by Nancy Stout
DURING THE EARLY BATTLES—throughout June and July 1958—Celia’s strategic importance was getting messages from Che that provided Fidel with accurate information of the Cuban army’s advance. Che would send her letters by courier, and she conveyed Che’s messages to Fidel via telephone. Likewise, Fidel would call Celia with orders for Che, she’d write them out, and have a courier take them to Che, who’d moved his column closer to the Las Vegas front. There were days in June that were the most precarious of the war: Fidel held onto a few square miles of northwestern slope of Pico Caracas because Che, closer to the mountain’s base, held off the advance of Batista’s troops. Las Vegas fell to the Cuban army on June 10, but Che continued to move back and forth, striking wherever he could. Batista’s forces poured into the area in huge numbers, but partly because of the effectiveness of the telephone, the Cuban army could not gain a foothold. We can see a piece of that story unfold, moment to moment, because of Celia’s archives.
Che moved around from skirmish to skirmish; on June 8 an American showed up in his camp in Las Vegas and Che quickly sent a note to Celia, asking Fidel what to do. She replied the same day: “Fidel says to leave the gringo there. According to our intelligence he’s from the FBI and has come to eliminate Fidel.” According to Cuban historian Pedro Álvarez Tabío, it was Frank Fiorini, who became famous during the Watergate break-in when he worked for the CIA under the name of Frank Sturgis. “Since you are coming in the morning, I’m not writing [at any length],” Celia added, as a postscript, and “Today I’ve heard a new word.” The rebel leaders could be completely flummoxed by the sometimes apocryphal language of the mountains, and amused, as was probably the case in this instance. “Until tomorrow, Celia Sánchez 6/8/58.”
Cuban army troops were advancing on all fronts: from the east, they were pouring into Estrada Palma, which was too close to the rebels’ training school at Minas del Frio. “I’ve just talked to Fidel,” Celia writes him from Mompié, at 3:30 p.m. on June 10. “He says he hasn’t had time to write you . . . he only said to tell you to choose someone responsible there [the officers’ training school]” to lead a defense.
Two rebel soldiers told Celia they’d seen an army tank going up the mountain toward Las Vegas, and had counted, along with the tank, twenty-five foot soldiers. She quickly fires off a note to Che; “They say that the tank stopped when some soldier yelled out to be careful, that in those branches there was a mine. The tank stopped in front of the mine and the mine exploded, the explosion was not great . . . but something happened. . . . According to what we’ve heard, after the mine exploded the soldiers continued to the peak and later retreated. If this is so, they were coming as an advance.”
Rebel platoons scattered around the base of the mountains held onto the area. On the 15th, she wrote Che that she’d got his message “in code, half is missing; Fidel says for you to come here, and if that’s not possible to quickly send a copy of your code and an explanation of it.” Then the Cuban army made another drive.
On the 17th, planes hit a rebel hospital. Fidel called at 11:15 a.m., and she took down this message: “Che: Fidel sends this message over the telephone for you: The soldiers are going down toward Lucas’s house, send the seven men with automatic weapons. . . . We’ve been fighting since 7:00 a.m., Fidel.” She adds her own intelligence: “You also must hear the plane flying over the place where Horacio is. We hear mortars and sometimes we hear machine guns. It seems that the soldiers are advancing through there.” She notes the time as 12:10 p.m., and hands it to a courier. Che answered her at 2:10: “Celia: Tell Fidel I’m carrying out his orders . . . We have to remember that there is a hospital with wounded. For now, I am going to take them outside. I also have given orders to Raúl [Castro Mercador, no relation to Fidel or his brother] to extend his lines and to Fonso [Alfonso Zayas Ochoa] to make a gradual retreat. I’ll let Crescencio [Perez Montero] know what’s happening. If you think some weapons can be left here, let me know. I’m sending you the ones you asked for, and I’m reminding you that we have a tripod here with 500 bullets.” Then writes: “Commander in Chief: Tell me what my job is.”
About seven hours later, she got this: “Celia: I’m sending you the book [for the code]; try to send me the first volume. Pass this message to Fidel: Commander in Chief: I am ordering the immediate transfer that you ordered but I’m letting you know that because it appears that resistance in the area of Las Vegas has been set up, our advance troops are at Loma de Desayuno. I gave orders to take the summits around Las Vegas. . . . If you have a detonator I need it here. I have three personal bombs and five grenades. Che June 19, 9:25.”
The next morning she wrote: “Che: I received your message and I sent it over the phone to Fidel. He says that all the changes are very good. Tell Crescencio’s group to retreat toward La Maestra… and to move the hospital back, he thinks the best place is El Roble, he doesn’t think La Plata is safe… Last night Fidel told me that he could not send you a detonator [but] that he’ll send you a car battery; it was low on charge and recharged this morning. . . . Another thing that Fidel keeps asking for is the reinforcement he requested yesterday. Celia Sánchez 6/20/58 11:25 a.m.”
Meanwhile, Fidel had received a report of the Cuban army’s advances from the sea. They were unloading troops to advance on the Comandancia from the southern side of Caracas Mountain. He must have been out in the field because he wrote her a note. “Celia: Send Che the entire message from Pedrito so that he can understand the situation here.”
The following day Fidel wrote, “Send the two large bombs to the little store [Tiendacita de La Maestra] and send for the large square bomb that was left behind in Las Vegas.”
She composed a note, fixed the time at 11:58 a.m., and sent it to “Che: . . . soldiers are fixing the road with tractors, Fidel says to make trenches for the tanks and put the mine near a ditch.” In the afternoon, she sent another. “Che: Gello brought news that Las Vegas was taken; that from Minas del Infierno, with binoculars, you can see soldiers. I paid no attention to this. We haven’t heard one shot. Now we can hear some sort of celebration. Fidel says to select the ten best men from the school; he is going to arm them and give them Beretta practice. He wants you to start moving Raúl and Anelito’s group to the road toward Las Minas del Infierno and Mompié. Cover those positions with Crescencio’s men; Horacio and Lara’s people should reinforce Raúl and Angelito; he, Fidel, will come [down] to give the weapons of those who were in Las Vegas, Horacio and the Laras, to the ten boys he asked you for, and the five from Las Vegas that he’s bringing and who are already trained in shooting. This will be when we learn the motive of or how the entry to Las Vegas occurred. . . . The reinforcement of the seven boys arrived here 15 minutes ago. I told Fidel that they are going to eat now, sleep, and leave at 5:00 a.m. They are tired.” And she added a postscript: “I received the [code] book. Celia Sánchez 6/20/58 5:45 p.m.” She adds: “Tomorrow two men are going to install a telephone there to connect only us. This is going to resolve [the problem of having so] many messengers, even though we are the only ones communicating.”
On June 23 and 24, another battalion (the Cuban army’s eighteenth) started moving up toward Fidel’s command headquarters. They’d landed on the beach and were making their way up the La Plata River toward the Comandancia. From higher ground, the rebel army’s Captain Ramon Paz attacked and drove off the battalion, although he was fighting with a single platoon of men.
ON JUNE 24, CELIA’S FATHER DIED in Havana. A news bulletin was read hourly over Radio Reloj, the powerful 24-hour news station broadcast from Havana: “The longtime representative from Niquero to the National Medical College has passed away.” The announcer was Mas Martín, a 26th of July member (who would later marry Inez Girona). Che heard the broadcast and wrote: “Celia: I suppose you’ve learned of your father’s death. I wouldn’t like to be the bearer of this news. Between us there is no space for formal condolences; I only remind you that you can always count on me. A brotherly hug from, Che.”
THEY WERE IN SUCH DANGER that Fidel called in Camilo Cienfuegos and Juan Almeida to help him resist the army’s advance. On Wednesday, June 26, he came down the mountain to get Celia in Mompié. They waited as Che made his way from Las Vegas. The rebel army was conceding territory. Fidel ordered Che to stay with them in Mompié, because it was too dangerous for him to go back to Las Vegas. By the next day, Thursday, June 27, Las Vegas had been overtaken. Defeat and her father’s death had arrived at the same time for Celia.
IN HAVANA, BEFORE HER FATHER’S DEATH, a last-ditch attempt to capture Celia Sánchez was mounted by the army. They were so convinced that she would appear at her father’s bedside, that during the last weeks of his illness they put plainclothes detectives inside the hospital (from both police and military forces). Clodo and Lydia had been posing as friends from Media Luna and switched their guise to family from Santiago. Visiting the hospital was a menacing prospect for Celia’s sisters, so the Girona cousins went to see Dr. Sánchez, and many people traveled from Oriente Province for that purpose, such as Elsa Castro and Maria Antonia Figueroa. They went for Celia. Figueroa says she made friends with an Oriente family who often visited another ward, so the guards thought she was one of their family. Then she’d slip into Manuel Sánchez’s ward at night, where the nurses were 26th of July supporters.
On June 24, Celia’s father died in Havana. A news bulletin was read hourly over Radio Reloj. Che heard the braodcast and wrote: “Celia: I suppose you’ve learned of your father’s death. I wouldn’t like to be the bearer of this news. Between us there is no space for formal condolences; I only remind you that you can always count on me. A brotherly hug from, Che.”
Gossip played heavily in the army’s attempt to catch Celia, and they bought the news on the street that Celia Sánchez was going to make an appearance in Havana. Unable to capture her at the hospital, the army thought their final chance lay in her appearance at her father’s funeral. They cordoned off the street around the funeral parlor. In Cuba, funerals take place within a short period following death—usually no more than a single, day-long viewing period, since bodies are buried without the usual elaborate embalming process. Mourners’ identities were checked at the door of the funeral parlor, which offended many of the distinguished poets, politicians, artists, and physicians who numbered among Manuel’s friends and consequently resulted in complaints to the army. A Manzanillo senator telephoned Batista, and the identity checks were lifted, but the army posted men holding rifles around the parapet of the building, which was located right in the heart of Vedado.
The funeral parlor was on La Rampa, at the time a stylish street with airline offices, which runs like a ramp from the sea up to M and Calle 23. The funeral parlor was next to the entrance to the Polynesian Room on the Rampa side of the Havana Hilton. When the service was about to begin, every seat was taken. Since the 26th of July Movement had sent a huge wreath, with its name prominently displayed on the ribbon, people assumed that all these unrecognizable guests were members of the underground. Flávia told me that she and Acacia, both blondes, had dyed their hair black and dressed “uncharacteristically” in blouses with big flowers to look like country women from Oriente Province; and that she and her husband, Rene, sat apart. Silvia and Pepin came (neither family allowed their children to attend). No one in the family could identify most of the people in the room. Mariano Bofill arrived. Bofill was the owner of the largest foundry in Manzanillo, which manufactured parts for sugar mills. Griselda was briefly married to his son, and they had a child, Julio César; Bofill still kept ties with the Sánchez family and his grandson. He came in minutes before the service began, looked around for acquaintances from Manzanillo to sit with, and saw no one until his eye fell on Silvia and Pepin. He whispered in Pepin’s ear: “It’s too crowded.” Then, suddenly able to recognize the crowd, he’d growled in a low voice, “This is disrespectful. Come with me.” In the hall, Pepin confirmed that none of the guests were from Santiago, and Bofill, who was close to Batista, dialed the president’s number. Bofill’s early fortune, from the 1920s, was based on scrap metal, and one of his suppliers had been the young Fulgencio Batista. According to Silvia’s son, Sergio, when Batista wanted to enter the army, Bofill had furnished a recommendation. The two men had close social ties and most people assumed that Bofill was a batistiano, but both he and his sons made substantial contributions to the guerrillas in the Sierra as well.
Bofill stood at the bank of telephones in the lobby of the funeral parlor, with Pepin next to him, and his conversation has been passed down to the next generation, as if scripted: “I’d like to speak with Fulgencia, this is Bofill calling,” It was not lost on Pepin that Bofill had Batista’s personal telephone number. “Fulgencio, I’m at the service for Celia Sánchez’s father. You know I have ties with this family. This place is full of people from the SIM, and I feel that it is disrespectful to the family. I’d be very grateful if you’d take care of it.” And, according to the story, Bofill put down the phone without waiting for Batista’s comment. Minutes later Tabernilla, the obese, much-hated and greatly feared officer who ruled over Havana, waddled in, clapped his hands twice, and the unknown guests left. Soon only a few people were left in the room to attend Manuel’s funeral.
Flávia gave me a general outline of what happened. I’d known about the police on the parapet, confirmed Flávia’s description with that of the Gironas, and tried to find someone who could recall being at the service on the day of the funeral. Sergio was under the impression that Delio Gómez Ochoa had been there. He was Fidel’s man in Havana, and married Acacia after victory. When I asked him, Ochoa looked at me in astonishment. He answered that of course he wasn’t there; it would have been “suicidal” to have put in an appearance.
This part of Celia’s life story, so far removed from where she actually was at that moment—in Mompié—unfolded with textbook precision. Here was the nation’s army throwing its resources into capturing a woman who was unlikely to make an appearance—an army caught in a trap, trying to keep up its reputation. Having let Celia slip through their hands once, at Campechuela, the army was plagued by its mistake and was always trying to make sure it wouldn’t happen again. The generals, it seems, couldn’t take a chance that she wouldn’t come to Havana, so they ended up doing what traditional armies often do: spend a huge amount of time, energy, and money on something that is unlikely to happen. Guerrilla armies are effective if only because they allow the establishment to overextend itself, in just this kind of effort. Here was proof of it.
Just as the Cuban military was caught up in an age-old Bismarckian set of behaviors, futile and predictable, so, too, in its own way, was the Sánchez family. After the secret police left, there were very few people in attendance, and one of the unrecognized guests introduced herself to Manuel’s children. She had, for a decade or so, been Manuel’s lover. One of the grandchildren thinks the affair began in Pilón in the 1940s, and that the woman moved to Havana, where Manuel spent most annual vacations. Manuel’s other children had no idea of her existence, and were shocked when she approached them. But the Gironas say that Celia always knew about the affair. For all her apparent closeness to her siblings, she chose not to inform them.
None of the members of the family who attended the funeral are alive today. I cannot ask Flávia for details, because she died (of cancer) in 2004. Griselda’s son, Julio César, who was the first person to tell me about his grandfather’s lover, is also dead. Sadly, so are the Gironas, who were a worldly lot, and of the opinion that Manuel, widowed at the age of forty, would have been happier had he married. Instead, Dr. Sánchez had a long affair with a woman he couldn’t marry, because he never ceased touting his wife as “the love of my life.” Where these fabrications left off, the Manduley women took over. The Gironas told me that no extra women were allowed in that family after Manuel’s mother-in-law and sister-in-law moved into his household. I would discover that anger erupted that day along with anguish over Manuel’s death,
and not just over the SIM and the girlfriend.
Chela, Manuel’s second daughter, wasn’t at the funeral because her husband, Pedro Álvarez, had taken his family to Spain, allegedly on vacation, but in truth he’d gone away to avoid the funeral. Pedro himself told me that his wife had been too nervous to attend. He’d been worried about her to the extent that he’d taken her away from Havana, for her health. Pedro cited the genesis of Chela’s fears: she was arrested on Galiano while shopping for jewelry because the police thought she was Celia. The police had released her almost immediately. Yet Pedro—forty-two years later—was still wrapped up in concern for his wife’s anxiety symptoms, describing her occasional blackouts after she was arrested and said he’d taken her out of Havana on doctor’s orders. Pedro still didn’t understand, when we spoke in Miami in 2000, how much this had annoyed the others. In his mind, he’d solved any further confrontation between his wife and the police by taking her away. To me, it makes some sense, since the police had been anticipating Celia’s appearance in Havana all through April, May, and June following her father’s diagnosis.