Batista’s upbringing could not have been more humble—an irony given that he would one day be viewed as the protector of Cuba’s landowning class and wealthy elite. Having spent an early existence in which nearly every aspect of daily life was controlled by a foreign conglomerate, Batista may have developed an inferiority complex in relation to the United States. At the very least he was inclined to see U.S. economic power on the island as an immutable force, to be harnessed and manipulated perhaps but never seriously challenged. Politically, Batista’s attitudes and policies toward the United States ebbed and flowed, depending on the popular mood. Ultimately, however, he went where the money was, which brought him under the sway of companies such as United Fruit, IT&T (International Telephone & Telegraph), and General Motors, and led him to men like Meyer Lansky, a “tourism expert” who saw the wisdom of making sure gaming proceeds trickled upward all the way to the top.
Batista and Lansky had a few things in common: both were largely self-educated men forced to forgo formal education early in life because of economic hardship. Like Lansky, Batista professed to love books. Throughout his life, he told the story of how, at the age of thirteen, he used his savings to purchase a biography of Abraham Lincoln. Batista became a great collector of books and would eventually compile what was believed to be the island’s largest private library.
Both Batista and Lansky may have been overcompensating for a lack of “breeding,” which they eventually attempted to exhibit in a fawning and sometimes pretentious manner. Lansky’s Achilles’ heel his entire life was the desire to be viewed as a legitimate businessman; he resented the fact that men like Rockefeller, Joseph P. Kennedy, and Edgar Bronfman were viewed as brilliant titans of business while he was relegated to the criminal class. As for Batista, he at least attempted to maintain a symbolic connection to the “common man,” though he exhibited a pronounced devotion to the trappings of social class and status based on race and family background.
Where Lansky and Batista differed most was in public appearance. While Lansky always looked impeccable in a respectable suit and tie (he maintained an impressive bow tie collection throughout his life), he could not change that face. Though not an unattractive man, he was no male model. With pinched features, a prominent proboscis, and oversized ears, his face certainly had character, but not the kind that made women swoon. He spoke with the gravelly voice of a Damon Runyon character, which lent him great credibility with other mobsters but would not go over big in a boardroom.
Batista, on the other hand, was a beautiful creation. In one of his early forms of employment as a railroad brakeman for the United Fruit Company railway line, he earned the nickname “El Mulato Lindo”—the pretty mulatto—from his fellow employees. Batista never liked the nickname, with its vaguely effeminate or even homosexual overtones. But it was true. With his smooth amber complexion, perfect teeth and hair, and exotic facial features, Batista had a somewhat androgynous beauty. Although he took pains to present to the public a masculine image, his looks suggested a Cuban Adonis, with a type of handsomeness that was the envy of both men and women.
It would have been a mistake to interpret Batista’s physical beauty as weakness, however. He may have been El Mulato Lindo, but he was no pretty boy. At the age of twenty-one, he enlisted in the Cuban Army, the most manly of pursuits. Although he remained studious even in the military, where he trained to become a stenographer, he could drink and carouse with the best of them. In fact, a drunken brawl at a cabaret on the outskirts of Havana almost torpedoed his military career. An army investigator suspected Batista of taking part in the scuffle, and the young private’s career was only spared when a colonel whom he had befriended stepped in and blocked the arrest. Among other things, Batista learned from this incident that in Cuba, as in most societies, justice takes a backseat to personal alliances—a truism best explained in the old Cuban adage Sin padrino no se bautice (Without a godfather there is no baptism).
Throughout his military career, Batista exhibited a steely reserve. He rose through the ranks and was assigned to a security detail guarding the president of Cuba. It was here that he developed his appreciation for the trappings of power. As a military stenographer, he sat in on many classified meetings and was privy to the inner machinations of governmental bureaucracy.
The military was the ultimate source of social control in Cuba. Elections were frequently determined by the elite of the officer corps, who vigorously supported one candidate over another through intimidation or outright election fraud. Much of the fleecing of public funds that had taken place during virtually every political administration since independence from Spain in 1898 was undertaken to buy off the officers. It was a version of the fix or buy-out as practiced by Meyer Lansky and the Mob. Fulgencio Batista’s understanding of this process—his willingness to be both a recipient and a benefactor of graft during his long years as head of the military and also president—may explain why he and Lansky had such an intuitive understanding of each other.
By the time he was in his early thirties, Batista was a sergeant and well placed to benefit from one of the most tumultuous periods in Cuban history. As the brutal dictatorship of Gerardo Machado crumbled in 1933 and the president was forced into exile, there was a parallel revolt within the ranks of the military. Sergeant Batista had by then established himself as a skillful and charismatic orator. He had studied the writings of José Martí, the great leader of Cuban independence, and was able to make historical references that served as effective emotional flashpoints for most Cubans. He had emerged as a leader—handsome, well-spoken, and fiery. By the time the dust settled and the “Revolt of the Sergeants” played out, Batista, at the age of thirty-two, was the head of the military and the most powerful man in all of Cuba.
For the next seven years, presidents served at his pleasure, until Batista himself ran for and was elected president in 1940. Although the island continued to suffer under what was rightfully viewed as a repressive military dictatorship, Batista saw himself as benevolent—or, as he put it, a “democratic dictator.” The historical consequences of colonization were such that there was always a more brutal leader of a former colony somewhere in the world. Batista had President Rafael Trujillo, who nearby in the Dominican Republic was engaged in a blood-soaked reign of terror that made the Cuban dictator look like a populist. The U.S. administration of President Franklin Roosevelt promoted and supported Batista. At Batista’s behest, Roosevelt abrogated the Platt Amendment, a pernicious piece of legislation that allowed the United States to interfere in Cuban affairs whenever it felt like it. The Platt Amendment was replaced by the “Good Neighbor” policy, which guaranteed Batista U.S. financial support as long as he continued to help make it possible for corporations such as United Fruit to garner huge profits on the island.
Political violence and corruption continued to be the twin bridesmaids of the Cuban system. Batista had gotten where he was because of his skill at political hardball. The leaders of rival political parties were assassinated in the dead of night. The editor of a newsmagazine hostile to Batista was kidnapped by a group of unidentified men and forced to drink castor oil. Censorship was crudely enforced, and civil liberties were mere trinkets to be dispensed according to Batista’s needs and whims. Student demonstrations and labor agitation were dealt with harshly, resulting in mass arrests and imprisonment. Violent repression fed into what had always been a fact of life in Cuba—revolutionary groups dedicated to the disruption of daily life through bombings and random acts of sabotage. A certain amount of civil strife was advantageous for Batista, who had been designated the man most capable of maintaining order in a society that often seemed to be perched on the brink of chaos.
The natural result of political violence engineered by the state is corruption. Batista himself was said to have made millions through kickbacks, graft, and fraudulent government contracts. Much of the money was flown off the island and deposited in overseas accounts. The national lottery, which Batista placed under
the control of the military, was also a great source of graft, as was the daily bolita, the popular underground numbers racket. In Havana, Colonel José Eleuterio Pedrazo, who had been with Batista as far back as the Revolt of the Sergeants, received a piece of all illegal gambling activity—such as bolita, cockfighting, and sports betting—that was not directly connected to legal gaming, i.e., the casinos and the racetracks.
The fact that it appeared as though the general populace was tolerant of Batista’s tendencies toward repression and corruption was a testament to his political acumen. He ruled through what R. Hart Phillips, a reporter for the New York Times who covered Cuba during its most turbulent periods of growth, called “a system of terror and reward.” Batista implemented an ambitious rural education program designed to stamp out illiteracy. In 1939 he proposed a massive social reform agenda entitled “The Three-Year Plan.” The program was optimistic to the point of absurdity (its detractors referred to it as “The Three-Hundred-Year Plan”), but that did not detract from its fundamental understanding of Cuba’s social problems. While little of this program was ever implemented, its goals were similar to those instituted in “the new Cuba” by Fidel Castro many years later.
The achievement for which Batista would be most noted was his institution in 1940 of a legally binding sovereign constitution. To have a constitution had been the dream of most Cubans ever since liberation from the throne of Spain, but political instability and repression had made this impossible. Now women would have the right to vote, elections would be democratic, and military power would be defined within the bounds of civil power, not vice versa. It was a remarkable achievement accompanied by huge rallies in the streets and shouts of “¡Viva la constitución! ¡Viva Cuba! ¡Viva el Presidente Batista!”
Of all people, the pretty mulatto had emerged from a long apprenticeship as Cuba’s preeminent strongman to deliver its greatest symbol of democratic achievement.
Having ruled the country as a military dictator, Batista’s tenure as president seemed like an afterthought. His term was noteworthy mostly for his change in attire. Gone was his general’s uniform, complete with enough medals and ribbons to paper a small building. In civilian khakis—mostly stylish white linen and cotton suits, well suited to the tropics—Batista looked like a matinee idol. In 1942 he visited the United States as a guest of President Roosevelt and was given the full foreign dignitary treatment, with a black-tie reception at the White House and many photo opportunities. For a humble cane cutter from Banes, it was a remarkable ride to the top, and Batista could be forgiven for believing that he had achieved his highest ambition and therefore did not need to run for reelection to a second term.
The decision to go into temporary retirement at the relatively young age of forty-four may have been more personal than professional. Although Lansky and his gangster friends believed that Batista remained the “puppet master” in Cuba, the truth was more complicated. Thinking perhaps that he could maintain control by proxy, Batista put forth a surrogate candidate for president in 1944. That candidate lost to Ramón Grau San Martín. Batista could have attempted to undermine the election, or contested the result, but he chose not to. Matters on the home front took precedence.
Although married for eighteen years, Batista had for some time been carrying on an affair with Marta Fernández Miranda, a twenty-year-old green-eyed beauty whom he had first met when his military motorcade almost ran her down as she rode her bicycle in the neighborhood of Miramar in Havana. Batista set Marta up in a private home, and during the years of his presidency the relationship grew. It became apparent to Batista that he would have to choose between his illicit affair and his presidency. He chose the affair. While living in exile in Daytona Beach and New York City, Batista divorced his first wife and married Marta.
In New York, he lived in a suite at the Waldorf-Astoria, just a few floors removed from where Lansky, Luciano, and other mobsters had first made the decision to bribe Sergeant Batista fifteen years earlier. Most of Batista’s time was spent with his new bride in Florida, where he liked to play golf and go fishing.
One afternoon, he was driving through South Florida with Edmund Chester, an American writer and friend (who would one day write an obsequious biography of him). Near the small town of Mount Dora, Batista became fascinated by the picturesque orange and grapefruit groves that lined the road. He pulled the car over and stopped, jumped out, and scurried over to the grove. After plucking a couple of oranges from a tree, he hurried back to the car and drove off. Chester asked Batista why he took the fruit—surely anyone in the area would have given him all the oranges he wanted.
“No,” said Batista. “That would not have satisfied my needs. All my life I’ve wanted to steal an orange off the tree, and I’ve finally done it.”
Mostly, while in exile, the former Cuban leader enjoyed a discreet existence. It wasn’t until 1948 that his presence caused a stir, and that was because he had announced he was reentering the political fray. Time magazine, which had first put Batista’s smiling visage on its cover back in 1937, reported the announcement in an article entitled “Senator from Daytona”:
Batista was coming back. The tough ex-sergeant who bossed Cuba through clever years of “disciplined democracy” will run for Senator in the June 1 general elections…He has sat out a pleasant exile in some of the New World’s toniest suites…Every morning, he is up at 7 for a brisk row in the nine-foot boat he keeps in the Halifax River. He plays tennis at the smart Daytona Beach Bath and Tennis Club, goes to the movies two or three times a week and occasionally speaks at Rotary Club luncheons.
Every fortnight, Batista drives off to Palm Beach, Orlando or Fort Pierce for secret meetings with aides who bring the political word from Cuba and take back his instructions. Only when the Cuban government discovers an arms cache and shouts “Batista plot” are Floridians reminded that their guest is dynamite.
Batista’s decision to run for Senator (from Las Villas Province) is a hard-headed deal…it is a foot in the Cuban political door. Because most Cubans have forgotten his brutal police methods, [remembering] only that meat and butter were cheaper in his time, Batista is likely to win in a walk without so much as leaving Daytona Beach.
El Presidente in exile had his own reasons for wanting to reestablish himself as the boss of Cuba, but his decision to once again run for political office may have been influenced in part by Meyer Lansky. According to one source who frequented Lansky’s Colonial Inn casino in Hallendale, Batista was an occasional presence there. “He showed up looking immaculate, usually in a white suit. He wasn’t much of a gambler, but he liked to make his presence felt, walking through the place like a politician running for office. He seemed to know everyone by name.”
For obvious reasons, Lansky needed Batista back in power in Cuba. The political administrations of Ramón Grau San Martín and his successor, Carlos Prío Socarrás, though as corrupt as previous Cuban presidencies, did not share Batista’s visionary qualities when it came to casino gambling. Not only that, but Lansky had put his money on Batista long ago and had not yet received a commensurate return on his investment. Both Lansky and Batista were convinced that Cuba was about to enter a postwar boom in tourism potentially as profitable as anything since the Dance of the Millions in the 1920s. They wanted to be there when it happened.
By the time of Meyer and Teddy’s Havana wedding in December 1948, Batista had been back in office for several months. Batista no doubt would have run for president, but he was prohibited from doing so by Cuban law. As a former president, he could not run for the top office until he had first served at least one term in a lower office. As senator from Las Villas, a rural province on the island’s central coast, his duties were not taxing.
He put down roots at Kuquine, a palatial estate on the outskirts of Havana that would be his home for the next decade. The plan was to lie low for four years until he was eligible to run for president, at which time he would reclaim his rightful position as ruler of all Cuba and bri
ng to fruition, once and for all, Lansky’s scheme of turning Havana into the Monte Carlo of the Caribbean.
The years did not pass quietly. Once again, the problem was Cuba. Nothing had changed to alter the country’s cycle of corruption, financial instability, and political violence and unrest. Only now a new element was added to the mix—what became commonly known as gangsterismo (gangsterism).
The 1940 constitution had diminished the ubiquitous power of the military, the result being that various political factions felt compelled to create their own individual gangs and goon squads. In a country where the army had once controlled everything, chaos set in. Cubans who lived through this era remember it as a time of random violence and paranoia.
Max Lesnick, who was a young student leader at the time and a founding member of the Cuban People’s Party, or Ortodoxo, had a ringside seat. “It was a time when violence became a common part of the political process,” he recalled. “The group with the most guns had the most influence.”
Newspaper editors, student activists, and political operatives armed themselves with guns smuggled into the country or procured from the army. Gang warfare erupted throughout the island. Late-night assassinations were increasingly frequent, especially within the union movement and among the students. Carlos Prío, the newly elected president, even instituted a plan to combat gangsterismo by paying a government subsidy to gangster representatives at the University of Havana who agreed to turn in their arms. In other words, you could buy your way into the government through gangsterism. Prío’s “gangster pact” touched off a firestorm of debate. One rich landowner suggested that the only practical solution was to round up all the gang members and transport them to his plantation, where he would then supply them with ammunition so that they could have a shoot-out and eliminate one another until there was only one man left standing.
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