"Not Our Guns!"

"Shoot some Communists" is the tried and trusty maxim of Latin American politicos seeking diplomatic recognition by the Great Powers. In Havana last week the student-supported Cabinet of President Ramon Grau and the spunky Cuban Army now commanded by ex-Sergeant ("Emperor") Fulgencio Batista seized a fine chance to impress the world with their hostility to Reds.

Local Communists had announced that they would build a brick obelisk in Fraternity Park and place therein the ashes of one Julio Mella, a Red assassinated in 1929 allegedly by agents of Cuba's detested President Gerardo ("Butcher") Machado. If trouble should break out at the funeral it would give the Army a chance to shoot Reds. President Grau officially refused the Communists permission to build the obelisk, but the Army let Red bricklayers rush it to completion overnight.

Next day soldiers policed the streets as the Communists started their funeral procession, carrying Martyr Mella's ashes in two tin-boxes. Suddenly snipers, whom the Government later branded as Communists, began a random reckless fire from the rooftops which at first crackled over the heads of the Communists and soldiers. Instantly soldiers began to fire, some kneeling and shooting directly into the Communist ranks. Only a sudden burst of tropical rain cut short what might have been a massacre, but two hours later firing began again.

Universal Newsreel's Cameraman Joseph Gibson endeavored to cover both the rooftop snipers and the soldiers blazing away below. Pitching his cinecamera on a hotel roof he started to grind. Soon Cameraman Gibson was out of action with four bullets through his legs. Friends bandaged him but soldiers burst in and tore the bandages off. "Those shots never came from our guns!" they announced after inspecting the wounds. "It was the Communists!''

Meanwhile President Grau's student supporters, backed by soldiers, raided Communist headquarters, smashed everything they could lay hands on, flung chairs into the street and kept shouting, "We are going to stamp Communism out of Cuba!'' That night correspondents checked a total of six dead, two dying, 20 wounded. The Army's excitable "Emperor" Batista was frantic because his cousin Benito had been wounded.

Next move of President Grau's Government was to deal with the Cuban officers still besieged in the U. S.-owned National Hotel which they turned into an impromptu fortress after the sergeant's coup of "Emperor" Batista (TIME. Sept. 11). Tipped off to expect trouble, the National's U. S. Manager, W. P. Taylor, and his three assistants went out to a late dinner about 10 p. m. and did not return. Shooting started next dawn. Before sundown the entire vicinity was to be a bloody bedlam.

Soldiers claimed that the first shot was fired by an officer out of his bathroom window. Promptly the soldiers blazed away with machine guns, then rushed two three-inch field guns into place and began pounding great holes in the sides of the National, property of Manhattan's Plaza Operating Co.

Not caught napping, the officers who had brought a small arsenal of pistols, rifles, machine guns and thousands of rounds of ammunition into the National, poured back a withering, effective fire. Soldiers who tried to rush the hotel were dropped in their tracks by sharpshooting officers, died writhing, groaning and gushing blood upon the grass. Fascinated by this sight was a U. S. meat-packing executive, Robert G. Lotspiech, Swift & Co.'s assistant sales manager in Havana. As he watched from the eleventh floor terrace of the nearby Lopez Serrano Apartments, a stray bullet drilled him through the heart.

Would the U. S. land Marines to protect U. S. lives? The U. S. Embassy soothed: "There is no indication that any Americans have been killed intentionally." Meanwhile the Battle of the National grew nautical. The hotel faces the sea. President Grau sent Cuba's perky little training ship Patria to shell the officers with her light deck guns. Stubbornly they held out. After five hours of battle, with officer casualties unknown but with 20 soldiers dead and 100 gravely wounded, a group of officers' wives rushed to Ambassador Welles, begged him to stop the bloodshed. "Ladies," cried Mr. Welles, "only the President of the United States can intervene!"

Five minutes later a misdirected artillery shell plumped into the Ford plant hard by the hotel. Stray bullets peppered buildings in which some 90 U. S. citizens live and work. From Washington, U. S. Secretary of State Cordell Hull queried Ambassador Welles by telephone, then announced that U. S. Citizen Lotspiech was standing in a "needlessly exposed place" when killed, urged all U. S. citizens in Cuba not to expose themselves needlessly.

Three hours later, with smoke belching from the roof of the National Hotel and great breaches gaping in its walls, the officers ran up a flag of truce. As they marched out, laid down their arms and prepared to surrender, the soldiers suddenly opened fire, shot ten defenseless officers dead in their tracks. Thirty more dead officers were found in the hotel. While the living were roughly carted off to jail, their civilian sympathizers on housetops fired into the ranks of the soldier-captors, killed 20. Soon after the officers were imprisoned, the crack of rifle squads sounded grimly from behind the walls. Until late evening guerrilla warfare continued between automobile loads of soldiers and civilians. Estimated day's toll: 120 dead, 250 wounded.

"Emperor" Batista, who had gotten much personal credit for his soldiers' anti-Red foray, was again man of the hour. Correspondents reported strong talk of an Army coup against President Grau. While visiting the wounded next day in his automobile the President was shot at by snipers whose bullets struck his convoy-car.

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