Washington, March 24, 1958.

SUBJECT

Dr. Varona's Views on Civilian-Military Junta Membership

Begin Official Use Only

On March 22 I received a special delivery letter[2] from Dr. Carlos Piad, a Cuban exile who moved recently from Washington to Miami. He is known to favor as a solution to the present situation in Cuba the overthrow of President Batista's regime by a military coup. He has frequently said that his solution would work out best for United States interests in Cuba.

Piad belongs to the Prio opposition group and is against the assumption of power by Fidel Castro and his movement. For some time, the Castro and Prio forces have not worked together.

However, in his letter, dated March 21, he indicated that there might be a relaxing of the anti-Castro feeling by the Prio forces when he sent me the names of eight persons who would be acceptable to the latter as a civilian-military junta following any overthrow of Batista. This list was sent, he wrote, "in compliance with instructions from Dr. (Antonio) Varona," who is the No. 2 man in the Prio movement.

This list, according to Piad's letter, would represent all other sectors of the opposition. He added that his group had no axes to grind since the Prio group is not represented on the proposed junta. It would be, he observed, a real solution which would prevent thousands of unnecessary deaths.

The civilian-military junta which Varona authorized Piad to suggest (it is to be assumed Prio is aware of and approves the names):

1. General Eulogio Cantillo

One of the few officers in the Cuban Army who has retained a relatively unbesmirched reputation. He is on the Cuban General Staff and recently was assigned to command the garrison at Matanzas. He is in a good position there to take energetic action if a military coup were undertaken.

Arms Shipments to the Batista Government 69

2. General Diaz Tamayo

General Diaz Tamayo has been suspected of lukewarm sympathies for Batista. While commanding the armed forces in Oriente province he is believed to have maintained a rather porous cordon around the Castro forces in the Sierra Maestro and thus permitted rather easy contact by the insurgent forces with the outside world. He has a command in Habana at present.

3. Colonel Ramon Barquin

A leader in the April 1956 army revolt against Batista. The move was suppressed and Colonel Barquin is now in prison in the Isle of Pines. He is highly regarded for his character and professional competence. He was Cuba's representative on the IADB for several years. He is a close friend of General Cantillo.

4. Colonel Borbonet

He was considered the "brains" of the unsuccessful April 1956 move against Batista. Highly regarded as a soldier.

5. Dr. Gustavo Cuervo Rubio

Dr. Cuervo was vice-president during the Batista regime 1940-44. Recently he was named a member of the Harmony Committee which failed to obtain opposition support. A medical doctor, he is considered to be an honest man.

6. Dr. J. Miro Cardona

President of the Habana Bar Association and a leading member of the loose-knit Civic Association, which numbers some 60 professional, civic and lay religious societies in Habana.

7. Dr. Raul Velazco

Head of the Habana Medical Association and another prominent member of the Civic Association. He was spokesman, according to Jules Dubois of the Chicago Tribune, of the Association when some 42 groups of its membership called for Batista's resignation a few days ago.

8. Dr. Manuel Urrutia

Dr. Urrutia, a Santiago judge, is the choice of Castro for provisional president in event Batista is ousted. He is also supported by the Bisbe-Chibas Ortodoxos, and, according to Chibas and himself, the choice of the revolutionary student groups such as FEU and Organization Revolucionaria, and the Civic Resistance movement.

End Official Use Only

Begin Secret

Comment:

The information contained in Piad's letter calls for no action by the Department. From an information viewpoint, the makeup of Varona's approved civilian-military junta is interesting, since it reveals for the first time willingness on the part of the Prio forces to join with the Castro-Ortodoxo movement in setting up a provisional government.

Presumably, this junta would not come into existence until an armed forces coup had unseated Batista in lieu of a Castro-directed movement headed by a general strike.

Either type of attempt would result in bloodshed but the Castro plan would be likely to result in much more killing of civilians than a military coup. If Batista is sincere in setting up an honest election and can induce the opposition to meet with him to lay the groundwork for such an election in November, our policies would best be served by seeing this course followed. If it is too late to carry out this course of action, and Batista were overthrown, the least objectionable method in our view would be by a military coup followed by the establishment of a civilian or civilian-military junta, which in turn would name a provisional president, preferably along Constitutional lines. The suggested list of members of a civilian-military junta is a good one and this or one similar including possibly a labor representative might be named if Castro were unsuccessful in imposing his plan of installing a Government controlled entirely by his forces. It is possible that if Batista fell, some of Castro's support would abandon him for a junta type government, provided, of course, that the military showed signs of sticking together once the Batista followers were purged. One element in favor of this development would be fear by the military leaders of Castro's control of the armed forces.'

End Secret

NOTES:

1. Source: Department of State, Central Files, 737.00/3-2458. Official Use Only and Secret. Drafted by Stewart and sent through Wieland. Initialed by Wieland and Snow.

2. A copy of the letter was attached to the source text, but is not printed.

3. Wieland wrote the following comment at the end of the memorandum: "It is true that a junta might have some value in cushioning the impact of violence if Batista should be overthrown. It is a mechanism foreign to Cuban tradition, however, and unless it operated with greater statesmanship and skill than now seems likely, it will probably induce a continued or renewed revolutionary period after a short provisional reign."