cases rightly, with others wrong, operating as Batista had to supposed rebels. Viewing such brutality in his apartment, Avarez retched at the public spectacle, performed for a rowdy, delighted mob, French-revolution style. Onlookers cheered the flow of blood, purchasing beer and soda from street vendors who had rushed in to, in a capitalist manner, make a fast buck off the event.
Also Avarez complained that, winning over fellow students back in their university days, Castro had presented himself as an open-minded egalitarian. Now, he had revealed himself to be a Communist dictator. A communist, yes, Castro shouted at Alvarez. Not a fascist like Batista. Do you think it makes any difference if authoritarianism comes from the left rather than the right? Alvarez demanded. Yes, Castro blurted out. That is where we now disagree, came the answer, and why I wish that I’d have had the courage to shoot you. He spit on Castro and was summarily shot.
When Castro recovered from his shock and humiliation, he arranged from that moment on to be completely surrounded by hand-picked guards. While the big mustachioed man’s formidable presence, stepping out of the Hilton as Castro's human shield, might have deterred any citizen-assassin, Rosselli was no such amateur. Schooled in the art and tactics of killing while an apprentice to Al Capone in Chicago, 1922, during the golden era of the Scarface Gang, the looker with thick oily hair and a strong Roman nose drifted around and past the bodyguard like a shadow passing through quick-silver. Rosselli closed in so quickly that no one alive could have stopped him. He whipped out the Luger, slamming its barrel against Castro’s thick forehead.
“Do you want to die?” Rosselli softly said. For a moment, the Cuban leader could not form words. His bodyguards were at a loss; any movement might cause this Italian-American in a slick sharkskin suit to kill Castro. Each remained stock-still.
“No,” Castro at last managed to whimper in reply.
God ... Gold! Please don’t let me cough now!
“Then listen closely ...”
“Pull that trigger,” the lead bodyguard ventured, certain he must do something, drawing his own weapon, a .45 automatic, leveling it at Rosselli’s temple, “and you die as well.”
“A-ha,” Johnny laughed, eyes wild, “but there I have you. I don’t care if I die or not. The same cannot be said of your glorious leader. Do you grasp my meaning? What’s your name?”
“Pupo Valle.”
“You cannot win, Valle. Ipso facto, I cannot lose.”
“Remain calm, Pupo,” Castro ordered, sweating profusely yet in control of his emotions. Then, furtively glancing to Johnny, he inquired, “What is it you want of me?”
Rosselli inched forward and for thirty seconds whispered into Castro’s ear. Castro nodded in the affirmative. At that, Rosselli winked, returning his gun back to its leather shoulder-holster under his jacket, turning away from Castro, bodyguards, and a coterie of stunned onlookers. Valle continued to grip his pistol, glancing sideways to his leader for orders. Castro shook his head ‘no.’ He and Pupo stood together, watching as the man disappeared into a stunned crowd, gone like some bad dream that hauntingly seems all too real the morning after.
“I could have killed him easily as he left.”
“Yes,” Castro gulped. “And so ‘they’ would have sent another. Next time, they would finish me without a word.”
“Next time, I would have been prepared—”
“No, Pupo. From those like Avarez, I have no doubt you can always protect me. From such as this? It’s not your capabilities I question. Much as I hate to admit this, we must learn to live with the Mafia."
Pupo Valle wondered for the first time since the revolution if his exalted leader really was the absolute idealist he and so many other loyalists believed. Would a truly great man speak so? But Valle would keep his own counsel, for to speak such a thing to anyone would be construed as treason. At least for now.
*
The following morning, Castro called a special conference of political advisors, all aware already that their job was not to suggest varying approaches for severe problems to Castro but nod in agreement with whatever he proposed. Unexpectedly, he re-introduced the supposedly-decided issue of Cuba’s American-owned casinos. After consideration, Castro pompously announced, he now believed that their country must not entirely isolate itself from the world. Also, the economy must not be allowed to fall into disarray before he developed future plans. With this understood, tourist money remained a necessity, if only for the time being. Of course, for Americans to continue to arrive and spend, they would require that the gambling houses awaited them.
No one in the room could believe what he was hearing. Still they shook their heads in unison, grinning like idiots. On January 17, 1959, all American-owned casinos could re-open. Johnny heard the news on Radio Cuba, grinned at his own effectiveness, and waited for word from the states. Within minutes, the old fashioned ornate white telephone, left over from those decadent days of the late 1920s, rang. This time it was Gold himself, the great one choosing to speak personally (a rarity) to a mob operative, congratulating his man in Havana on a job well done.
Johnny waxed rhapsodic in reply. Clearly, this had been a major upward career-move. He could hardly be held responsible when most American with money, deeply concerned about political unrest in Cuba despite the casino re-openings, turned their backs on Havana and instead flew west to Vegas, until then a gathering place for local rubes. Overnight, that changed. Johnny Rosselli/Handsome would be one Made Man who most profited from that new order.
*
To state that Fulgencio Batista Zaldivar, recently deposed dictator of Cuba, had long despised Rafel Leonidas Trujillo, self-proclaimed president for life of the Dominican Republic, would have been to put the situation mildly. The strong-arm politicians had throughout the 1950s waged a hostile competition for money and valued commodities, including military equipment, from the U.S. Each tried to persuade the American ambassador to his country there was but one true friend on the southern tier, now that the demon threat of communism had spread like prairie fire across Latin America, and that this—he!—was that man.
More than once, Batista and Trujillo had been on the verge of open conflict, American operatives intervening. It was in the U.S.'s best interests to keep both in power, armed and ready to train those weapons at the Reds when and if they came. Batista and Trujillo continued to harbor anxieties as to one another; so far as others perceived them, these were the Tweedle-dee and Tweedle-dum of the Third World: self-serving bullies with no concern for the people they pretended to watch over and serve.
Now, though, the Sixties were but a stone‘s throw away, a new decade ushering in an alternative sense of values. Even as Batista’s power structure collapsed around him and on New Year‘s Eve he took flight for fear his very life was in danger, he knew from reliable sources that Trujillo suffered similar pressure from revolutionary forces in Santo Domingo. Perhaps communists in the Dominican Republican were in cahoots with the guerillas who had seized Havana two weeks ago, these part of an emergent international revolution. In this reconfigured world order, old animosities were forgotten, even as those between the United States and Germany or Japan had been when, after World War II concluded, the U.S.’s recent allies, China and the Soviet Union, waved red flags in defiance, inciting the bulls of the west.
Batista and Trujillo were dictators. If each man chose to posture and pose as a true democrat to appease the Americans, fascistic described their approach to stifling free public elections. Anything that threatened the one worried the other. This partly explains why Trujillo, upon learning of Batista’s ouster, invited him to Santo Domingo until, with Trujillo’s full support, Batista could convince the U.S. to, by any possible means, return their Cuban 'friend' to power in his homeland.
Today, Trujillo had decked himself out in full military uniform, boasting enough gold-braid to anchor a large ship. Batista instead wore a simple white suit. The two met on this sweltering early-afternoon at the Presidential Palace. Side by side, dwarfed by epic-sized paintings from the classical era, they spoke intimately about what ought to be done to keep the world, at least their corner of it, from spinning out of orbit.
Batista had been rushed to this meeting by a chauffeured limousine from his exquisite hotel. He had registered two days earlier as a paying guest. All financing for himself and his wife’s stay, he’d been informed upon arrival, was required up front and in cash. Not a problem, as they’d carried a fortune along when the two scurried out of Havana minutes before the city fell to the rebels. The couple now enjoyed the finest accommodations available in this capital city, Batista's wife enjoying an elegant lobster salad lunch via room service.
Batista and Trujillo, no longer cautious of one another, casually exchanged information. Trujillo explained that he’d ordered Colonel Ferrando, his chief counsul in Miami, to sniff out the CIA agents there. What were The Company’s thoughts as to a counter-strike? Would the U.S. openly support such a move or continue to offer only secretive aid? If so, in how long a time might that occur?
Batista, as Trujillo could not have guessed, harbored no interest whatsoever in such a victorious return. Following two sessions as Cuba’s man with the iron fist (1933-44; 1952-59), he now only wished to slip away to Europe and live the good life in Rome, Paris, and other such exquisite cities. Certainly he and his wife had on their persons enough money to support such a high lifestyle indefinitely. Batista didn’t dare admit this at the moment for fear of his host’s wrath if Batista did not at least pretend to share the Dominican's hopes and schemes.
So Batista nodded, his gesture inhabiting some nowhere zone between affirmation and elusiveness, implying without saying so that he’d gladly serve as part of a coalition of Latin politicos opposing communism and seeking aid from the U.S. to defeat it.
Trujillo spoke at length about other countries most likely to fall in with the emerging plan, Nicaragua chief among them.
“You believe, then,” Batista wanted to know, “that Nicaragua will allow Cuban exiles to train there, then use their airstrips for a launching point?”
“I do not believe,” Trujillo answered with the supreme confidence that always characterized him. “I know.”
They exited the sumptuous room, furnished with fine antique furniture and majestic statuary, from armless Aphrodites hailing back to the Greek golden age and bold Herculean warriors, their private parts hammered away by Puritan censors, that dated to the High Renaissance in Firenze. Each man, cradling a drink, stepped onto the balcony. From there they could observe the wide green fields, handsomely cultivated, stretching as far as the eye could see. How hard to believe, in this elaborately designed escape from the real world of excruciating poverty only a short distance away, that the privileged few inhabiting this palace might soon come under a deadly state of siege.
“When might such an intervention take place?” Batista, intrigued if disinterested, asked.
“Not any time soon, I assure you. The men for such an operation must be recruited, then trained at length, finally guided step-by-step by the CIA."
"Months?"
"If only it could be accomplished in so short a time."
"Years?"
"Several.
"Still, that is better than nothing."
"Amen to that."
“And as for The Company? You believe they can be trusted?”
“Always, you say ’believe‘,” Trujillo laughed. “Yet always I reply: ’know.’"
Momentarily, Batista stood silent, taking all this in. At last he felt comfortable venturing a conclusion. “Then it is what the Americans call ’a done deal’, if in due time.”
That gave Trujillo cause to wince. “Yes and no. You see, there is a wild card in our deck. A presidential election will take place in November 1960 in the United States. Already the leading candidates are pre-planning, raising funds ...”
"My guess? Nixon will be the Republican nominee."
"Agreed. A most unpleasant fellow! Still, one we can trust. If he wins, things will proceed as I outlined for you.”
“If not?”
“A young senator named Kennedy is even now at work trying to corner the Democratic party’s eventual nod. He has some competition: Stevenson once again; the Texan Johnson. Several others too. Still, a sense of inevitability has already begun to surround this young, handsome, charismatic senator."
“If he should succeed?”
“Perhaps he will set aside all the youthful idealistic nonsense he speaks to attract the country's young liberals to him. And, once in office, learn the politics of reality from his senior advisors, then continue in the path of predecessors as to the need for containing communism.”
“Yet you imply, obviously, ’perhaps not.’”
“Well, you see, this I don’t know. Or, as you would phrase it, 'believe.'"
"So?"
"So, we must both of us remain wary yet hopeful.”
The two made eye contact, grimacing at the potential for danger, then accompanied each other back inside. In two hours, a state dinner would begin. Batista’s wife Marta was by now preparing her wardrobe, hoping to captivate all attending.
If anyone had told Fulgencia Batista Zaldivar one year earlier that he would come to consider Rafel Leonidas Trujillo a close ally, Cuba's dictator would have laughed. Now? It was an old cliché, Batista well knew, but one proven true, over and over again in world history: any enemy of my enemy is my friend.