Transcripts For CSPAN3 The Cuban Revolution Behind-the-Scenes 20240713

This event. Tonight we are very pleased to welcome to the smithsonian tony, australian born perpetual explorer, travel, writer and author of six books including napoleons privates 21 years of history unzipped, the centers grand tour, a journey through the underbelly of europe, and most recently the improbable revolution that changed world history. As a College Student tony regularly disappeared to hitchhike through the outback and travel through rural india where he briefly enjoyed an inglorious career as a film extra. Based in the east village of manhattan he makes it a point to continue exploring in iceland, beijing, tasmania to name a few. Tonys travel stories have been published in magazines like the New York Times and Smithsonian Magazine and have been translated into a dozen languages having been selected 7 times for the best American Travel writing series. Hes also a regular television guest on the History Channel where he has spoken about everything from the crusades to the birth of disco. The book is available for sale and signing after the program. Please join me in welcoming tony perrottet. Hi, everybody. Thank you for coming out on such a beautiful spring night. D. C. Is looking pretty good today. To celebrate the secrets of the cuban revolution. And you may be wondering from my funny accent what is an australian doing in new york and writing about cuba . Many have wondered, and the reason i used to live in argentina and reported a lot all around south america. And if you live in latin america and deal with latin america everyone there in some way is thinking about cuba, what happened in cuba and whats going to happen in cuba. In that sense i felt like i really had to go, and i finally did in 1996 just after the soviet union had collapsed. And it was sort of an economic disaster. I got down there from new york because you couldnt fly direct in those days. I went via nassau. And i did get to the airport and went into this disused terminal and lionel did appear and i gave him the money and he gave me a little hand written thing and pointed out to a russian prop plane. So six people squeezed onto this plane and it was a fascinating experience. The next time i went was under the obama years and i got invited on the first private jet to fly from miami to havana. Also six passengers, slightly different experience. Champagne flowing, and picked up in these beautiful american cars, being taken to a luxury hotel with a rooftop pool and even had wifi. It was kind of like science fiction. Yeah, after that going on that trip i asked a friend, i wanted to find out a little bit about the revolution. And she said, no, it doesnt exist you should write it. And i was like, okay, that seems wildly difficult and extremely unlikely. But on this trip, the obama era trip i heard about the sights still around the island, still around cuba including for example the hide outs in the mountains where fidel used to lurk and other extraordinary places. So i proposed to the smithsonian i go back and follow this trail and follow the history of the revolution, which is how that story thats in the precipitate out came out. It was a 3,000, 4,000 story of going to these places and finding all these things that was going on. Look, i should have had that out to give you an idea of the classic image of havana. So after i did that i realized there was much more to be discovered. That really was just the tip of the iceberg. I suggested a book about it and i started the way i was trying to get into it, the thing that inspired me was this idea i discovered how popular the revolution was amongst americans back in those days, 1959, which seemed, you know, extraordinary given what it happened since and how difficult it is to actually find out about the revolution here and to go into cuba can be quite difficult as well. I tried to investigate here the image that sort of most intrigued me was just after the dictator fled ed sullivan flew down to cuba to interview fidel just as he was about to come into havana and the interview is still around, actually seen on youtube. And ed is absolutely star struck and is all over fidel comparing him to george washington, talking about guerillas a fine young group of men. And fidel says what do you think of america, and he says a very positive feeling. It was sort of a love fest, anyway. So this was the sort of point where i started the book and sort of go back to find out how it all unfolded because it was incredibly unlikely this bunch of youngsters, they were in their 20s, some are teenagers that crash land on the coast of cuba and how they ended up defeating an army of 40,000 professional soldiers in the space of just over 2 years. It really seemed like an extraordinary story. So and the thing i like about the story as well is that its broken up into very specific little chapters in a way. Its like a little operetta, a five part operetta. There are five parts to the story, so youll know more or less where we are as we drift along. The first part, the sort of prelude in a way is heres the young fidel playing basketball, and he was a very athletic character and charming student as well as his nickname was el loco, the crazy one. He would do things like he would bet his friends he wouldnt drive his bicycle into a wall at full tilt, and theyre like ill bet you that. So he went down a hill, smashed into a wall and was out for like three days and that was just to prove a point. This gives insight into his character, by the way. In basketball and baseball were his favorites, all the american sports. And you can actually go and visit his family house which is on the eastern side of cuba. He was from quite a rich family strangely enough. But he grew windup with this sense of injustice because he would go to the local school there and all the other kids did want have shoes. He was the only one with shoes, and he realized his dad a rich landholder was paying the workers very badly. He would organize a strike of his father workers at one stage. And if you go to this place its called you can actually go into the family bedroom. And him and his younger brother raul shared the bedroom there and you can see his outfits there. He had a great pitching arm but apparently not enough to get a scholarship to miami or to indianapolis. So anyway fidel, this extraordinary character, one of the more extraordinary characters of the 20th century, the thing i love about this one is he didnt have a beard. He wants to have a beard. He was this young lawyer, quite conservative. He went to havana, went to the university there studying war and became more radicalized, though, as he went there. And there were all the things brewing including in 1953 a coup by the former president. He was trying to become a senator. Had the coup not occurred he probably would have run and then 8 years later might have run for the presidency himself. Instead bu tista comes in, takes over and everyone is suddenly cut out of the process. Batista basically milking the state in a blatant way and extremely violent as well. All the secret police were going around beating up and murdering opponents. It was this thuggish environment. Fidel came to the conclusion, and many cubans came to the conclusion this american backed dictator could not be defeated by peaceful means, that they had to do something kind of extreme. So they decided to incite an insurrection. In the east the major city is call called santiago, very dreamy place, but also has a barracks there. And he and another 100 of his friends basically students got together and sort of taught themselves how to shoot guns, not very well. And they made themselves uniforms to make themselves look like soldiers. And they piled into this bunch of chevrolets and buicks and dodges to attack this place that had 500 soldiers in it, and they thought theyd surprise themal while they were asleep. They came to the conclusion theyd all be so hung over they wouldnt fight. This was not the case it turned out. They completely blew it. Fidel accidently ran over a couple of patrolman that led off the alert and a fire fight started and many were killed, many were captured and tortured to death. It was kind of a disaster. And yet one of those disasters like the battle of little big horn in the United States thats celebrated in its own weird way. So jouk still go and see the bullet holes they provided as part of a shrine. But fidel was eventually c captured as was his brother and they were all sent to an island and they were all throne into this model prison which is modeled on one in chicago. Its an example of the pinoptican. For whatever reason the Political Prisoners were all put in their own room together which was a strange decision and they gave each other classes on revolutionary theory and they plotted what to do and sent message tuesday people outside. And fidel even managed to in a great publishing story, he wrote a book while he was in there, sort of a pamphlet really which he wrote on pieces of paper and smuggled out piece by piece to supporters in havana. Most of the time theyre also writing in lemon juice. So the guards never asked why. They sort of had this passion for citrus. So anyway eventually the pressure mounted to release fidel and his friends. Theyre youngsters and still basically unknown at this stage. So they flee to mexico city where they organize and they decide to invade cuba and theyre complete amateurs. The thing i love about the story its as if a bunch of phd grads were dumped together. They really had to teach themselves how to shoot, how to navigate, how to survive in the mountains. So they would put rocks in the backpacks and go hiking up and down the streets in mexico city, sometimes up in the mountains they found a veteran of spanish civil war to teach them how to shoot guns. And they tried to raise money. And they were often caught. The secret police were after them in mexico city. And at one stage they were all arrested. And by this stage theyve been joined by a young chap named ernesto nuvara and he signed onto the expedition. He was also arrested and this is the first known photograph of them together in a mexico prison. So things were really tightening and squeezing down on them so they decided to get going as fast as they could. This is the second part where they staged the invasion. This was a demented plan really and they decided to buy from an american doctor, retired doctor in mexico city he was the one who organized in santiago going they were there going to arrive some time at the end of november. They planned it all out. Fidel was going to send a telegram. The book you ordered was out of print, this was the code they were going to leave mexico city, the coast and head over. The plan was going to take like five days. And so they all piled into the boat, the grandma, which is kind of like the ss minnow. It was leaky. It barely worked. It had been waterlogged and they managed to squeeze on 82 and they were all in there like sardines. And they setoff at night in a storm ignoring the fact it was one of the worst storm warnings in months. As soon as they got out of the harbor it started to rock quite a lot, and they all started to get seasick. Chay for whatever reason had the seasickness tablets so they all started with the exception of raul and the professional sailors they all started to get seasick, and it was a spectacular disaster. Worst the water was coming into the boat, and they realized it was starting to flood, so they grabbed whatever they could and started throwing things overboard because they thought they were going to sink until someone realized the tap was on in the toilet and it was flooding. This set the tone really for the revolution, the early days of the revolution. They were heading over to this amazing coastline but its had some of the worst roads in cuba which is saying something. But it was very remote, very isolated and fidel had decided on this, and they could hike into one of the mountains in the east, probably the poorest and mosteseilated part of cuba and indeed in the caribbean. They were two days late and they come along and they sort of crash land. Theyre going along the coast and suddenly the boat stops, and its kind of like they hit a sandbag. This is the only known photograph of them actually getting in there. They get in there and the 82 of them go across, and they realize to their horror they havent landed on one of the beautiful beaches for which cuba is reknowned, theyve landed in a swamp and one of the most sinister swamps in the east. Today you can visit the swamp. Theyve done this beautiful walkway so you can see where they crash land. Thathey had to climb over the vines, dropped their stuff, sort of panicked, lost their shoes. It was a complete fiasco, and they were already dehydrated and desperate. So they turn up and meet a farmer. And fidel says have no fear weve come to save the cuban people. The guy apparently resisted the urge to burst out laughing, but anyway the farmer was actually very helpful. He catches a chicken and hes going to cook it for them as well as a small piglet and suddenly they hear shooting back at the boat and they realize their boat has been spotted by the coast guard, and soon the air force is coming. So they decided to schlep off towards the 30 mile walk. Unfortunately on the third day theyre surrounded and theyre ambushed. The armys found them. And bullets start appearing out of nowhere. And its a massacre. Its like 20 of them are killed there, the rest are captured. Everyone else just scatters in wild directions. Chay is there and he thinks hes shot in the neck, he gets knicked and hes a very poetic soul. And he leans up against a tree and remembers a jack london story until someone grabs him youre getting out of here, and they make a run for it and they end up in the bushes. People are scattered everywhere. Fidel is by himself and hes sitting in a sugar cane field. And as it gets dusk he notices two of his friends also there but the armys going back and forth. So they get together and hang out in the sugar cane field for five days waiting for army to go away. Theyre drinking dew in the morning and knockignawing on su cane to keep themselves sustained. The other two are looking alt each other saying fidel has lost it, hes gone mad. But as it turns out they get it together and they walk basically, it takes them like ten days walking just a few hours aday and mostly at night and they manage to get to the Meeting Point up in the mountains and this is the sierra and it turns out fidels brother raul manages to make it out with a couple of people, and chey navara, its sort of like a buddy, sort of like pal or in australian like mate. And eventually 20 of them gather there, and they end up camping out in a coffee field and recovering from their wounds. Many others were caught and butchered by the army, you know, machine guns. And it was a kind of miraculous thing. And those who survived by default became the great leaders of the revolution. The one who was meant to be leading the army unfortunately was caught and they found out two years later he was beaten to death and shoveled. To these guys later someone would write a book called the 12 about the 12 people survivors. It was actually like 20 but they like the religious connotations of 12. Theyre up in the mountains trying to stay low, trying to survive. And the only reason they do survive at all is through the efforts of cilia sanchez, a doctors daughter woo lives down in the low lands and sort of the major organizer of the revolution. If you go to the havana archives you can find her notes, you know, her accounts. She was very meticulous, and she would do things day by day. She found them new boots, found them food. She would organize mule trains to go up and take them stuff. And over the coming months it would turn out thereat if it wasnt for her the whole revolution would have been snuffed out. Boys, chicos were filled with enthusiasm but they couldnt organize their way out of paper bag. They couldnt clean their guns. Ammunition guns were going off left, right and center. But she was able to organize reinforcements going up there and kept the revolution going through these crucial early months. Now at this stage batista had sent out the word fidel and all his friends were dead and this was going on for some months. So eventually word went back to havana fidel wanted to get an interview going, so they decided to contact the New York Times. There was a representative in havana. She didnt want to go up there, up to the mountains but she contacted another guy by the name of Herbert Matthews who was a great latinamerican of his day. He knew cuba very well, flew down to havana and the agent said well send someone from the times up there. And the agent looked at him and hes kinds of frail in his late 50s and matthew said im going myself. And the other guy couldnt quite believe him, but matthews didnt decide to do it. They were driven by agents out out to the east and americans on holiday at different times, and he hikes up into the mountains and fidel meet him. And its an extraordinary thing. Fidel meet him, hes still only got like 20 guys and most of them are in really bagged uniforms. And he tells his brother to get the men to walk back and forth around and around and change outfits so it looks like hes got a lot more people than he does. Theyve also had to walk sideways sometimes so you wouldnt see the back of their shirts had been torn open. So hes got a ragtag army. And fidel tells matthews hes got sales all over the mountains, 200, 300 soldiers which matthews buys. He has this extraordinary thing where fidel ends up on the front page of the New York Times where and its a growing report, and its a very romantic revolution. Matthew had been in the spanishamerican war himself and he thought it was a resistance, a youth rebellion and against all odds robin hood sort of thing. And this is sort of the image that sort of continues throughout the revolution. And in many ways its right. These guys, they didnt really have any terrible political agenda other than getting rid of batista. That was a goal they could get behind. A lot of political stuff we associate like communism for example came much letter. Fidel what he basically wanted was power. Someone later said he tried to make midel communist and fidel laughed and said id be communist if i was stalin and refused to discuss it any further. In any case on the same day Herbert Matthews meet him, cilia comes up cilia is the one in the middle there, and cilia sanchez hikes in as well to meet midel for the first time, and this extraordinary moment here hes showing off his favorite rifle, and turns out she loves shooting, she loves fishing, she loves the great outdoors. Totally devoted today the revolution and its a sort of romantic connection that begins. One of the great romances of the revolution really. Theres been a lot written and really this union between cilia and fidel. Thats what becomes the motor of it revolution because he laz all these amazing ideas and he spouts them out, and she puts them into action. She translates them into something thats practical and could happen. Fidel is on the front page of the New York Times as the face of the cuban resistance. So its like an extraordinary thing. That inspires people that cbs news decides to go up there as well. And here we have a guy who decides to interview fidel. And hes a natural it turns out, and he knows how to stage things as well. So he says well do it on top of the highest mountain in cuba, a spectacular view behind him, and unfolding coastline and an independence hero and they all sing these rousing songs and its broadcast to 50 Million Viewers across the United States. So suddenly fidel is this huge presence there despite the fact, you know, he still only has a handful of people, a handful of followers. Now, today you can actually go up to and its still an extremely poor place. The other reason they were able to survive is that the local farmers decided to help them out. They had long felt isolated or removed from the rest of the country. Theyd been left out basically in cuba, and they were sort of exiled. They gave food, gave support, carried emergencies and told fidel when the army was coming in and when they were not. In this early nomadic phase they heard basically sort of a secondary army helping them out with supplies. And theyre all wandering around in the mounterns for months really and they were changing camp every night. This is an exhausting time for the revolution. And one of things that i found in the havana archives, one of my favorite discoveries where the old writing in the old diaries by the leaders. And the platoon leader and he wrote a diary as well never published. She was sort of a romantic, and he had a girlfriend he left back in mexico. Didnt particularly like hardship, didnt like trudging around, but he was devoted today the revolution. He was also a very lonely character. He missed his girlfriend, and he writes all this down in the diary. And theres these marvelous accounts where he falls in love with every woman he meet in the mountains, shop girls, farmers daughters, volunteers and it always falls to bits. But he writes these lovely poems about it. He does end up in one romantic liaison and dallies so long his platoon has left and they have to go back to get him. But it ends when the girl opens up a locket around his neck and sees an image of his girlfriend. So he had these extraordinary insights into this amateurish revolution. After the Herbert Matthews story was published in the New York Times a lot of americans were inspired to come down and join the revolution. Three kids, three teenagers from Guantanamo Bay decide to disappear and fidel decides its a good pr thing. So they let the three American Kids join, and then they write an open letter to the u. S. Government saying, you know saying they love the revolution, that its like the Founding Fathers all over again and its published in the New York Times again. And its very much calling for the americans to stop supplying batista the dictator with arms. A lot of batistas planes were refueling in Guantanamo Bay. The americans are training the secret police. It was really not an ideal situation. So the three kids are there, but fidel eventually decides one of them really couldnt hack the mountain life. Fidel eventually decides its too dangerous having them there because if they get killed or wounded it would be a pr disaster. So he lets them go. One guy stays for another three months and finally fidel sends him back to the United States to do fundraising speeches because theyve setup offices in new york, on the Upper West Side right Near Columbia University and all these students keep turning up to try to volunteer for the revolution for the Summer Holidays only. They want to be back for their classes in fall. Only a few of them actually make it down there, but theres some Great Stories of kids in berkeley to steal their parents car and try to drive to miami to go down to join the revolution and fail dismally just as well. But anyway floating around we have another rare early photo of chey. He was a medic. He wasnt initially that important, but it turned out he had an extraordinary talent for guerilla warfare. And he was quite an extraordinary character, very austere, very committed, ethereal in many ways and he loved dogs in particular. And he mind carry these dogs everywhere and theyd be gathering around him. And one of the saddest stor eies is that he and his group had one of their favorite dogs and the army patrol was going by and the dog starts whining and making these noises so chey was like youve got to rid of the dog and has to strangle the dog as the army was going by. Its one of those weird antecdotes. And he was sort of a poetic soul and kite goodlooking. There are some amazing photographs. I mean, it was probably historys most photogenic revolution in many ways because the chinese revolution, the Russian Revolution was paintings and statues, but this was the gold age of the magazine. All these extraordinary magazines that many of them no longer exist but they would do these beautiful photo spreads. The guys were in paris match at one stage, its kind of an extraordinary thing. And this is the first execution of the revolution. They had a trial, a series of trials that lasted for 12 days. There were a punch of guys who were impersonating them. They were going around telling people they were revolutionaries and then stealing stuff, which was alienating a lot of the farmers. So they put them on trial and the ring leaders are executed and here the photographer actually captures the execution, kind of an incredible image. This is again in the very early days when theres like 100 of them floating around and 1957 at the stage. And i found it interesting how they did it. And they would do things like they would have this great support base in the cities, and they would try to convince people to start burning the sugar plantations to sort of undercut the economy. So they put out these helpful leaflets. Here they suggest tying balls of phosphorus on the backs of rodents and sending them into the sugar cane fields or using a slingshot, the phosphorus it would burn and theyd send it into a field that would start these conflagrations. Whether it worked or not nobody knows. But they would do other things as well. The army was going around randomly all over and a lot of these bombs wouldnt go off. Or if they did go off, they did almost no damage because its jungly, the fact the viet cong, it basically gets absorbed in t the mulch. Theyd create theyre own booby traps and hang them and get garlands and figure out how to explode them from a distance. Again, one of these extraordinary sort of things. Condensed milk was their favorite food. So they had tons of cans. Tai they would get them up from the low lands and it was the nectar of the guards because it was kind of sweet and rich. They would make other dishes as well and there were great recipes that survived and sausage guerilla style where he would get a spicy hot dog and chop it up, saute it and serve it up and that was his favorite dish. Often it would be just one sausage they had a night. Chey wrote about accidently discovering a whole tin of sausages and he said it was the greatest feast he ever had in his life. But they managed somehow to make it through to the end of 1957. And just by hanging around they were sort of winning in a certain way. They would take photographs. Here in chey who had gone after a break off camp with his men, and hes saying happy new year 1958. He takes this photograph and distributes it around as sort of a mocking photograph. And he had this whimsical sense of humor. He decided to keep the calf and only many months later he loses it and is sort of heartbroken. So we have these guys hanging out still in the mountains but still in havana very little is changing. Havana is of the sin city of the western hemisphere. If youve seen the godfather part ii theyre the ones who are running these beautiful art deco casinos that are all still there. Prostitution is rife. Its one of the Great Centers and he loves it. He goes to the shanghai theater to see super man, the details i wont go into but these live sex shows. And its an extraordinary decadent place, but theres an underground growing there as well. You know, its just the support is probably at its weakest in havana. In any case up in the mountains fidel is preparing for like a 5 or 10year war. He decides to actually get a permanent base. Theyve got about 300 men at this stage, and he decides instead of going around medically they have to have somewhere they can all hole up. Cecilia comes in and designs this beautiful camp in a very isolated place. You go up this trial and you can still go there today. All the huts are still there. You go up this trial clamoring up and you finally trudge along and it suddenly opens up in this sort of like secret eerie thats there. This is what it looks like in 1958, and this was like the main plaza for them, and he was sort of hanging out there and read the newspaper and meet people that would come up and sort of come up with plans. Now, as you can also see he started to grow his beard very early on. They all decided theyd actually thrown their razors overboard but they decide they were going to keep growing their beards until the war was won. So they were known as the bearded ones to distinguish them from everyone else. Fidel is wearing his cap and getting a distinctive look that will become world famous eventually. This is the hut that cilia made for herself and fidel. And its there by a Bubbling Brook and it compares to a Chinese Philosophy hut and its up in the mountains, very breezy, very tremy, very cool and the bed is still there and the kitchens still there. And they have this fridge that was finally brought up and it still has the bullet holes in it that the air force, they strafed the mule train. You could still go up there and the guide will show you around and its all sort of barricaded off. The guide also wandered off at one stage and i thought oh, well ill climb over and go into the bedroom and the mattress is still there and decide to lie down on fidels bed and maybe get some of the machismo. And its propped open and filled with flowers and a lavish sort of tropical scene. And its such a poetic place, and it was here he started to act as if he was already president of cuba. He was sort of beginning orders and coming up with plans. So people who came who trudged up there were incredibly impressed he had this sense of authority. And he was also joined by others. And at this stage more and more women are starting to join the revolution. They had been working in the cities, but they were often suspicion was started to fall on them. Initially the cuban mail police couldnt conceive the idea women had political ideas at all, so they never sort of bothered the women, and they said they would actually build their own petticoats. But eventually people did start to figure them out. And cilias there writing and an m. I. T. Chemistry graduate, she spoke fluent english and she became the major operative in santiago, and she was the one organizing all the stuff because frank by this stage had been murdered, grabbed in the streets and plugged twice in the head for a 3,000 bounty. He was 22. So vilma is there and shes organizing it until finally suspicion is falling on her and she manages to go out in the nick of time. He does a spread of all the gals, the sort of sexy look that is the counter part of the handsome guerilla guys, and hot of women were going up. You know, sewing uniforms, but others were joining, you know, wanting to fight. And eventually fidel starts a womens platoon, which is something of a world first, at least like 25 years before west point. So they headed their own platoon, theres like a dozen of them whod go out into combat the whole time. Meanwhile im sort of crack along here and weve got a revolution to get through. But meanwhile they became more and more popular and so they would drift into villages, and it was sort of like a party, it would be like a fiesta. Theyd crack open the beers and give them food and whatever until the summer and batist adecides hes got to get rid of these guys because just by hanging around theyre sort of winning in a strange way. So he gets 10,000 soldiers and sends them up into the mountains, he calls it operation end of fidel. So they all plow into the mountains and fidel gets word of it and they set booby traps along these mountain trails. And hes got 300 men so of course being a classical scholar he says its like which didnt end well for the spartans, but that was his idea. And the overwhelming odds were there, and they didnt they had all sorts of contingency plans, but in the end they were terrified they start to lose their morale. They give up. They start surrendering en masse. And fidel has this brilliant idea of treating them extremely well, and giving them medicine and feeding them and let them go back. Theyre quite decent, theyre not hurting us. So everyone else in the army realizes why are we dying for 35 a month for batista whos basically raping the country. And they start to lose faith as well in the struggle. So eventually the whole assault fizzles out and batista gives up and they decide to leave fidel in the mountains assuming thats kind of it, theyre contained in the mountains for a while. But fidel has other ideas. Within weeks of this sort of incredible victory, incredible survival, he decides to send chey and camilllo on the right there is the other great leader that is so so extremely popular in cuba. He decides to send them down into the low lands on what seems like a Suicide Mission to trudge across the open terrain and setup bases further into the island. And if you go around there now its extremely beautiful, but its quite exposed. So they were often strafed. They found the people in the low lands werent that friendly. And ought laugh them the propaganda went out they were communists that shouldnt be supported. At this stage this is where around chey loses his farage hat and decides to wear a beret. Hes sort of going around on a mule because he often couldnt walk, he often had to be carried. And so they would actually for days he would be lugging him around and yelling get moving and he was seen more as a liability in many stages than an asset. But he proves his leadership and perhaps because of the asthma his incredible endurance. And he goes to some mountains and sets up base there and sort of organizes all the other antibatista forces. And in this project he meet 26 years old from santa clara, sort of a shes a former teacher and she had joined the revolution, been burned as i say and fled up to the mountains. And they start they didnt like each other to begin with, but she at one stage shes driving by in a jeep and sees her by the road and jump in and she says okay and hop in. And in a sense she never got of the jeep. She ends up workings as an aid to camp for chey. They end up getting married and have four children. I was just in havana hanging out with the oldest of their four children who does motorcycle tours in cuba. Meanwhile fidel is kind of chilling out in the mountains and doing interviews and sort of organizing things until in november he starts to go down to the low lands as well to try and take the fight to batistas army. And thats all going on over in the east. But in the center of the island chey decides to attack the main town called santa clara. Its where all the railroads, basically the heart of cuba, and hes wandering along giving orders and none of them had ever taken a city before, let alone with 100 men. Very simple but brilliant idea. Through the whole struggle up and down cuba this armored train had been going back and forth carrying troops, hundreds of guns, carrying bombs, hand grenades a sort of moving arsenal heavily fortified and its of course sent to santa clara. The train comes barrelling down at full speed and is derailed and it wrecks. And all the guys who were in there jump out. The ones who dont they try mall tav cocktails and theyre very easy to make, very cheap. Women used to carry them around in cocacola containers for them so they could fight with them. In santa clara they would make mall tav cocktails and pass them out windows so they could use. This happens in december 1958, and news sort of filters out they managed to seize this train, and its like aladdins cave. Theyve got hundreds of guns, machine guns, mortars, bazookas, and this is an extraordinary thing. And word filters back to havana on new years eve. And the dictator who had his main worry at this stage was that hed be sort of arrested and put on trial decides to cut and run. So he has a regular new Years Eve Party. Again, if youve seen godfather part ii, its more or less accurate. He holds his regular new Years Eve Party, has some chicken and rice and coffee with brandy and reads this statement hes about to leave havana, hes about to abandon cuba and theres three d. C. 4s waiting on the airstrip and he has a list of names whos going with him. What does happen at first its disbelief and people start running to the airplanes that are all sort of idling away and the pilots still have no idea where theyre going. And they go in there and do the list of names, the military rush off trying to get money and batista had sent over his money already in swiss bank accounts. And they pile into the three plane and head off. Two of them go to florida, not to miami, which is extremely profidel at this stage. They intstead go to jacksonvill and palm beach. The americans had finally decided a couple of weeks earlier they could no longer support batista. And not only that they wouldnt let him into the country. And so he flies to the Dominican Republic where theres a right wing dictator who welcomes him with open arms. But suddenly theres a sort of word starts to filter out on new years day, the state radio doesnt announce it. They just play beabeathovens 9t and fidel himself is over in the east on a farm and he hears about it on the radio. He has no idea this guy is going to come in, and its like, wow, first he thins its this military coup. And then he realizes he better do something. So he goes to santiago where he gives this very rousing speech on the evening of new years day where he claims a victory for the revolution but he makes sure to do it in a place where the spanish surrendered after the spanishamerican war. Part of the whole root of the revolution is that the cubans in the 19th century had been trying for decades to get rid of the spanish, and the United States intervened right at the last minute, 1898 and saved the day, but they decide to occupy cuba for 3 years in military occupation. And then they refuse they dont even allow the cubans to come into the surrender ceremonies which were in the santiago main square. It was considered one of the great historical insults. So fidel makes certain to do this to actually do the declaration with all the cubans there, with of emnit yrk. So instead of flying to havana he has the idea to go over land in this caravan taking a week and stopping at key points along the way, giving speeches and his skill as an orator comes out, endless twohour speeches begin, and cubans love him and each step of the way he gets more and more support. Finally gets comes to havana and sent the rest ahead to occupy the main barracks, each have 100 gorillas and 5,000 soldiers thrown down their arms, each of them, one of the observers said it was enough to make you burst out laughing, no one could quite understand, there was no resistance at all. They were completely giving up. The cia didnt understand. They thought there should be some sort of negotiated opposition but as fidel gets closer and closer to havana it is obvious he has 99 of the support of the population. He arrives in havana and goes to the main military base in front of the place where the legendary new Years Eve Party occurred and he gives an incredible speech, the revolution has finally triumphed and as he does these women in the front row release these doves, symbols of peace and good fortunate. And they land on the podium. One is on his shoulder. For the rest of the speech theyre sitting there. And giving this sort of divine aura, sort of benediction. Santaria as well, considered extremely good luck. So we have in the following weeks, the main magazine has a portrait of him with an obvious halo and he was considered this strangely christlike figure, hard to believe, but he was considered a great savior of the island. Camino is also extremely popular. Hes from havana. A goodlooking dude. Real bon vivant described like a ramba dancer more than gorilla, would carry on more like jesus christ on a spree. Meanwhile clay and marie kept a nice relationship traveling around in the mountains. Most of the time they were too dirty or exhausted or tired to have a romantic relationship. Finally when they get to havana, things start to progress. Its one of the first revolutionary marriages. Raul and velma get married. Celia we dont know what she thought but she backs out, she stays the great organizer. In fact, they have a suite in the havana hilton, but, the romantic side of it starts to slide. Meanwhile, the gorillas keep their distinctive look. They keep their uniforms. They keep their long hair. They keep their beards. Theyre like the prototype hippies. Making a complete control traft with the contrast with the very stayed eisenhower era mad men look of the time. One thing i thought was interesting, the magazines would have contrast between the gorilla and the advertisements in american magazines is particularly striking. The guys are short back and in suits and ties. The man in the gray flannel suit. Theyre all going off to work. Polishing their shoes. The women are all sort of the ideal housewife. Theyre cooking for the kids. Theyre, you know, very doris day looking. So the contrast was very striking. So since the 60s as we know them, as we have referred to them in shorthand, beginning in 1959, this sort of idea of this rebelloius youth. Movement. It was sort of already brewing in the United States in a time where, especially in young people, theres a lot of dissatisfaction growing and fidel was regarded as a james deansort of character. Marlon brando, a rebel with a cause sort of thing. Meanwhile fidel is having a blast, hanging out with earnest helmingway there. And this period, 1959, its winding down now, in case youre wondering, its sort of like the final period. Its what i call the honey moon of the revolution. John paul s said it but i steel that. Its a time everyone loved fidel. And cha. And the barboodos were heroes in the United States as well. In april fidel and the gang were invited up to the American Society of editors. They all fly up and theyre very popular here. When they go to new york theyre mobbed. Theres like 20,000 people to meet them at pen station. Fidel is carried on the shoulders to his hotel. He goes and climbs the empire state building, and goes to the bronx zoo, he gives a speech to 20,000 people in central park. Again, all of the press coverage is all about him. That reincarnatation of one of the Founding Fathers. Its as if americans were recognizing their own better selves. You know. This sort of sense of a small group who manage to over throw an evil empire. And one almeda is also extremely popular amongst africanamericans at the cusp of the Civil Rights Movement saw in cuba overnight they get rid of segregation laws and all of the hotels, everyones open, turns out, its not as easy as that. Theres a lot of other things but officially segregation is gone, the struggle in the United States is just beginning. Here we have fidel and chay more and more charming, and chay is starting to become more star and the revolution starts to go further to of the left and the fight begin after the trip to new york things go quickly awry, partly because the washington visit was not a success. In public it was amazing, everyone loved them, seemed to be a huge success for fidel and the gang but it turned out eisenhower was mifed it wasnt a official visit. Fidel was just turning up. So he made sure to be out of washington playing golf for the whole time fidel was here. Instead he sends Richard Nixon his vice president. And nixon and fidel hate each other on sight. They have a 90minute meeting but doesnt go well at all. Nixon is convinced that fidel is extremely naive. Fidel calls nixon a son of a bitch, an opinion others shared i suppose, but then they realize things might be going awry or not as well as he hoped. Because he wanted to commune directly to the american people. To the frustration of the body guards he used to leap over the barriers and start shaking hands with americans, hugging them, yelling out i need to meet my people, i want to meet my people, sort of like a rock star. But at one stage he sort of thinks hes getting his message through and hes in the hotel room doing a little dance saying, theyre starting to understand us, theyre starting to understand us. Because he couldnt figure out why americans were so obsessed with the communism and why they didnt understand and fully sympathize with the main goal of independence of cuba. They wanted independence unfortunately, also was basically economic independence and america ran everything, the best land, the best rail roads, the electricity companies, they owned the telephones. It was sort of a crash course. And naively, both america and cuba at the initial stages were thinking it could be avoided but things did start to go awry. In 1959, towards the end, eisenhower authorizes assassination of fidel and they Start Talking of an invasion plan. By 1960 fidel comes back to new york to speak at the u. N. And he is snubbed everywhere and hated and villified. And hes in his hotel and accused of cooking live chickens in the hotel room and they all decant and they get rallies outside and malcolm x goes to visit and one of the other advise yvisi visitors is one who was offering economic aid and now will offer much more as well. The americans had banned imports of cuban sugar so the russians hanging around in the wings offered to buy the whole lot at inflated prices. From there it goes from bad to worse. One of the great historical accidents, cuba is like a pawn in the cold war. The russians are there in the wings. The idea during the revolution that theres missiles base in cuba in a year, in a couple years would have been like science fiction. But meanwhile so here we have the iconic image of cha taken at a rally in 1960 when things are really going south with him at the states. Theres a huge explosion in the harbor everyone is convinced is set up. Here he is in the books with a couple snaps, one vertical, a couple horizontal and this one they crop and he hangs in the studio. After che died in bolivia in 1967, an italian lefty Fashion Designer comes to see it and asked to borrow it and takes to to italy and does a screen print and by 1968 is one of the worlds great images and now so familiar in many ways its all people can remember of the revolution. So thats that story. Its 7 51. Should be time for questions. Okay. The guy in the front there. [ inaudible ] im curious about your research process. Cuba. What was your process in cuba . And did you have government officials who shepherds you around or not . Were you free to do the kind of research that you wanted . What was my process and was i followed. You know, cuba had changed a lot. By obama years there was a sort of window of opportunity. Not only was this the first commuting book about cuba, i was able to zip back and forth to cuba and stay a week, come back, i could go into the archives, make my request, make them think about it for a month which is what they often like to do. Theres one place cilia set up, the office of Historical Affairs and got everything to do with the revolution and put into one repository the and its still there, you can go in and make requests, you have to get an academic visa. It became very difficult unfortunately in the trump era because america end the cuban secretary of all this stuff so its hard to get a visa of any kind. But i did manage to get an academic visa and go in there and explain what i was doing and they we are actually very helpful. The real reason i was able to break into it, a end of mine nancy stout wrote the first biography of cilia sort of the glowing sort of thing, she went down and spent a lot of time meeting people, shed hang out there and had a translator who had actually worked at the office, so she became sort of friends the with them and when i went down she introduced me to the translator and the translator introduced me to the guys and i in cuba everything is very personal. Its very sort of hand shakes and whatever. So i would sort of hang around there. At a certain point it didnt hurt that i was australian. Have a more objective view in theory. I sort of hung around and they figure its easier to get in stuff than to have him come in every day. I was just there and they were bringing me things, they showed me the letters. One funny thing about it, they had a catalog, theyd say what do you want to see. Id be like what do you got. Theyd be like you have to ask for something specifically. So i would ask for the diaries and id ask for certain letters and other things would come up. By the end what happened was, i took the guys who work thered, id take them out for lunch and around the corner there was this swiss restaurant which is absolutely indistinguishable to any other restaurant but it was a swiss restaurant and they had hye heineken beer and they never tasted it before. They felt the sense of privilege. I became friends with them and id tell them when i was coming, things like that. Then they started to bring things out. And the diary is one of the major things, eventually they brought out rauls which is extraordinary, because its very clever, its very witty. He has a great sense of humor. Whatever you think of him, his life, he was kind of like an appealing goofy character. Much more fun than fidel. F fidel couldnt dance. He was obsessed with politics. In mexico city theyd try to take him out and line up indicates with people also in the movement and fidel would just like bore them to tears and raul would kick him under the table trying to get him to stop doing politics but he wouldnt do it. I digress. Yeah. There was that sort of thing. Also hanging around down there, theres still around, the old, you know, fires, the ones that had been very, very young during the revolution. So some of them were still hanging around. Daniel ochoa became very famous and he was hanging around, shuffling around the archives and hes like 90 now and hes in uniform, i went up to introduce myself, and told him what i was doing, im writing a book about the womens platoon and he was involved, so we chatted about it, he told me a few stories. You know. And that was kind of a little break through as well. And a woman gorilla became state in the military. I did things like this as an annual ceremony on the anniversary of cilias death. And its in the creme cemetery obviously. Emetery obviously. I went there and realized everyone was there. I said hi, not pressing or anything. Just maybe i can chat or whatever. So they knew i was kind of around and i was interested in stuff and i was actually taking it seriously and i was doing research in cuba instead of a lot of american dozens lot of americans do it in princeton or miami or whatever. I was going down to the locations and meet these minor figure whos were gorillas and its the 90s, whatever, they dont remember much, their stories are kind of hard to follow. But then you see the photographs on the walls. Of fidel and of che and they would joke and tell the stories. Remarkable that all of them in the 70s and 80s started to write memoirs and a lot of the stories werent related to the memoirs, you could go back and find these things, they were publish in cuba obviously and there might be one copy with nyu you might find because there was a sort of connection with nyu. You can actually go back and find this stuff no one has really looked at and its at a time thats not that ideologically centric, it is a story that everyone kind of agrees on. Things change completely. Obviously in 1959. And theres a big debate, the biggest debate is whether fidel is communist all along and he was actually lying and keeping it to himself. Theres no evidence of this at all. In fact the communist party and the movement hated each other. The communists wouldnt join and they didnt support the strikes, they didnt, you know, said they were kind of useless, at the end fidel has this rolling thing going. The Cuban Communist Party sort of comes along. Anyway, to answer your question, sort of hang around and things come to you at a certain stage. Any earth to questions . Any other questions . Down there . [ inaudible ] its not looking good. Its not great in the shortterm. As you know trump just tightened the embargo which has been going since eisenhower blocked sugar in 1959, 1960 and then jfk imposed the train embargo. There were laws passed in the 1990s that could have strangled cuba but no president has enforced this one particular law which allows people to sue companies that are basically dealing with cuba and using any piece of and there was appropriated during the revolution. And thats almost everything. So, and you can even sue german companies, french km kpz. Companies. Its dubious whether it has basis in International Law but it has scared everyone off entirely. I was in cuba the week before it came into force, everyone was freaking out, because already shortages were going around, shipments were stopping, and everyone was worried it would go back to the 1990s period. It remains to be seen what effect it will finally have but its not auspicious. The very day that it was passed a family in miami sued Carnival Cruise lines because they had been using the dock that was take then 1961. Not only do you get the amount in modern dollars its triple damage so i think theyre suing for 500 million and theres hundreds of these cases, 3,000 case thats are technically on the books. It remains to be seen what effect this will have on cuba but its not going to be for the best and its not going to encourage an opening up, i dont think. Down there . Yeah, what were the circumstances that led bautista to leave the country . To leave . Well, theres a lot of analysis done. What made bautista leave the country. Theres a lot of studies on that because he had 40,000 troops, the gorillas ran part of the low lands, santa clara was one city, the generals assumed theyd keep going and plugging along, fidel himself thought it would take couple years at least. One book i find interesting is called the war of the flee and the guy of the cbs news man becomes very pro revolution and in fact joins the revolution after fidel wins, he becomes a journalist for the revolution newspaper. He goes around carrying a revolver and everyone shakes his hand in the street because everyone knows him from the tv show. So he writes a book and comes up with the argument that they dont militarily win in a sense, they create the conditions for collapse. In other words they weaken the other forces, the moral goes, the soldiers dont want to fight. Things start to crumble internally. The whole thing starts to fall to bits. Just started to worry that he was going to be there was going to be military coupe within had is own forces because he was so disliked and open about his corruption. He was shameless by that stage. He had when he was younger been quite progressive in certain ways but as he got older became more and more cynical. Every monday had a brief case full of money on his desk. It was just shameless. So he became worried that he would personally be arrested and then put on trial, perhaps executed as a war criminal so he decides to just cut and run. It was the battle of santa clara ches victory there that sent shock waves through the military and convinced bautista, okay, the time is up. But, yeah, so thats yeah, he cut and ran, like a thief in the night he got out. And much to the disgust of many of his supporters and his main police chief in havana was there at the party and said why didnt someone tell me. I could have brought my wife and kids and he had to leave without his wife and children. Others had no way to get out. Some get on boats and prepare escape plans and many others didnt get out so they were seized. In the end, prone to be put on trial. Unfortunately not the most ed tieing trials. They edifying trial, a call for blood, the mothers coming up saying, when are we going to get vengeance, we know these guys tortured and murdered our children, many of the kids that disappeared, it was a terrible time to be a young man. They were like teenagers, 14, 15, 16, and they might be seized, tortured and buried in shallow great of as and shallow graves. People were digging up shallow graves all over the country so there was a longing for venge sans. Vengeance. They had a sport trial in the coliseum. Its still there. People were howling for blood. They only had a few of those show trials when they realized what a prdisaster they were. But che was put in charge of the trials and so in the end about 550 of bautistas men were executed. But it was a big rift. To end a national is there another question. Whats the state of the cuban Education System . Whats the ideology of the Younger Generation there . Well, i think the Education System is going fine. Its still the highest Literacy Rate in latin america. You know, they dont have the resources, again, like the hospitals are great they just dont have the medicine because of the various train problems. They go on. The younger peoples opinions, we generalize about this sort of thing but theyre generally much more jaded about the revolution. Theyre not necessarily about to rise up and revolt against the system, they just sort of are like trujing along waiting for something to change, waiting for these guys to all die off, like raul cant last too much longer. They had this sort of unusual view of things in my experience that they regard them like the crazy grand parents. You know, they got these ideas that are completely out of date. Yeah, yeah, they sort of humor them. Whatever. They still have an admiration for the revolution itself and its still firstname basis. Fidel, che, camilo all the others. The heroic nature of that is sort of not denied. But its just gone so far awry. And these changes everyones expecting is so slow and theres so many false starts. Theres a sense of on we. A lot of the young people dont have much to do. Theres a sense of, you know, theres no opportunity. So its a very tragic mood. Especially now. Under the obama years there was a sense of, you know, incredible optimism. Even more than the obama years, it was when the Rolling Stones concert occurred. That was the most symbolic thing. You know, hundreds and thousands of people converged to listen to the Rolling Stones and they all trudge back to atlanta and theres a sense anythings possible. That all fell to bits. Now that the rhetoric is what it is in the United States and cuba is extremely harsh, talking about the new president is just a party guy. The reforms that restart in 2011 which opened up the economy theres like 200 jobs people can earn foreign currency on. That was changing things more than the normalization of the relations to the United States or the flights, you know, making it easier to travel. Because tourists have always been going to cuba and they will still. United states was a significant force but i think tourists, american tourists are a little shocked and frankly disappointed that the place is crawling with japanese and italians, australians, greeks and chinese. Havana is a very touristy place. Theres not a sense of forbidden fruit. An they had got to start relying more and more on tourism as basically going for a source of foreign income at the moment. You know. Shooter not doing too well. So the sense of optimism of three or four years ago has died. So the last time ive been in havana theres a bleak mood there and young people are like, anyone who can get out is getting out. So theres a flight of, you know, creative people, energetic sort of younger people. Theres a sort of sadness that is settled. Theres always been sort of a melon collie in havana but now that moment of optimism has withered. I think thats it. Ill hold my hands up like fidel. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Weeknights this month we feature American History tv programs to preview whats available every weekend on cspan three. Today a series of lecturers. Presented by the university of mary washington. And thursday we learn about the American Revolution and friday White House Historical Association Historians talk about their jobs and the Organizations Mission to protect and preserve the executive mansion. American history tv this week and every weekend on cspan three. The true revolution took place in the minds of the american people. Were going to talk about both of the sides of the story. The tools, the techniques of slave owner power. Well also talk about the tools and techniques of power that were practiced by enslaved people. Watch history professors lead topics ranging from the American Revolution to zblmgs on c span 3. On American History tv. And lectures in history available on podcast. Next on American History tv, university of maryland history professor richard bell talks about the declaration of independence origins and purpose and global significance during and after the revolution. The smithsonia hosted t