From the Collection: Yale University. Department of Manuscripts and Archives
Published / Created:
1959 October
Call Number:
MS 650
Container / Volume:
Box 4, folder 422
Image Count:
1
Description:
Close-up shots taken from the ground-level of a mass rally called by Fidel Castro for October 26, 1959, and organized by government-affiliated labor unions to express support for Fidel Castro's decision to arrest Commander Huber Matos for resigning his military post and to charge him with treason and attempting to conspire against the revolutionary government. Matos was later sentenced to twenty years in prison. The rally was also called in order to show popular support for the recommissioning of Revolutionary Tribunals to try internal enemies of Cuba for counterrevolution and to protest recent air raids by counterrevolutionary exile groups, largely comprised of batistianos, based in Florida. See also Prints 35, 36, 37, 38, 43, 44, 47, 46, 52, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59 and 70.
From the Collection: Yale University. Department of Manuscripts and Archives
Published / Created:
1959 October
Call Number:
MS 650
Container / Volume:
Box 4, folder 423
Image Count:
1
Description:
Scenes of Che Guevara addressing a mass rally called by Fidel Castro for October 26, 1959, and organized by government-affiliated labor unions to express support for Fidel Castro's decision to arrest Commander Huber Matos for resigning his military post and to charge him with treason and attempting to conspire against the revolutionary government. Matos was later sentenced to twenty years in prison. The rally was also called in order to show popular support for the recommissioning of Revolutionary Tribunals to try internal enemies of Cuba for counterrevolution and to protest recent incursions into Cuban airspace by Florida-based planes that had been carrying out bombing, leafletting and other violent raids on Cuba in order to topple the government in those days. These images were taken from the balcony of the Presidential Palace that served as a speakers' dais. See also Prints 35, 36, 37, 38, 43, 44, 47, 46, 52, 53, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59 and 70.
From the Collection: Yale University. Department of Manuscripts and Archives
Published / Created:
1959 October
Call Number:
MS 650
Container / Volume:
Box 4, folder 424
Image Count:
1
Description:
Scenes of speakers and invited officials gathered on the balcony of the Presidential Palace for a mass rally called by Fidel Castro on October 26, 1959, and organized by government-affiliated labor unions to express support for Fidel Castro's decision to arrest Commander Huber Matos for resigning his military post and to charge him with treason and attempting to conspire against the revolutionary government. Matos was later sentenced to twenty years in prison. The rally was also called in order to show popular support for the recommissioning of Revolutionary Tribunals to try internal enemies of Cuba for counterrevolution and to protest recent air raids by counterrevolutionary exile groups, largely comprised of batistianos, based in Florida. Frames 13-15 show Fidel Castro addressing the crowds; frames 18-23 show Fidel (wearing glasses) as he makes his way to the podium. Frames 27-29 and 30 show Carlos Prío de Socarrás, the last democratically-elected President of Cuba, who was overthrown by Fulgencio Batista's coup on March 10, 1952. Prío de Socarrás had been the leader of the Auténtico Party but returned to Cuba at the time after a three-month tour of Europe and expressed only support for Fidel Castro and his recent decisions. During Castro's speech at the rally that day, he made sure to point out Prío de Socarrás' presence on several occasions; it is possible that St. George took these photos just as Fidel was mentioning him to the crowd. Frames 4 and 5 depict a uniformed man wearing a badge on his shirtsleeve that reads "Milicia Obrera." See also Prints 35, 36, 37, 38, 43, 44, 47, 46, 52, 53, 54, 56, 57, 58, 59 and 70.
From the Collection: Yale University. Department of Manuscripts and Archives
Published / Created:
1959 October
Call Number:
MS 650
Container / Volume:
Box 4, folder 425
Image Count:
1
Description:
Images taken from the balcony of the Presidential Palace at a mass rally called by Fidel Castro on October 26, 1959, and organized by government-affiliated labor unions to express support for Fidel Castro's decision to arrest Commander Huber Matos for resigning his military post and to charge him with treason and attempting to conspire against the revolutionary government. Matos was later sentenced to twenty years in prison. The rally was also called in order to show popular support for the recommissioning of Revolutionary Tribunals to try internal enemies of Cuba for counterrevolution and to protest recent air raids by counterrevolutionary exile groups, largely comprised of batistianos, based in Florida. Frames 15 and 17 show Rolando Cubelas, an important member of the Revolutionary Directorate, a student-based urban guerrilla group during the war against Batista. Frame 6 shows a man whose shirt sleeve proclaims his membership in a "milicia obrera" or workers' militia. Frames 7-10 show Fidel Castro waiting to take the podium. Frames 17-23 show Fidel Castro speaking and the bottom row of frames shows Che Guevara addressing the rally. See also Prints 35, 36, 37, 38, 43, 44, 47, 46, 52, 53, 54, 55, 57, 58, 59 and 70.
From the Collection: Yale University. Department of Manuscripts and Archives
Published / Created:
1959 October
Call Number:
MS 650
Container / Volume:
Box 4, folder 429
Image Count:
1
Description:
Images of Fidel Castro giving a televised address to the nation on October 19, 1959, in which he denounced Commander Huber Matos of treason and of being a puppet of counterrevolutionaries for attempting to resign his post in protest over the increasing authoritarianism and influence of Communists within the new government. Audience members in the studio include (frames 13-14, 29-32), Raúl Castro and Che Guevara. See also Prints 31, 32, 33, 35, 36, 37, 38, and 42.
From the Collection: Yale University. Department of Manuscripts and Archives
Published / Created:
1959 November
Call Number:
MS 650
Container / Volume:
Box 4, folder 430
Image Count:
2
Description:
These images document the spontaneous street celebrations and outpourings of joy that followed in the wake of the Revolutionary Armed Forces' false announcement that the beloved Commander Camilo Cienfuegos, who disappeared on the 28th of October on his way back to Havana from Camagüey in an alleged airplane crash, had been found alive. It took another several hours for the government to confirm that this news was false. Neither Camilo Cienfuegos' body, that of his co-pilot, nor any plane wreckage was ever found. See also Prints 67 and 72.
From the Collection: Yale University. Department of Manuscripts and Archives
Published / Created:
1959 October
Call Number:
MS 650
Container / Volume:
Box 4, folder 432
Image Count:
1
Description:
Various images of street protests in response to the flight of Pedro Díaz Lanz, the former chief of Cuba's Revolutionary Air Force, who had defected to Miami in June of 1959, and had carried out a leafletting campaign in the early morning hours of October 20, 1959. The plane was found to have originated from Florida, to which it returned after receiving anti-aircraft fire from the ground in Cuba. Because of minor damage inflicted either by the plane's alleged dropping of a bomb or by shrapnel released when it engaged Cuban jets and defensive fire from the ground, the Cuban government declared the air raid "Havana's Pearl Harbor" and mobilized thousands of protestors against what it indirectly declared an act of indirect United States aggression toward Cuba carried out by batistiano loyalists with ties to the CIA based in Miami. In frame 17 of the second row, protestors hold signs reading "Pedimos devolución de traidores y asesinos," a reference to the United States' willingness to harbor former members of the Batista regime whom protestors wanted tried for war crimes in Cuba. Another protestor in the same frame holds a sign reading "No más bombardeo a cuidades" and a third sign reads "Paredón para los traidores." Frame 13 of the third row shows a man holding a copy of the 26th of July Movement's official newspaper, Revolución, whose headline reads "Fidel aquí estamos." Frame 15 of the same row shows men sitting on the flatbed of a truck; sticking out of the window of the truck is a painted wooden machete that reads "Obreros de Mazorra presente," or "The Workers of Mazorra are Present." Mazorra is Havana's asylum for the mentally insane that became infamous for its inhumane and brutal treatment of patients when the free press investigated conditions after the fall of Batista in January 1959. The rehabilitation and transformation of Mazorra into a premier asylum was considered one of the first great feats of the Revolution in Cuba. See also Prints 35, 45, 63, 68, 69 and 71.
