Not Now, Maybe Later
Cuba's revolutionary heroine Celia Sanchez first coined the term "Batistiano" on April 27th, 1959. That was the day she and Fidel Castro returned to the island after a 12-day visit to the United States barely three months after their Cuban Revolution had stunned the world by overthrowing the U.S.-backed Batista-Mafia dictatorship. Celia had arranged the trip with the American Society of Newspaper Editors. A pragmatist as Revolutionary Cuba's prime decision-maker, with Fidel's full concurrence, Celia had many benevolent plans for post-Batista Cuba; she knew, to bring those grandiose aspirations to fruition, little Cuba required friendly relations with the United States, the neighbor that happened to be the world's economic and military superpower. Her quick priority regarding the trip garnered ecstatic optimism when the U. S. State Department assured her that Fidel Castro, then considered both a Cuban and American hero, could meet with President Eisenhower to tell him that Cuba planned a democratic election that fall and the U. S. could closely monitor it to assure its honesty. But the State Department lied to Celia and the American Society of Newspaper Editors. President Eisenhower left Washington to play golf and the devious Vice President Richard Nixon met with Fidel. Nixon, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, and CIA Director Allen Dulles all had financial and political reasons to return the Batistianos to power in Cuba and, in fact, by April of 1959 the most fanatic anti-Castro Cuban-exiles, including the infamous Luis Posada Carriles, were already being trained as Brigade 2506 at Fort Benning's then secretive Army of the Americas to spearhead the recapture of Cuba, which became the Bay Of Pigs attack in April of 1961. Tightly aligned with the Dulles brothers and separated from the old and malleable President Eisenhower, Nixon personally told Fidel that the U. S. and the Cuban exiles would regain control of Cuba "within a few months." Shortly after returning to Cuba on April 27, 1959, a double-crossed and furious Celia fired off this sentence in a conversation with Fidel and famed Cuban journalist/author Carlos Franqui: "The Batistianos will never regain control of Cuba as long as I live or as long as Fidel lives." It was the first of at least three times Celia made that statement in the presence of journalists. Her definition of Batistianos was/is unmistakable: A Batistiano was/is anyone who fled Cuba for the U. S. after being an official or a supporter of the Batista-Mafia dictatorship that was overturned by the Cuban Revolution.
Celia Sanchez was the most important player in the Cuban Revolution and in Revolutionary Cuba. One of the most significant nuances of U.S.-Cuban relations since the 1950s is the sheer fact that Americans to this day are not supposed to know that basic fact. The reason, however, is simple: With collusion from the U. S. government and the U. S. media, the Cuban narrative in the U. S. since 1959 has been dictated by the remnants of the ousted Batista-Mafia dictatorship. But all the most knowledgeable insiders understood the leading role played by Celia Sanchez and that includes Carlos Franqui, Pedro Alvarez Tabio, Marta Rojas, Roberto Salas, Georgie Anne Geyer, Fidel Castro, etc. For example, Salas -- the famed photographer who worked closely with both Celia and Fidel -- said in his book: "Celia made all the decisions for Cuba, the big ones and the small ones. When she died of cancer in 1980, we all knew no one could ever replace her." Geyer, America's top Castro biographer, wrote that Celia "over-ruled" Fidel whenever and wherever she chose. Therefore, Celia's most striking quotation is both historic and amazingly prophetic: "The Batistianos will never regain control of Cuba as long as I live or as long as Fidel lives." Fidel, nearing his 90th birthday, is still alive and the Batistianos -- despite amazing support from the U. S. Congress, the CIA, and the U. S. Treasury -- have still not regained control of Cuba.
Photographer Roberto Salas traveled with Fidel & Celia.
Like his famous father Osvaldo, Roberto Salas took thousands of photos of Fidel Castro in Cuba and on foreign trips. Roberto took this one of Fidel in New York City in April of 1959. No one in Cuba questioned Salas when he stated in his book -- A Pictorial History of the Cuban Revolution -- that "Celia made all the decisions for Cuba, the big ones and the small ones." The macho-minded Batistianos, however, realized early-on that vilification of Fidel was a lot easier than vilifying the petite child-loving doctor's daughter.
While I believe Celia Sanchez's greatest quotation was the one about the Batistianos never recapturing Cuba, TheWomanProject.org favors this Celia gem: "We Rebels get far too much credit for winning the Revolution. Our enemies deserve most of the credit, for being greedy cowards and idiots."
Georgie Anne Geyer -- the nationally syndicated conservative columnist -- is America's best Castro biographer. In "Guerrilla Prince" Ms. Geyer correctly pointed out that Celia Sanchez "over-ruled" Fidel with his unending support.
In "Guerrilla Prince" Georgie Anne Geyer's favorite Celia Sanchez quotation occurred soon after the triumph of the Cuban Revolution when Celia and Fidel were reminiscing about the revolutionary war with a group of journalists that included Carlos Franqui. Fidel had mentioned a very tough 10-day battle that the rebels won against a large Batista army. That's when, according to both Franqui and Geyer, Celia spoke up and, with deep emotion and sincerity, said these remarkable words: "Oh, but those were the very best and happiest times, weren't they? We were all so very happy then! We'll never be that happy again, will we? Never!" A petite, well-to-do doctor's daughter fighting and winning bloody battles against overwhelming forces were the best and happiest times of her life? Yes, she thought Cuba was well worth the effort and the risks.
This is the great Cuban historian Pedro Alvarez Tabio. He wrote this unequivocal and pertinent observation of the Cuban Revolution: "If Batista had managed to kill Celia Sanchez anytime between 1953 and 1957, there would have been no viable Cuban Revolution, and no revolution for Fidel and Che to join."
Pedro Alvarez Tabio edited this early Fidel bio and got Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the Colombian-born all-time greatest Latin-American author, to write the introductory essay. It's still available at Abe Books.
Yes, although to this day the Batistianos don't allow Americans to judge her correctly, Celia Sanchez was the most important player in the Cuban Revolution and in Revolutionary Cuba that has, against great odds, survived for almost six decades...and counting. Celia -- long before macho males like Fidel, Che, and Camilo joined her war against Batista -- was the catalyst as a guerrilla fighter and the prime recruiter of rebels and supplies that launched and sustained the war. Fidel's worship of her began while he was helpless in a Batista prison and even today he understands why Tabio, Cuba's top historian, wrote: "If Batista had managed to kill Celia Sanchez anytime between 1953 and 1957, there would have been no viable Cuban Revolution, and no revolution for Fidel and Che to join." So, the Celia Sanchez who coined the term "Batistiano" is also the person most responsible for beating them and for keeping them from regaining control of her beloved island. In Cuba today -- in the spring of 2016 -- famed revolutionary heroines and Celia contemporaries such as Tete Puebla and Marta Rojas still live. But a younger generation of Cuban heroines -- led by Josefina Vidal and Cristina Escobar -- are currently the key Celia Sanchez disciples determined to make sure that the Batistianos don't "regain control of Cuba." In that regard, Vidal and Escobar have each made resounding statements/quotations that, I believe, Celia would wholeheartedly sanction.
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Josefina Vidal, Cuba's Minister of North American Affairs, is the main reason Cuba survived the Batistiano-aligned George W. Bush presidency from 2000 till 2009. Since then she has been Cuba's prime negotiator with the Barack Obama administration in attaching some sanity to U.S.-Cuban relations. But, as always, Vidal keeps a wary eye on the U. S. Congress where a handful of anti-Castro zealots aligned with a handful of right-wing sycophants have dictated America's Cuban-related laws for five disastrous decades. Also, Vidal keeps a keen perception on the ongoing presidential election process in the U. S., realizing that a Republican in the White House beginning in January of 2017 would align with Congress to wage either a cold or hot war against her island. In particular, Vidal has noticed that two Cuban-American first-term Senators who are vehement anti-revolutionary zealots -- Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz -- have been prime Republican presidential candidates, at least till Rubio dropped out after being swamped by Donald Trump in his home-state of Florida in a primary election. Unlike television pundits who actually are propagandists for their favorite candidate, Vidal's perceptions are vital to Cuba's survival as a sovereign nation. In that capacity, she has produced probably the most accurate and salient quotation regarding the U. S. presidential race, noting that the two Cuban-American hardliners -- Rubio and Cruz -- have had the backing of the Bush dynasty {to kick off their political careers}, the Tea Party, and a bevy of right-wing, Jewish, and conservative billionaires. Vidal, in the mold of Celia Sanchez, made this astute deduction: "It seems the Batistianos have a new plan. They now plan to capture the White House first and THEN recapture Cuba." Vidal didn't intend that comment as a pun or a joke. When it comes to the Batistianos, she is totally serious.
At age 28, Cristina Escobar is Cuba's and the region's superstar newscaster. She is also highly regarded by the island's young-adult generation that plans to make sure that they, and not Miami and Washington, set the course for Cuba's future. Her most salient comment this year, made in a video-taped interview with respected American journalist and Cuban expert Tracey Eaton, was: "I don't want the U. S. to bring me democracy. That is a project for Cubans on the island." Like Celia Sanchez and Josefina Vidal, Cristina Escobar is the embodiment of brilliant and powerful Cuban women who cherish the island's hard-earned sovereignty and she doesn't want to trust it to foreigners. "In the 1950s," Escobar says, "the U. S. sicced Batista and the Mafia on my island and called it democracy. Americans still accept that and justify it. But enough Cubans didn't. I believe enough in my generation now will stay on the island and defend the sovereignty that so many great Cubans fought so hard for. Even if the odds are against us, we will fight."
From their vantage point in Cuba, Josefina Vidal and Cristina Escobar closely monitor news coverage of U. S. politics. Actually Vidal made her comment about the shifting Batistiano "plans" to recapture Cuba by first capturing the White House when she feared the Republican nomination would fall to Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio or Ted Cruz. Truth be known, Vidal would have preferred the extremist Cuban-Americans Rubio or Cruz to Jeb Bush. After the highly financed Jeb and Rubio both succumbed to the surprising Donald Trump tsunami, Vidal recently told the AP in Havana, "I honestly don't know what's going on in the U. S. election at this point. I really don't." And Americans are as flabbergasted as Cuban sage Josefina Vidal.
Like Rubio and Bush, Ted Cruz has also been wiped out by the Trump tsunami, at least in this presidential cycle. But the dangerously ambitious and far-right winger Cruz is not ready to admit it. Yesterday he named former Republican contender Carly Fiorina as his "Vice President," something no one has ever done before actually getting the nomination. Confused Americans, not to mention acute observers Vidal and Escobar in Cuba, are left to ponder the latest craziness in the all-out Batistiano quest to capture the White House BEFORE they recapture Cuba, as the keen observer, Ms. Vidal, opined.
Television pundits, such as Ms. Cupp, are perhaps as big a threat to the American democracy as the billionaires who now seemingly have a clear path toward purchasing it for their personal use. While, for sure, there remains some decent print journalism, the pundit-driven television "news" coverage in the U. S. is an insult to both viewers and democracy. The days of great broadcast journalists like Ted Turner, Walter Cronkite, and Kate O'Brien -- who actually believed in covering the news -- are long gone. And the biggest casualty is democracy, which from its inception in 1776 depended on a vibrant and competent news media as an essential component. But the Founding Fathers never envisioned television pundits or visual propaganda machines. And in Cuba, Vidal and Escobar seem to be sympathizing with the plight of American voters even as they keep keenly abreast of United States efforts to "return democracy to Cuba."
Great television newscasters like Walter Cronkite once actually told Americans "the way it is." Since then, the pundit-driver television news networks have evolved into visual propaganda machines.
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