Word: batista
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Only Whisker-Deep. Machismo is still the element that separates Latin American leaders from the also-rans. In pre-Castro Cuba, the army of Dictator Fulgencio Batista respected its leader almost as much for his manliness and his brood of illegitimate children as for the military daring that first brought him to power in 1933. Castro is another story. Though he has the whiskery look of virility, and was considered muy macho for invading Cuba with only 81 men, his he-man rating fell sharply after he let Khrushchev pull out his missiles, and his love life, in the opinion...
...Armando is a sex-starved punk who works for the local numbers racketeer; Esteban runs guns to a revolutionist named Castro; Robert fiddles on the periphery of the left wing but lacks the will to fish or cut bait. A domineering, money-mad daughter, Elena, is married to a Batista speechwriter who regularly hauls huge bundles of cash from Havana to a Miami bank and is contemptuous of all the pin-poor folk of Ybor City...
...Fidel Castro all right, and when he was not on Russia's TV last week, his music was. From every loudspeaker came the raucous, rhythmic tunes of Sloppy Joe's in Havana; no matter that the songs were from Batista's day; to the Slavs, it all sounded pretty much the same. Hotel ballrooms shook with newly discovered mambas; Cuban students with bongo drums did their best to drown out the sound of the 21-gun salute in Red Square...
These promises served the 26th of July movement well, but they were incompatible with the undivided, unconstrained power which fell to Castro when Batista and entourage fled the country. Rather than honor the pre-victory democratic pledges, Castro turned to the Cuban and Russian Communists because they had the "disciplined and experienced cadres, the ideology, and the international support" to guarantee his leadership indefinitely. The Communists agreed to collaborate with Castro because they realized that otherwise they could have no hopes of seizing power...
...role of the United States in Castro's turn to Communism and decides it was very small. This conclusion may be correct, but it is not too convincing, since Draper reaches it by slighting Cuban nationalism and America antagonism. Draper clarifies the extent of United States aid to Batista and touches upon the effect which this and American actions over the years have had on Cuban attitudes toward the "Yanquis." Yet, he ignores anti-American nationalism when analyzing Castro's relations with this country. He sees the famous visit and aid dispute, for instance, solely as evidence of Castro...