Word: pedraza
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...President remained inactive for two days making plans. Impatient Colonel Pedraza demanded an audience, was refused. Fellow Plotter Lieut. Colonel Gonzalez, disgruntled over the loss of his customs concession and the sharp contraband control ordered by Batista, unlimbered the guns of La Punta fortress, trained them on the Presidential Palace. Guards set up machine guns around the Palace and piled sandbags in front of it. Cubans waited for the revolution...
...years of success at remaining in power made Batista tolerant and social-minded, but only quickened the appetites of certain henchmen. Determined to put Cuba on a democratic basis that would convince the U.S. Treasury it was a good loan risk, Batista turned the Army over to Pedraza, promoted to colonel in 1936, got himself elected President. Last June he ratified a constitution that removed all civic concessions from the Army and Navy and reduced them to a position of subservience to the State. He also accorded labor extensive rights, to the annoyance of native and foreign investors. World...
Trouble started when the President, impatient with Police Chief Bernardo Garcia, a Pedraza stooge, for not enforcing his decrees against gambling and vice, demanded and got his resignation. He intended to replace him with his friend, Lieut. Colonel Manuel Benitez, but Colonel Pedraza got to the police headquarters first and announced that he was again Chief of Police as well as Commander in Chief of the Army. It was a direct challenge to Batista's authority...
Under cover of darkness, Batista slipped out the back door of the Palace, jumped in his grey and blue car and sped away to Camp Columbia, the Army headquarters. He called the officers together, ascertained that they were with him rather than with Commander in Chief Pedraza. Then things began to happen...
...President placed himself at the head of the Army, suspended constitutional guarantees for 15 days and commanded the Army to take over public utilities. The big guns of Camp Columbia were trained on La Punta fortress. Batista ordered the arrest of Colonel Pedraza and of Lieut. Colonels Gonzalez and Garcia, replaced them. Next morning all the rebels were in custody. To the Army and nation the President declared that it had been necessary to "repress" his Army and Navy chiefs because of their "attitude of sedition," but that "a deep crisis which endangered the stability of the Republic has been...