From the Collection: Yale University. Department of Manuscripts and Archives
Published / Created:
1959 January 14
Call Number:
MS 650
Container / Volume:
Box 3, folder 206-207
Image Count:
2
Description:
Overview shots of the public trials of Batistiano officials held in Havana's National Stadium. This trial in particular was held on January 14, 1959, before 18,000 spectators and members of the international press corps. The man tried was Captain Jesús Sosa Blanco, commander of the military garrison in Holguín, Oriente Province, and one of the most despised batistiano officials on the island. Calling the plan "Operation Truth," Fidel Castro had personally invited members of the international press to witness the trials and come to Cuba at the revolutionary government's expense. Operation Truth was launched earlier that week with the mass rally in support of the executions and trials of Batista's agents, largely considered war criminals and torturers by the public, depicted in Prints 69-75. The trials were the subject of an intense United States-led campaign to discredit the Cuban revolutionary government, but were immensely popular among Cubans. Fidel Castro and other members of the guerrilla movement presided over the trials; witnesses present included family members of Cubans who had been captured, tortured and had disappeared at the hands of the very men being tried. See also Prints 69-75, 83, 84, 85 and 86.
From the Collection: Yale University. Department of Manuscripts and Archives
Published / Created:
1959 January 14
Call Number:
MS 650
Container / Volume:
Box 3, folder 208-209
Image Count:
2
Description:
Captain Jesús Sosa Blanco, commander of Batista's military garrison in Holguín, stands handcuffed before his accusers in public trial and attempts to defend himself before the microphone. Sosa Blanco famously asked for clemency while ridiculing the trial, saying that he felt like a Christian in Roman times being thrown into a den of lions. This trial was held January 14th, 1959, at Havana's National Stadium. See also Prints 69-75, 81-82, 85-91.
From the Collection: Yale University. Department of Manuscripts and Archives
Published / Created:
1959 January 14
Call Number:
MS 650
Container / Volume:
Box 3, folder 215-216
Image Count:
2
Description:
These prints focus exclusively on family members of the victims of Batista's state terror as they testify against Captain Jesús Sosa Blanco at his internationally televised public trial held on January 14, 1959, in Havana's Stadium. The trial formed part of "Operation Truth," a campaign to convince foreign journalists and United States officials who rebuked the tribunals and executions that they were not only justified, but legitimate because of overwhelming public support. See also Prints 69-75, 81-89.
From the Collection: Yale University. Department of Manuscripts and Archives
Published / Created:
1959 January 23-27
Call Number:
MS 650
Container / Volume:
Box 3, folder 217-239
Image Count:
23
Description:
Fidel Castro's trip to Venezuela. Castro had been invited by Rear-Admiral Wolfgang Larrazabal, former president of the governing junta that had taken power in 1958 after the overthrow of the dictator Marcos Pérez Jiménez. The Venezuelans wanted Fidel to visit their country on the first anniversary of that event, January 23, 1959. Castro complied, although in doing so he missed his brother Raúl Castro's long-anticipated wedding to fellow rebel Vilma Espín on January 26. Print 92, motorcade from airport to lunch meeting with Venezuelan officials in Caracas, January 23, 1959; photographs appear to be taken from inside Fidel's car. Prints 93, 96, 101, 108, lunch meeting of Fidel Castro with Venezuelan officials and Rear-Admiral Wolfgang Larrazabal, Caracas, January 23, 1959. Prints 94, 95, 102, 104, 106, Fidel meets with anti-Trujillista exiles from the Dominican Republic in Venezuela. Photographs clearly show the Dominican flag as well as Venezuelan flags (especially Prints 94, 95, 104). Print 102 shows Fidel leaving the lunch meeting and his motorcade driving to a meeting with Dominicans and being assailed by bystanders along the way. Print 104 shows a truck carrying Fidel arriving at a guarded facility (appears to be a privately owned plant of some kind because of signage that warns against entering the "empresa" grounds) for private talks with the Dominicans, passing through the gates and moving away from the crowds. Prints 97, 98, 103, 107, 110, 111, 113, 114 depict the massive crowds that greeted Fidel Castro from the moment he arrived at the Caracas airport through the course of his visit and speech in an open-air plaza (see especially Prints 113 and 114). In addition, Prints 99, 100 and 112 are significant for their depiction of the intimacy that Chief of the Cuban Air Force, Pedro Díaz Lanz, enjoyed at that time with Fidel Castro. Díaz Lanz was a pilot who became a revolutionary hero when he and Huber Matos brought badly needed weapons and supplies to the guerrillas in April 1958 with the help of the President of Costa Rica. In Print 99, Díaz Lanz and his wife prepare to accompany Fidel to Venezuela as fellow passengers on a commercial aircraft. Charged with nepotism and other corruption, Díaz Lanz deserted his post in early July 1959 and flew to Miami where he accused the revolutionary government of harboring Communists and claimed to have left for that reason alone. Díaz Lanz became a hero to the batistiano exiles who made much of his "defection," widely seen in Cuba as a betrayal. Print 105 shows St. George and other reporters covering Fidel's Venezuela trip.
From the Collection: Yale University. Department of Manuscripts and Archives
Published / Created:
1959 March 6
Call Number:
MS 650
Container / Volume:
Box 3, folder 265
Image Count:
1
Description:
Second and third rows of images are unrelated to the rest of the print and show members of the guerrilla army guarding and posing on the grounds of the Hotel Nacional in Havana where the photographer St. George was most likely staying. Other images depict a press conference with Fidel Castro and other officials of the newly formed revolutionary government held on March 6, 1959, at Castro's personal villa and sometime-headquarters during that period in Cojímar. Frames marked 1-3 in the second-to-last row depict the press conference and the last two rows show Fidel Castro greeting admiring guests and signing a woman's cast (frames 16 to 17) in the moments following the conference. Frames 21 and 22 show St. George taking a cat-nap in a lounge chair in a room adjacent to the room in which the press and officials are assembled. See also Prints 25, 26, 27 and 28.
From the Collection: Yale University. Department of Manuscripts and Archives
Published / Created:
1959 March 6
Call Number:
MS 650
Container / Volume:
Box 3, folder 271
Image Count:
1
Description:
The top five rows of frames feature Fidel Castro and U.S. Ambassador Philip W. Bonsal in their first face-to-face meeting held on March 6, 1959, at Castro's villa in Cojímar. The man standing in the background between Castro and Bonsal is an unidentified rebel officer. The bottom rows of frames show Bonsal returning to his car in the company of an unidentified Cuban and another man dressed in the uniform of the Cuban air force. See also Prints 19, 26, 27 and 28.
From the Collection: Yale University. Department of Manuscripts and Archives
Published / Created:
1959 March 6
Call Number:
MS 650
Container / Volume:
Box 3, folder 272
Image Count:
1
Description:
Top four rows of frames show Cuban Foreign Minister Roberto Agramonte, Fidel Castro, and U.S. Ambassador Philip W. Bonsal conferring while seated in lounge chairs in a side room adjacent to the salon where Fidel Castro held a press conference in his villa at Cojímar on March 6, 1959. In frame 26, Fidel is seen checking his watch while talking to the Ambassador. Remaining frame 18 in the fifth row from the top and frames 12-17 show Agramonte and Bonsal conversing alone. In frames 4-11, Agramonte and Bonsal are seen conversing in the same room where the press conference was held with Humberto Sorí Marín, former President of the Inter-American Bar Association, who served as one of Fidel Castro's top commanders during their early months in the Sierra Maestra and presided over the revolutionary tribunals convened to try common criminals and traitors in the Sierra (see Contact Book I). At the time of Bonsal and Agramonte's meeting with Sorí Marín, the latter was rapidly becoming the central architect for the Revolution's planned Agrarian Reform, passed in May of 1959. He would later be arrested and executed summarily in March of 1961 for conspiring with the CIA and exile groups against the Revolution. See also Prints 19, 25, 27 and 28.
From the Collection: Yale University. Department of Manuscripts and Archives
Published / Created:
1959 March 6
Call Number:
MS 650
Container / Volume:
Box 3, folder 273
Image Count:
1
Description:
Top four rows and the very bottom row show Fidel Castro, U.S. Ambassador Philip W. Bonsal, and Cuban Foreign Minister Roberto Agramonte conversing in lounge chairs in a side room to the salon where Fidel held a press conference in Fidel Castro's villa in Cojímar on March 6, 1959. The fifth and sixth rows show Agramonte and Bonsal conferring alone at a long table in the room where members of the press would gather for the press conference; in frames 3-6 they are joined in conversation by Humberto Sorí Marín. See also Prints 19, 25, 26 and 28.
From the Collection: Yale University. Department of Manuscripts and Archives
Published / Created:
1959 March 6
Call Number:
MS 650
Container / Volume:
Box 3, folder 274
Image Count:
1
Description:
This print shows Cuban Foreign Minister Roberto Agramonte, Fidel Castro, and U.S. Ambassador Philip W. Bonsal conferring while seated in lounge chairs in a side room adjacent to the salon where Fidel Castro held a press conference held at Fidel Castro's personal villa in Cojímar on March 6, 1959. This was Fidel Castro and recently-appointed Bonsal's first face-to-face meeting although it was impromptu; Bonsal and Fidel Castro would not meet again formally for several months until September 1959. See also Prints 19, 25, 26 and 27.
