Castro Fidel

Six page letter, 5" x 8", on thin note paper consisting of three sheets written on recto and verso. Penned entirely in Castro's hand, with each page numbered at the top. Dated "Sierra Maestro / Sep. 7, '58", and signed on page 5 as "Greetings / Fidel Castro Ruz". Paper lightly toned with expected folds and light creasing. One page with faint staining. Else, near fine.

A profound and revealing letter, penned by Fidel Castro just months before his "Movement" of armed Cuban rebels ousted the authoritarian government of then President Batista. Writing while stationed deep within the Sierra Maestra, Castro shows increasing levels of frustration and concern:

Snippets of Castro's stress cracks are shown below:

"Your plan of Ambush I like but I cannot give the go ahead with it without the presence there of the Commander of the troop with the means for it …"

"Gustavo has just told me that he has rented one B-26 for the trip. It has been three days since he communicated that he needs a landing field of approximately two kilometers and the he has a pilot but he is not experienced …"

"today he expressed unjust complaints … that Gustavo would have preferred to have you there instead of bringing ammo and bullets to us … this displeases me … "

" I become indignant every time I think of the hundreds of thousands of pesos, collected with so much sacrifice that have been lost …"

This stunning letter is written during the short period just after Castro's imprisonment when he was pardoned by Batista's government in 1955 (the bizarre outcome of being considered no longer a political threat to Batista--needless to say a poor choice on Batista's part), and up to the period leading to Castro's overthrow of the Bastisa regime. This is during the period when Castro fled to the Sierra Maestra mountain range and built an army with his brother Raoul Castro and Juan "Almeida" Bosque to wage guerrilla warfare. The letter, written in Spanish was addressed to Pedro Luis his head of the Revolutionary Air Force (aka Pedro Luis Di­az Lanz).

Luis was one of his key personal responsible for smuggling weapons and ammunition from Costa Rica and Florida into Cuba. To put the importance of Pedro in perspective, in 1959 Time magazine reported Pedro Luis as "One of the authentic heroes of the Castro rebellion (who) was a beardless, unostentatious young flyer named Pedro Luis Diaz Lanz. He flew weapons from the U.S. to Fidel Castro, took Manuel Urrutia, the man who later became Cuba's President, into the Sierra Maestra, and served after the rebellion as Castro's personal pilot."

This translated letter demonstrates Castro is trying to put out many fires at once, prevent one of his commanders from going rogue, and evokes an enormous sense of urgency. The entire letter is so compelling and revealing, demonstrating the complexity of his mission while how understaffed and under financed they were, that we have shown it in full below (additionally note just how hands-on Castro was in his mission):

"Pedro Lois

Your message will be transmitted today without delay.

Your plan of ambush I like but I cannot give the go ahead with it without the presence there of the Commander of the troop with the means for it, who is Lalo; he will be back in two or three days; if you have not left yet talk with him and explain to him your plan. Aside from the 50, the two tripods of the tank could be used and Lalos tripod; also the twenty or thirty garands, all well distributed and entrenched, and the promise that you are not going to waste many bullets.

Gustavo has just told me that he has rented one B-26 for the trip.

It has been three days since he communicated that he needs a landing field of approximately two kilometers and that he has a pilot but he is not experienced with the place.

I answered him today with the following message:

"B-26 landing strip ready few days to operate day or night"

"We can give exact position and signals"

"Its better to have more security wait Pedro Luis with pilot you plane who came to study terrain."

I want you to give me your opinion about this. As I can see Gustavo is acting almost on his own. I called his attention about it about three days ago. In his message today he expressed unjust complaints about Luis Perez, among others, that he asked for you before you finished the repairs to the plane that he had. By which I gather, that Gustavo would have preferred to have you there instead of bringing ammo and bullets to us. Even though this displeases me to great extent and does not allow me to have any hopes from Mexico, I do not want to complicate the situation, so I only told him as an introduction "that the lack of coordination between you and Lorie is prejudicial and the damage of these things is suffered by the revolution."

I become indignant every time I think of the hundreds of thousands of pesos, collected with so much sacrifice that have been lost. I am accelerating all the collection efforts to send Lorie all the funds gathered, to see if some day we have all the weapons that are needed. The money I will order deposited in Miami in the name of Tony Busch, so he will give it to Lorie, and that way not to draw attention to his name.

I will try to see you before you leave and I will write him with you.

I will immediately send you any message.

Greetings.

Fidel Castro Ruz

P.S. I want you to send me in writing the exact position of the field you will be preparing and the signals that will be given, in case that Gustavo insists on coming with the pilot he may have and I decide to authorize him, if you believe he has any possibility to make it. On this I will go by your advice.

Today I will tell Luis Bush to send Lorie any money that may be left in Venezuela"

A fantastic letter written by Castro. The reader can literally feel like they are holed up in the mountains discussing guerrilla strategy to overthrow a government with imminent climactic end about to come crashing down on them. The sheer complexity and duration of this 'movement' for the 'people' had been brewing for years going back to a time to when Castro was still a young attorney and first attempted to evoke change from authoritarian rule using his legal background and hoping the pen would be mightier than the sword. At the time, Batista antagonized the Cuban population by forming lucrative links to organized crime, becoming as brutal and vicious as any dictator in modern history and was completely indifferent to popular concerns. In early 1952, via a more peaceful attempt, Castro had first legally petitioned for the overthrow of Batista, whom he had accused of corruption and tyranny. However, his constitutional arguments were rejected by the Cuban courts. Castro was known to have remarked " I am convinced more than ever of the dictatorship's intention, masked in many ways, to remain in power for twenty years, ruling as now by the use of terror and crime and ignoring the patience of the Cuban people, which has its limits". After deciding that the Cuban regime could not be replaced through legal means, Castro resolved to launch an armed revolution; and with the support of the begrudged masses the path to change was forged.

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