Plot Foiled

Cuba's election of June 1, which was encouragingly open & aboveboard, almost resulted in a military dictatorship. The news came out last week. Two nights after frail, professorial Dr. Ramon Grau San Martin was elected President, his Vice President-elect Dr. Raul de Cardenas* trotted nervously across a shadowy lawn where U.S. Ambassador Spruille Braden was dining with friends. Drawing the Ambassador aside, he spluttered that rough, tough General Manuel Benitez, Chief of the National Police, planned to seize President Fulgencio Batista, prevent Grau from assuming the Presidency by setting up a military dictatorship.

Once he was sure that the danger was real, Ambassador Braden acted vigorously. Making a nice diplomatic distinction between "intervention" and "intercession," he sent word to both Batista and Benitez that such undemocratic shenanigans were not in order. If Dr. Grau were kept from his lawful office, the U.S. would throw an airtight blockade around Cuba.

Impressed by this warning, many of Benitez's officer friends deserted him. But Benitez did not give up at once. At one formal gathering, in Ambassador Braden's presence, Benitez denounced both Batista and Grau, kept calling each of them "cabron" (Cuban for son-of-a-bitch). Then Batista struck. He fired Benitez from the Army, packed him off to Miami. For Senor (no longer General) Benitez, Ambassador Braden issued a rush-order visa.

* Not to be confused with Mexican ex-President Lazaro Cardenas.

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