From the Collection: Yale University. Department of Manuscripts and Archives
Published / Created:
1959
Call Number:
MS 650
Container / Volume:
Box 7, folder 713-741
Image Count:
28
Description:
This set of prints documents a visit to Nicaragua that St. George appears to have made in late May or early June of 1959, after a long stay in Cuba earlier that year. On May 30, 1959, Luis Somoza Debayle, who ruled Nicaragua from 1956 to 1963 following the assassination of his father, the dictator Anastasio Somoza García, put down an attempted uprising against the government led by groups who found their inspiration in the Cuban Revolution. Luis's brother, Anastasio Somoza Debayle, replaced his father as the commander of the United States-trained National Guard, a legacy of the United States' long military occupation of Nicaragua that began with the landing of Marines in 1912 and continued (with a brief reprieve in 1925) through 1933. St. George interviewed both of the Somoza brothers (see especially Prints 1, 2, 16 for closeup images of Luis, and Prints 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 17, 18, 19 for images of Anastasio, Jr.). Prints 10, 13, 14, 17 show police and military officials stopping citizens on the streets, some of whom are probably students. Although tiny in number, the student body of Nicaragua's only university in Managua were famously critical of the Somoza regime and were likely to have been the primary subject of these random checks and searches. Print 22 appears to show the processing of a large number of civilians in a police station, including one Catholic priest; it also shows several soldiers inspecting caches of ammunition. Print 24 shows several National Guardsmen questioning a well-dressed woman at the door of a middle-class home. Print 26 shows St. George in the company of an unidentified American, who appears in the role of a journalist in Print 4 but is here shown carrying a rifle and dressed in full military fatigues; several shots also in Print 26 show them drinking from a bottle of rum. Also in these images, National Guardsmen are shown in the act of arresting a small unit of guerrillas who appear with their hands up in a position of surrender. Print 20 provides more complete documentation of the surrender of these men and their subsequent capture by National Guardsmen, including images of the guerrillas posting a white flag of surrender before their safehouse, and various stages of their capture by the National Guard. Print 21 includes close-up images of some of those guerrillas arrested. Prints 3, 4, 5, 15, 19, 21, 23, 25, 27, 28, 29 document the National Guard column involved in this operation, named "Columna San Jacinto," in Print 25.
From the Collection: Yale University. Department of Manuscripts and Archives
Published / Created:
1958 and 1960
Call Number:
MS 650
Container / Volume:
Box 7, folder 742
Image Count:
1
Description:
Fidel Castro is shown in top row of frames holding a small spy camera, probably belonging to Saint George. These images may have been taken at guerrilla headquarters in La Plata, in late 1958. Remaining images show Fidel Castro addressing a television audience in June of 1960. See also Prints 31, 33, 37, 38.
From the Collection: Yale University. Department of Manuscripts and Archives
Published / Created:
1959
Call Number:
MS 650
Container / Volume:
Box 7, folder 743
Image Count:
1
Description:
Two unrelated sets of images appear in this print. The top three rows show Fidel Castro in close-up, as well as several unidentified peasants, probably taken in late 1958 at La Plata, guerrilla army headquarters. The bottom rows show David Salvador, Secretary General of the CTC, addressing the general Congress of worker delegates that met in November of 1959 in Havana; the last row of images shows Fidel Castro addressing workers at the subsequent congress of the Federación Nacional de Trabajadores del Azucar [FNTA], held in Havana in December of 1959. Further documentation of both workers' congresses can be found in Contact Book VIII. See also Prints 30, 33, 38, 39 and Contact Book VIII.
From the Collection: Yale University. Department of Manuscripts and Archives
Published / Created:
[1958?]
Call Number:
MS 650
Container / Volume:
Box 7, folder 745
Image Count:
1
Description:
Fidel Castro with peasants and guerrillas in unidentified location, possibly his guerrilla headquarters at La Plata. In several frames, Fidel holds a small spy camera, probably belonging to St. George. With him is Felipe Guerra Matos, shown with a beard, wearing glasses and cap in the second row from the top through the last row of images. These photographs were probably taken in late 1958, possibly December or November of that year. See also Prints 30, 31 and 34.
From the Collection: Yale University. Department of Manuscripts and Archives
Published / Created:
1958, 1959 January
Call Number:
MS 650
Container / Volume:
Box 7, folder 746
Image Count:
1
Description:
Close-up images of Fidel Castro, a peasant boy (frame 31, row 1), a young guerrilla (who appears in profile, frame 30, row 1), an unidentified guerrilla with a streaked (white or blonde) beard, taken in what appears to be La Plata, guerrilla headquarters in the Sierra Maestra, probably during the last weeks of 1958. Bottom two rows of images depict Fidel Castro greeting Herbert Matthews of the New York Times and his wife Nancie. Standing behind Fidel in frames 33-36 of the second to last row is Celia Sánchez. In the final row, Celia Sánchez can be seen standing next to Nancie (the shorter, older woman wearing glasses). These figures are flanked by a large number of unidentified guerrillas. Journalists also appear documenting the encounter. See also Prints 30, 31 and 32.
From the Collection: Yale University. Department of Manuscripts and Archives
Published / Created:
1958, 1959 January
Call Number:
MS 650
Container / Volume:
Box 7, folder 746
Image Count:
1
Description:
Close-up images of Fidel Castro, a peasant boy (frame 31, row 1), a young guerrilla (who appears in profile, frame 30, row 1), an unidentified guerrilla with a streaked (white or blonde) beard, taken in what appears to be La Plata, guerrilla headquarters in the Sierra Maestra, probably during the last weeks of 1958. Bottom two rows of images depict Fidel Castro greeting Herbert Matthews of the New York Times and his wife Nancie. Standing behind Fidel in frames 33-36 of the second to last row is Celia Sánchez. In the final row, Celia Sánchez can be seen standing next to Nancie (the shorter, older woman wearing glasses). These figures are flanked by a large number of unidentified guerrillas. Journalists also appear documenting the encounter. See also Prints 30, 31 and 32.
From the Collection: Yale University. Department of Manuscripts and Archives
Published / Created:
undated
Call Number:
MS 650
Container / Volume:
Box 7, folder 747
Image Count:
1
Description:
Two sets of apparently unrelated images. The top four rows of images show a massive Catholic religious procession in which the image of Jesus Christ is carried on a flowered litter through the streets of an unidentified provincial city, possibly Santa Clara. The bottom two rows of images show Faure Chomón Mediavilla, a former leader of the Directorio Revolucionario, an organization of university students that together with the Organización Auténtica, carried out a failed assault on the Presidential Palace on March 13, 1957, for the sole purpose of assassinating the dictator Fulgencio Batista. After the failure of the plan and the arrest or killing without trial of most of its participants, Chomón joined others in founding and directing the operations of a second guerrilla front in the Escambray mountains of Santa Clara province for the remainder of the war. Chomón remains a central figure in Cuba's Castro-led government. Here, Chomón is making a televised appearance in which he responds to the questions of two unidentified journalists (seated to his right), also serving as hosts.
From the Collection: Yale University. Department of Manuscripts and Archives
Published / Created:
1960 June
Call Number:
MS 650
Container / Volume:
Box 7, folder 748
Image Count:
1
Description:
Two sets of apparently unrelated images. Top rows show Faure Chomón and unidentified journalists on the set of a televised news show. Bottom three rows of images show a large seated audience in which the chairs in the foreground are all occupied by unidentified black and mulatto Cuban men, as well as one young black adolescent. The second-to-last row of images includes a shot of a member of the Revolutionary National Police standing in the doorway inside the same building in which the audience appears sitting, together with a woman holding a baby and a man wearing a suit whose back is to the camera. See also Print 35.
From the Collection: Yale University. Department of Manuscripts and Archives
Published / Created:
1960 June
Call Number:
MS 650
Container / Volume:
Box 7, folder 749
Image Count:
1
Description:
Top three rows show a performance of a dance troupe visiting Cuba from the Soviet Bloc in June of 1960. Bottom three rows show Fidel Castro addressing the public in a televised speech, made in 1960. Before him sits a small plaque announcing the name of a new broadcast chain called "FIEL" (or "Faithful"). See also Prints 32, 38 and 50.
From the Collection: Yale University. Department of Manuscripts and Archives
Published / Created:
1960, [1959?]
Call Number:
MS 650
Container / Volume:
Box 7, folder 750
Image Count:
1
Description:
Two unrelated sets of images appear in this print. Top three rows show Fidel Castro addressing the public in a televised speech, made in 1960. Before him sits a small plaque announcing the name of a new broadcast chain called "FIEL" (or "Faithful"). Although folder is marked "June 1960," it is unlikely that the bottom three rows of images were taken then because they include David Salvador, the Secretary General of the Confederación de Trabajadores Cubanos [CTC], Cuba's largest labor union, who was publicly disgraced as a counterrevolutionary and accused of corruption after he criticized the revolutionary government's efforts to control the labor union's decision and governing body in April of 1960. Here he is shown alongside Fidel Castro and others, an impossibility following that process. Bottom three rows feature images of participants and worker delegates at what appears to be the inauguration of the congress of the CTC, held in Havana in November of 1959. Frames 22-26 feature Violeta Casals, a radio personality who lent her voice to Radio Rebelde, Cuba's clandestine radio program before the triumph of revolutionary forces against Batista in January of 1959. Frames 12-13 in the bottom row of images show Fidel Castro consulting with Osmani Cienfuegos; David Salvador sits at his side taking notes. Frames 14 and 15 feature an unidentified man sitting with the revolutionary leadership at the head table, clapping. Frame 16 shows Salvador with an unidentified man wearing a militia uniform, beret rolled under a shoulder epaulet, at his side. See also Contact Book VIII; Prints 32, 37 and 39.
