From the Collection: Yale University. Department of Manuscripts and Archives
Published / Created:
1959 October
Call Number:
MS 650
Container / Volume:
Box 4, folder 440
Image Count:
1
Description:
Top rows of frames show Raúl and Fidel Castro addressing a massive rally organized by Cuba's government-affiliated labor unions to show support for the recent arrest of Commander Huber Matos, denunciations of the exile-led counterrevolutionary violence in Havana that coincided, and leaders' recent decision to re-open Revolutionary Tribunals. This rally was held before the Presidential Palace in the evening and night of October 26, 1959. Bottom rows of images show a woman and small boy looking up at a sign protesting United States complicity with acts of aggression carried out by planes based in Florida and directed by former batistianos and their allies in Miami. The sign reads (in grammatically poor English): "Till when will USA permit the bomber to Cuba?" In the background of the photograph stands the United States Embassy. Notes: See also Prints 44, 46, 47, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 66 and 70.
From the Collection: Yale University. Department of Manuscripts and Archives
Published / Created:
1959 November
Call Number:
MS 650
Container / Volume:
Box 4, folder 441
Image Count:
1
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 61 and 67.
From the Collection: Yale University. Department of Manuscripts and Archives
Published / Created:
1959 October
Call Number:
MS 650
Container / Volume:
Box 4, folder 442
Image Count:
1
Description:
Top rows of images show 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 9-12), Raúl Castro and Che Guevara, apparently present to lend moral force to the speech. Bottom rows of images were taken early that day, before the submission of Matos' resignation, when United States Ambassador Philip W. Bonsal (frames 16, 17, 13, 14, 15) and President Osvaldo Dorticós addressed participants in the annual convention of the American Society of Travel Agents, being held in Havana. Premier Fidel Castro also spoke at the inaugural session that morning. See also Prints 26, 27, 28, 34, 45, 51, 65, 66 and 74.
From the Collection: Yale University. Department of Manuscripts and Archives
Published / Created:
1959 October
Call Number:
MS 650
Container / Volume:
Box 4, folder 443
Image Count:
1
Description:
Top two rows show Fidel Castro as he waits to be introduced and then addresses delegates as the opening speaker for inaugural morning session of the annual convention of the American Society of Travel Agents (ASTA), held in Havana beginning October 19, 1959. The bottom row of frames shows delegates and speakers, including United States Ambassador Philip W. Bonsal (frame 5 and 6) at the end of the inaugural session. Row three, frames 18-22, depict 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. See also Prints 26, 27, 28, 34, 41, 45, 51, 65 and 74.
From the Collection: Yale University. Department of Manuscripts and Archives
Published / Created:
1960
Call Number:
MS 650
Container / Volume:
Box 4, folder 377
Image Count:
1
Description:
Images documenting a workers' parade held in Havana's Civic Plaza (later called the Plaza de la Revolución) celebrating labor unions, peasants, militias and the Revolutionary Armed Forces' unconditional support for the government. Frames 25, 26 27, 28 show peasants holding their machetes in the air as a symbol of their willingness to fight for the Revolution. The top, penultimate and last rows of frames show different branches of the military, including a group of young men wearing T-shirts that read "Cuerpo de Defensa Nacional" (National Defense Corps). The signs on vehicles following the march of helmeted soldiers read "El Ejército Rebelde Vigila Construye Educa" (The Rebel Army surveils, constructs and educates). See also Prints 9 and 11.
From the Collection: Yale University. Department of Manuscripts and Archives
Published / Created:
1960
Call Number:
MS 650
Container / Volume:
Box 4, folder 378
Image Count:
1
Description:
Images documenting a workers' parade held in Havana's Civic Plaza (later called the Plaza de la Revolución) celebrating labor unions, peasants, militias and the Revolutionary Armed Forces' unconditional support for the government. In frames 28 and 29 of the third row from the top, the union of barbers and manicurists demands a military takeover of the administration of the establishments where they work. Frame 13 of the fourth row and frame 12 show marchers holding a banner that demands "adiestramiento military de la clase obrera" in general; the banner is signed "Delegación de los Panaderos de Marianao." Frames 14 and 15 of the same row show a workers' militia. Frames 30-31 of the third row and frames 33-37 of the bottom row show women dressed in identical dresses matched to the color stripes of the Cuban flag; behind them a banner reads "Comité Ejecutivo FNOEC." The women appear to be singing. In front of them, clearly visible in frame 31, is a mulatta woman dressed entirely like the Cuban flag with a French liberator's cap on her head; from her wrists hang broken chains that are symbolic of Cuba's liberation from slavery. See also Prints 8 and 11.
From the Collection: Yale University. Department of Manuscripts and Archives
Published / Created:
1959
Call Number:
MS 650
Container / Volume:
Box 4, folder 370-376
Image Count:
8
Description:
These contact sheets document the trial by Revolutionary Tribunal in Cuba of two U.S. fighter pilots who had served in World War II and who organized a counterrevolutionary guerrilla force, apparently under the cover of the CIA, for the purpose of toppling the Castro-led government in September of 1959. The focus of their operations was Lajas, a small village in the municipality of Consolación del Sur near the mountain range known as la Cordillera de los Organos, province of Pinar del Río, in the fall of 1959. Prints 1 and 2 show the men in clear close-up. Frames 18-22 in the first row and all frames in the third, fourth and fifth rows of Print 1 depict Peter Lambton, standing to the left of his government-appointed lawyer and a member of the revolutionary militia who is apparently questioning him before a microphone in the presence of the tribunal (see Prints 2, 3, 4, 4a, 5, 6, 7). Frames in the second row (unnumbered except for no. 29) depict Austin Young. Austin Young was originally arrested and confined to La Cabaña fortress in Havana on March 27, 1959, for helping members of the Batista regime accused of war crimes, such as torture and corruption, escape to the United States rather than stand trial and face probable execution in Cuba. A short time later, Young was deported to the United States as an act of good will on the part of the Cuban government. Accompanied by Peter Lambton, Young later resurfaced under the false name of "Russell Gardner" on September 13, 1959, in Varadero, Cuba, where they entered the country for the purpose of recruiting and coordinating a guerrilla unit among former batistianos and peasants worried about the possibility of losing their land to a government they feared was Communist. Young, Lambton and a Cuban national named Pruna Bertot, who had also faced imprisonment in La Cabaña but escaped from prison seven days before the former's arrival in Cuba, comprised the leadership of the counterrevolutionary conspirators in Cuba. Pruna Bertot appears in Print 7, frames 27, 28, 29, to the left of Young, Lambton and an unidentified man wearing glasses with a slight moustache. Print 7 also shows a peasant rendering testimony before the tribunal, a black man wearing a long-sleeved shirt standing before a microphone; it is not clear whether he was a witness presenting evidence or one of the accused. The name of their organization was "The Cuban Democratic Legión." It counted on the support of such former Batista military officers in the region of Pinar del Río as Juan Cruz Padrón and his brothers. Local peasants in the region were responsible for reporting these subversive activities to regional authorities, who promptly arrested Young, Lambton and a total of eight guerrilla recruits. At the trial, Young and Lambton were found guilty of conspiring under the cover of the CIA to topple the Cuban revolutionary government and sentenced to thirty years in prison, although they were later released into United States custody following negotiations over the failed CIA-directed Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961. Other Cuban conspirators received sentences of between 3 and 25 years.
From the Collection: Yale University. Department of Manuscripts and Archives
Published / Created:
1959
Call Number:
MS 650
Container / Volume:
Box 4, folder 391-394
Image Count:
4
Description:
Images of Fidel Castro's visit to a state-owned farming cooperative in the Sierra Maestra of Oriente province organized by INRA, the Instituto de Reforma Agraria. Founded in May of 1959, INRA confiscated lands belonging to former members of the dictator Fulgencio Batista's corrupt government or brutal intelligence forces through much of 1960. During this time, INRA came under Fidel Castro's leadership, the most powerful institution in the country, exercising greater authority than even the executive or the cabinet ministers. In Print 23, a "Tienda del Pueblo" is seen in the background. Tiendas del Pueblo were government-owned and subsidized dry goods stores that supplied peasants on cooperatives with cheap basic goods and foods; in many cases, they replaced company stores where peasants had previously redeemed coupons they received for their labor rather than cash and purchased goods from their employers at greatly inflated prices. Prints 23, 24, and 25 show Fidel Castro's party on their expedition as they relax in a tight group on the ground. Frames 7-11 of Print 22 show René Vallejo, director of Agrarian Reform for INRA in Oriente Province. Frames 13-15 of Print 25 and frames 33-36 of Print 23 show an unidentified former guerrilla veteran of Fidel Castro's column in the Sierra Maestra, whom St. George photographed repeatedly during the war, sitting to Fidel's left-hand side.
From the Collection: Yale University. Department of Manuscripts and Archives
Published / Created:
1959 October
Call Number:
MS 650
Container / Volume:
Box 4, folder 406-407
Image Count:
2
Description:
Images of Fidel Castro addressing a mass rally of Cubans whom he called out on October 26, 1959, to express support for his 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 show the balcony of the Presidential Palace which served as a speakers' dais. See also Prints 35, 36, 38, 43, 44, 46, 47, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59 and 70.
