One Day in December: Celia Sánchez and the Cuban Revolution

by Nancy Stout

  At Guisa, Captain Baulio Coroneaux, called “Cordolun,” operated the rebels’ one and only .50-caliber machine gun, apparently with great effect, until he was killed by a precision shot from a tank. The troops, Fidel noted in 2000, were “children of workers and farmers; most of them could not even read or write. And in their training, they had hardly made any real shots. They had learned and practiced shooting theoretically.” His reminiscence recalls the early 26th of July actions, when Frank País drilled his men for the Battle of Santiago with “no bullets” exercises.

  The evening of December 31, 1958, Fidel, Celia, and Pedro Miret sit at a bar in the city of Palma Soriano, waiting to negotiate with the Cuban army and end the war. Celia’s stalwart assistant, Felipe Guerra Matos, stands behind her. They watch an admirer who has come to speak to Fidel. (Courtesy of Oficina de Asuntos Históricos)

  The heaviest fighting came in the last three days, when the army sent in B-26s and F-47s, from bases in Havana and Camaguey, to bomb the area and rescue their battalion. To create a “zone” for the government forces’ escape route, the army unleashed thirty hours’ air support, showering the rebels with bombs. But the rebel army, in Cordolun’s trenches, held out.

  To rescue the besieged battalion, in the end, the army was forced to abandon the garrison. The rebels had their victory, and Bayamo lay within their sights.

  Celia’s two younger sisters, Acacia and Griselda, had traveled to the locale to experience a battle firsthand. Shortly before the intensive bombing started, Griselda, who hated noise, took refuge in a cave outside the city. Celia, even as the battle raged, sent a note to them, remarking that the army was shooting as if it were the end of the world. The Gironas, in Havana, received a postcard from Griselda. She wrote that she was vacationing in lovely Guisa, and: “Wish you were here.”

  CELIA AND FIDEL THEN TRAVELED EAST. On December 2, 1958, they stopped in Charco Redondo, where Celia set up another field headquarters. The date would have been significant for her: the second anniversary of her escape from the SIM in Campechuela and the bar La Rosa. Now, with several victories behind them, she and Fidel waited for Camilo and Che to conclude their long march across the island, heading for Havana. By December 20, Fidel and Celia had moved onto a sugar estate called “America.” They left to spend Christmas with Fidel’s oldest brother, Ramon, a farmer who sat out the war, returning to the America sugar mill on the 28th. There they rendezvoused with one of Batista’s generals, Eulogio Cantillo, to discuss ways to bring the war to an end. While Fidel and Cantillo talked, Ricardo Martínez says that he and Celia waited in a room filled with sugar-processing machinery. Fidel emerged confident that he and the general had come to an agreement, assured that Batista would remain in Cuba.

  On the final day of the year, they drove to Palma Soriano, up in the mountains, and the last town of any size on the way to Santiago. There they learned of Batista’s escape. Fidel was furious. They went to the local station (an affiliate of Radio Progresso), from which Fidel broadcast an appeal to all citizens of Cuba, imploring people not to take the law into their own hands. Following the broadcast, he ordered an advance on Santiago. Simultaneously, across the nation, members of the 26th of July Movement, the Revolutionary Directorate, and other anti-Batista groups occupied police stations. At the news that Batista had fled, cheering crowds came out into the streets. Unpopular members of the police and military were assassinated; some were jailed to await trial; others quickly got out of Cuba. Historians consistently remark on the fact that there was little violence.

  When Fidel met in a final parley with the army’s commanders, Celia took part. On January 1, 1959, at El Escandel, an outpost northeast of Santiago (now within the National Park Gran Piedra), Colonel José Rego Rubido, regimental chief, surrendered Santiago de Cuba and its forces to the rebel army.

  On the morning of January 1, 1959, Celia is joined by her sisters, Griselda and Acacia, in Palma Soriano. (Courtesy of Oficina de Asuntos Históricos)

  No more fighting would be necessary. Fidel and Celia prepared to enter Santiago.

  FROM THE FEW PHOTOGRAPHS I’ve seen, it looks as if there were few in the party that drove down from Palma Soriano to Santiago: the two comandantes, Fidel and Celia, a few bodyguards, Celia’s stalwart helper, Felipe Guerra Matos, her sisters Acacia and Griselda, and two radio engineers, packed into a two American cars. Celia donned her 26th of July uniform, rather than the olive green tunic and trousers she usually wore, and a cloth cap, perched on the back of her head so the bill stood up. (The detail makes her easy to find on contact sheets.) She is talking to soldiers in jeeps, most likely telling everybody what they’re to do next (and which they receive as orders). In frame after frame, she’s surrounded by hundreds of soldiers, all in rebel army uniforms. By nightfall, columns from the entire eastern end of the country came pouring into Santiago. By midnight, most had arrived.

  The victorious 26th of July leaders made their way to the balcony of the town hall, on the edge of the old Plaza Cespedes. People crammed the verandah and balconies of the old Hotel Casa Grande; they filled rooftops, side streets, the steps of the cathedral. Strings of bare bulbs hung around the square, and a pair of klieg lights illuminated Fidel as he prepared to speak—accepting the surrender of Santiago’s garrison.

  “What greater glory than the love of the people?” he began. “What greater reward than these thousands of waving arms, so full of hope, faith, and affection toward us? . . . No satisfaction and no prize is greater than that of fulfilling our duty, as we have been doing up to now, and as we shall always do. In this I don’t speak in my name. . . . Physically, Frank País is not here, nor many others, but they are here spiritually—and only the satisfaction that their death was not in vain can compensate for the immense emptiness they left behind them.”

  BEFORE DAWN, Celia and Fidel left Santiago. They traveled in a motorcade of just a few cars that seem in photos to be emerging from a fog, at the front of the caravan composed of the command staff, followed by guerrilla soldiers loaded into trucks and jeeps confiscated from the Moncada (driven by ex-batistiano soldiers). Slowly, the victory march rolled along, stopping in each city to accept the surrender of former government forces. At each stop, Fidel would explain everything, the future and the past. The caravan grew as it continued westward, army regulars, in numbers, joining the rebels—Cuba’s new army.

  The slow pace was strategic, writes historian Hugh Thomas, to allow Camilo Cienfuegos and Che Guevara to get settled in Havana. Camilo had seized the Cuban army’s military stronghold in Havana, Camp Columbia, at approximately the same time Fidel led his victorious troops out of Santiago; Che arrived in the capital on January 2, and took command of the ancient La Cabaña fortress. The 26th of July was, by design, occupying seats of military power closely associated with Batista’s ascent.

  Nothing happened fast. At each stop, local boys who’d taken part in the war as members of the 26th of July Movement, soldiers and clandestinos, slipped back to their neighborhoods, welcomed as heroes. Photographs provide a sense of these small celebrations: a house filled with candles and flowers, on the table a cake covered in icing; young girls dressed up in their prettiest clothes; and neighbors crowded in along with mothers, aunts, sisters, fathers, brothers, uncles—all with radiant faces. The local hero, wearing a 26th of July armband, stands before them, savoring this unrepeatable moment. Those young heroes would leave again at dawn, to rejoin their squadrons and continue west with Fidel, to the next towns and provinces, and eventually Havana.

  Celia in Santiago, on January 1, 1958, dining in the home of Arsenio Cervea. The fighting is over, Santiago has surrendered, and she is about to take her place in the victory cavalcade, west to Havana. (Courtesy of Oficina de Asuntos Históricos)

  Manzanillo’s women quickly raised $5,000 (a staggering sum) and presented Celia with a gold Rolex wristwatch, in remembrance of her years among them—planning the war, hiding in their homes, asking for support. They wanted her to have something elegant, a
nd useful in her new life in Havana. They no doubt anticipated she’d become Cuba’s new first lady. The richest of them kicked in the most but, as I understand, everyone gave. They were proud of Celia, and proud of themselves. She’d asked them to risk their lives to make this revolution. As young wives and daughters, they’d donned high heels and their nicest skirts to smuggle, in their petticoats, everything from film to explosives. Older women had carried passports and documents; farm girls had served as the backbone of the rebel army’s communications system; young women had served as telephone operators; others had done whatever they could as saleswomen, housewives, and maids to flummox Manzanillo’s police force and the local garrison. They’d often defied their families. Fidel clearly cast a larger-than-life presence in these stops, but in some cities along the route it was Celia the people most wanted to see.

  The victory cavalcade moved so slowly that it only got to Camaguey on January 4, having covered less than fifty miles a day. Photographs show people waiting by the highway for a long string of vehicles to appear, for their chance to throw flowers, while others wait in their newly washed automobiles, eager to join the caravan. The foreign press poured into Cuba to cover the story, traveling east from Havana to meet Fidel’s triumphal march. They encountered the 26th of July’s ad hoc protocol: journalists who wanted to see Fidel needed to speak first to Celia Sánchez. They met a woman in uniform, notebook in hand, cigarette between well-manicured fingers, and the story goes that when they heard she was Fidel’s command partner, at least some of them thought of “Maid” Marion, Robin Hood’s soul mate, the woman of the forest who helped him rob the rich to help the poor.

  FROM MY PERSPECTIVE, this marks a watershed in Celia’s life story—not that she was aware of it or would have cared. Having finally reached the point that she was known by those around her as Celia Sánchez—a figure in her own right, though to an extent still “the doctor’s daughter”—in foreign eyes she was becoming identified as “Fidel Castro’s . . . something.” No one could pin down that “something.” For various reasons, the questioners found it vexing, and a mystery emerged: “Who is this unusual figure, relative to Fidel?” For Cubans, it’s not irrelevant, but hangs somewhere in the background. She was Celia, their heroine. All, or so many of them still feel, knew her personally. Celia Sánchez Manduley is too formal, almost an insult. When I started this project, people would correct me: Celia is Celia just as Che is simply Che, and Fidel only Fidel, etc. But the mystery persists. It played a part in my attraction to her life story, and though I don’t imagine I’ve solved it definitively, I believe I’ve been able to shed some light. The greatest illumination reached me, to my surprise, not in retracing Celia’s life in the mountains, during the war, but in following her through victory when she lived in Havana, a leader in post-Batista Cuba. It was to prove radically different from her rugged existence in the mountains, and, in my estimation, far from the life in the capital she had probably anticipated.

  Early in January 1959, somewhere on the victory cavalcade route, Felipe Guerra Matos stands by Celia as she speaks with Dr. Bernabé Ordaz. Ordaz was a physician who, as a clandestino, was imprisoned on 13 different occasions before coming to the Sierra Maestra, where he was in charge of the hospital Celia designed at the Comandancia La Plata. Ordaz also took part, with Fidel’s Column 1, in battles, and shortly before this picture was taken, had received the rank of comandante. Perhaps they are discussing Havana, where Ordaz would become director of the psychiatric hospital. (Courtesy of Oficina de Asuntos Históricos)

  WHILE EN ROUTE TO HAVANA, and the next chapter of her life, Celia kept a part of her heart in the Sierra Maestra. She arranged for the purchase of toys in late December, as she had for years, and made calls to her old vendors in Santiago even as she waited in Palma Soriano between Christmas and New Year’s Day. She intended to pull together her King’s Day festivities for less privileged children, just she had in Pilón. On January 6, at her behest, a Cuban air force plane flew over the war-torn parts of the Sierra, targeting the houses of families who’d supported the rebels, and dropped toys. Buying toys, locating a plane and pilot—charming a former batistiano—and advising him where to drop his payload was among the things with which Celia was occupied, notebook always in hand, in Santiago and on the march west. Her friends from Pilón don’t know who helped her that year, and suspect she made all the arrangements on her own. Celia was sending her comrades in the mountains a message: I will not forget you or your children. Thank you for your help. Together, we have won the war.

  Celia’s decision and effort to sustain the tradition she’d established for King’s Day exemplifies her role after victory. She interprets victory in her own manner and decides how best to serve the Revolution. She chooses her own projects, and quietly goes about achieving them, for the rest of her life. It is safe to say, thanks in some measure to the power she held as a member of the revolutionary government and her close association with Fidel, that most of Celia’s projects got accomplished. She always seemed to remember what winning the war meant, that the 26th of July had obligations after victory. In this way she remained loyal to Frank, to the people who helped her, to the combatants and clandestinos and friends who had been with her in Manzanillo and Pilón.

  Part IV

  HAVANA

  30. JANUARY 1959

  Arrival in Havana

  THE HUGE CAVALCADE ARRIVED in Havana on January 8 via the old industrial city of Guanabacoa, wending its way on the old harbor road past freight yards, factories, and refineries along the port, to the Presidential Palace. The country’s new leadership was to give a press conference there, in the Hall of Mirrors. The newly appointed president, former judge Manuel Urrutia, was waiting with his wife. Celia and Fidel joined them on the stage. I’m not sure when—maybe it was before Camilo Cienfuegos arrived from Camp Columbia—Fidel looked around at the mirrors and rococo moldings, and at the gaudily painted ceiling, and told those assembled that he didn’t like the idea of having a palace, but since they couldn’t afford to build another seat of government, “We are going to try to figure out a way for the people to have affection for this building.” Between his fingers he held a long, slender cigar.

  After the press conference, Celia, Fidel, and Urrutia left for Camp Columbia. They got into the head car, one of Batista’s, driven by Batista’s driver, and rode through old Havana. When they reached La Rampa, the street that ascends from the sea to the heart of Vedado, the first street to be lined with tall buildings housing airline offices on the ground floor and underground nightclubs, Fidel spontaneously declared that he didn’t want to ride in Batista’s car any longer. The vehicle was closed in by tinted windows and had been bullet-proofed. He leapt out, got into Juan Almeida’s open jeep, directly behind—also driven by one of Batista’s soldiers—where he could see and be seen; from there, he could drink in the pleasure of the crowds.

  Celia rode in the front car, and when it reached Camp Columbia, the driver took the wrong entrance (by the San Alejandro Art School) but immediately realized his mistake. Before he could turn around, Celia got out and went into a house just inside this gate. Almeida’s jeep pulled in behind, and he and Fidel also went inside the house, as did the next group of commanders coming off the parade route. They’d been traveling since dawn and were exhausted. Some chatted, some took quick naps, until they all agreed that they’d better get on with the official ceremonies. In the distance, they could see the stage that had been constructed for the event inside Camp Columbia, and decided that the least complicated way to get there was over the fence, then walk to the podium and get the ceremony—their official acceptance of control of the camp and of the Cuban military—under way.

  All the men went over the fence: Fidel, Raul, Almeida, Dermidio Escalona, Felipe Guerra Matos, and many others. But Celia noticed a tree farther up the fence. She climbed the tree and got onto a limb. Her safe transit of the fence required all the men to pull on the limb to move it to their side, so she could hop down.
The story offers a metaphor: in the years to come, the men would often come up with a plan and rush forward while she chose another, possibly less immediate but more practical route. In power as in opposition, they pursued different ways of arriving at their destinies.

  IT WAS WIDELY ASSUMED that the new government would establish its headquarters at the historic residence of Cuban presidents, the wedding-cake-shaped Presidential Palace. When Fidel commented that they’d have to find some way to get people to love the Presidential Palace, no one expected that he would abandon it. In the weeks to come, people began snapping up apartments on Calle Zulueta and the Avenida de las Misiones, to be nearby.

  The situation, however, was complicated. The 26th of July Movement couldn’t move in because the Revolutionary Directorate held it. But Fidel had no intention of moving into the place where Batista had nearly been assassinated, and turned to the newly built Havana Hilton. It became a military zone for the rebel army territory, renamed Hotel Habana Libre, and the top floors became his command headquarters.

  The determining fact, though, was simpler: Celia and Fidel had no place to go. They both hailed from the far end of the island. Fidel had spent his high school years in Havana, at the Jesuits’ Colegio de Belén (Bethlehem). While still at university, he’d married and lived with Mirta Diaz-Belart. But the marriage and apartment were long gone, and he had no place to call home.

  In the beginning, Celia’s idea was to establish an official residence for all five members of the rebel junta. Living along with her in this place would have been Fidel, Che, Camilo, and Raúl. After arriving in Havana, she started to look for a large house to rent, one that was modern and elegant, for just this purpose. Two pieces of furniture are surviving mementos that she bought for this project: a huge black marble-topped dining table and a 1950s modern sideboard with Chinese detailing and black Bakelite trim. She’d been working out this idea, where and how to live, for some time. Once she’d felt confident victory would come in the near term—basically, this seems to have been at the end of July, after the spectacular success of the rebel army at the Battle of El Jigue—she asked her sister Silvia to find an apartment “with at least two bedrooms, someplace central, for herself, for Fidel, also, and maybe for the others.” It had to be expandable, and Celia instructed Silvia to furnish it with their father’s furniture, which friends had rescued and sent to a Havana warehouse, where it had been stored since September 1957.