Word: cuba
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Racing ahead of his land-reform timetable, Fidel Castro last week began grabbing cattle land, literally with a vengeance. The Prime Minister flew into Camagüey, Cuba's range country, and issued an order "intervening," i.e., putting under government control, all cattle ranches larger than 3,316 acres (25,000 acres of it owned by Texas' King Ranch). Armed soldiers in twos and threes marched into 400 ranches and took over 2,345,340 acres. As soon as the Red-tinged Agrarian Reform Institute can calculate what part of each ranch the owners will have to give...
...much as a year, but Castro jumped the gun because of his fury at the stubborn ranchers. The National Cattlemen's Association had criticized the reform as "confiscatory," planned a $500,000 advertising campaign against it. Castro called the cattlemen "counterrevolutionary," a capital offense in Castro's Cuba. His soldiers picked up and jailed Félix Fernández Pérez, president of the Rustic Estate Owners, a tobacco farmer and rancher and onetime Castro supporter, now an outspoken critic (TIME, June 22). Then Castro summoned press, labor and government delegates from all over the hemisphere...
...full import of Fidel Castro's dream of a "classless" Cuba began sinking in last week, a wave of mass meetings and angry proclamations swept the island. The immediate cause of the anger was Castro's first spread-the-wealth scheme: his land-reform bill (TIME, June 1) that became law last week. The result was the return of political debate after a hiatus of five months, and the sudden birth of outspoken opposition to the still numerically strong supporters of Castro...
...within a year, in exchange for government bonds that may be worth only a quarter of the land's actual value; Cuban landowners must give up all holdings greater than 3,316 acres; 300,000 landless peasants will get 66 acres each (which multiplies out to more than Cuba's total arable land); the peasants must plant what the government tells them, meet government production goals, and they may not sell the land. "We haven't taken over this government to play games," said Castro testily. "We've come to fix this country...
...himself out with a succession of 20-hour days at his desk. Just turned 50, he is also fighting diabetes and high blood pressure. To advise Duvalier's six doctors, U.S. Ambassador Gerald Drew brought in a U.S. Navy specialist in internal medicine from Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and two diagnosticians from Manhattan. Drew called on the President, found him "in good spirits," complied with a presidential request for "some movies, including the one of President Eisenhower's inauguration...