Self-Made Martyr

Since his student days at the University of Havana, Senator Eduardo Chibas, 43, has been proclaiming and demonstrating his willingness to shed his blood for a cause or for his honor. He has fought numerous duels, including a saber engagement in 1947 with Carlos Prio Socarras, now President of Cuba. When someone fired a bullet at Chibas while he was making an open-air speech back in 1947, he bared his chest and cried, "Go ahead and shoot! The Ortodoxos need a martyr."

"Ortodoxos" are members of Chibas' own Cuban People's Party. "Eddy" Chiba as was once an Autentico, a member of the Cuban Revolutionary Party, which has elected the last two Presidents of Cuba. But in 1947 he broke with the party, was soon denouncing Autentico officeholders as crooks and plunderers on his Sunday-night radio broadcasts. Cubans listened in fascination as Chibas assailed government graft and embezzlement. But he could never make his hottest accusations stick. For Chibas, the futile search for proof has been bitterly frustrating. "People don't believe me any more," he said recently.

When he appeared at the CMQ studio for his regular Sunday broadcast this week, Chibas seemed depressed. He turned the microphone over to a friend, Jose Pardo Llada, who roasted the Autenticos for 20 minutes; Chibas himself made only a short speech. He ended with: "People of Cuba, awake!" Then he fumbled under the coat of his natty, double-breasted white suit, grasped his .38-cal. revolver, squeezed the trigger. The bullet ripped into his belly, shattering his spine.

As he was being rushed to a private clinic in a friend's car, he glanced down at the ugly wound and mumbled, "It's a shame it didn't go right through the heart."

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