The Toledo Blade
January 7, 1959.
HAVANA, Jan. 6 (AP)—The revolutionary government dissolved congress today and announced it will rule Cuba by decree for at least 18 months, when new elections are planned.
The government suspended all criminal courts, regarded as a symbol of the fallen dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista, and was reported preparing a decree abolishing all political parties.
The provisional regime dismissed all provincial governors, mayors and councilmen. Apparently their functions will be taken over by new civilian appointees prepared in advance for the task.
Other decrees, informed sources said, would ban all candidates from the 1954 and 1958 elections from Cuba’s political life, freeze the private bank accounts of all Batista officials, and stop the cashing of all outstanding checks against the Batista regime.
These and other laws were announced, or reported in preparation, as provisional President Manuel Urrutia sat almost continuously in the presidential palace with his new cabinet.
Interventors named by the rebels to take charge of newspapers immediately after the revolution were ordered to withdraw. The government said it wanted nothing to interfere with a free press.
In Cienfuegos, an American who rose to command Cuban rebel troops said “the overthrow of Batista should convince the United States to change its mistaken policy toward Latin America.
He is William Alexander Morgan, 30, of Toledo, O.
Mr. Morgan is a major, second in command of the rebel Second National Front in the Sierra Escambray Mountains and commander of the Cienfuegos garrison.
“As Democrats and North Americans,” declared Mr. Morgan, “we love liberty and have fought for it elsewhere—and we believe we ought to do something to preserve it among friendly peoples.
“The United States is very wrong in considering the revolutionary movement “Communistic,” he said. “It seeks liberty and justice, not communism. I, a fighting man and not a politician, can see this very clearly. And I can tell you one thing sure—in Cuba there will be no more dictatorships.”
Mr. Morgan is a parachute troop veteran of the U.S. army in World War II.
Mr. Morgan last month married a pretty resident of a Cuban village and is now planning a honeymoon.
“The war is won and so also is a good and beautiful wife with whom to spend the rest of my days in peace,” he said.