Word: sierras
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...five days last week the Cuban government kept officially mum while high-ranking members of the regime leaked to the press that 11,000 army troops, with artillery, mortars and bombing planes, were in an all-out drive to flush Fidel Castro from his mountain fastness in the Sierra Maestra. "This is the real thing," they said...
...clandestine rebel radio seemed to confirm that some hard fighting was in progress, because it appealed: "Come to the Sierra Maestra, Cuban doctors. We need surgeons urgently. The enemy offensive has begun violently along a 200-kilometer front...
Talk of a "big drive" involving 11,000 army troops is undoubtedly exaggerated, but there is evidence that Batista is beefing up his operations against the rebels. The army is now establishing fortified posts deep in the Sierra Maestra. Men and arms for these posts are supplied by a new weapon in Batista's arsenal-British-made, armored helicopters, each reportedly carrying 14 men with full equipment...
...large, lonesome Nevada last week the winter snows that gave the state its name† began melting on the mountain flanks. Below the snowline, 110,000 sq. mi. of the nation's sixth biggest state came alive with spring activity. Along the Sierra Nevada, Basque sheepherders led freshly shorn flocks to summer pasture, kept wary vigil against marauding mountain lions. In the revived ghost town of Virginia City, cars disgorged Midwestern tourists to gaze at Piper's Opera House and Lucius Beebe's Territorial Enterprise. Around Reno, candidates for grass widowhood whiled away their residence on dude...
There was no doubt that the rebels were hurt, and they showed it. From the chief himself came a summons to his six top provincial lieutenants to head back to the Sierra Maestra, presumably for an agonizing reappraisal. The total failure of Castro's touted "total war" had highlighted 1) his weakness in practical organizing ability, and 2) the movement's lack of a social program to attract Cuba's labor and its Negroes (25% of the total population, some 40% of Oriente's). Said a wealthy, aging Havana rebel last week: "From...