(1) WI he didn't kill himself?
In the late 1940s and the early 1950s there was no more popular radio show in Cuba than the weekly broadcasts of Eduardo ("Eddy") Chibas,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eduardo_Chibás Cuba's most dynamic political figure. Chibas had originally been a supporter of President (1944-8) Ramon Grau Martin's party, the Autenticos. However, he became increasingly disillusioned with the corruption in Grau's administration (which became even worse under Grau's successor, Carlos Prio Socorras), and in 1947 formed the Cuban People's Party or Ortodoxos. The Ortodoxos claimed that they rather than the Autenticos were the true heirs of the Cuban revolutionary tradition. They denounced the Autenticos' corruption, and were sometimes considered radical (Chibas denounced the "economic imperialism of Wall Street"), but they were also anti-Communist (or at least Chibas himself was) partly out of memories of the Cuban Communists' support of Batista.
Chibas was something of an eccentric. He always wore white; he would often fast; he would remain in the bath under water for long periods of time; he would invite women to lunch with him and appear at 5 pm; and he once personally attacked the Communist leader Blas Rocas with his fists. But whether or not he was crazy (as his enemies alleged and some of his friends suspected) he was a radio orator with no equal in Cuba. Hugh Thomas (in *Cuba: The Pursuit of Freedom* [1971], pp. 766-7) describes his impact as follows:
"Every week on Saturday night, Chibas spoke. Crowds flocked to cafes or hotels to hear him. He spoke with extraordinary passion and energy, denouncing the unbridled corruption of the regime and the *gangsterismo* associated with it. During the early months of 1951 he appeared as a real demagogue, half preacher, half scourge, one of the most effective destructive orators in Latin American history; by his accusations, week after week, he effectively completed the discrediting of all surviving political institutions in Cuba, describing this, the last democratic government in Cuba, as 'a scandalous bacchanalia of crimes, robberies and mismanagement'. The symbol of his party was a broom. By 1950 *el Adalid*, the chief, was the most powerful voice of opposition in the land. It was impossible not to listen to him. The vagueness of his ultimate programme, his omission to mention any precise policies of economic or social control (save criticism of certain foreign companies such as the Cuban Electricity Company) meant that many people of differing long-term views could assemble behind him. Thus there were many on the right of the Ortodoxos, who, ex-Autentico politicians like Ochoa who could not stomach Prio, thought that all that was needed in Cuba was to remove dishonesty from public life; while there were others on the left...looking forward to a vigorous reorganization of the whole of Cuban society; some were even prepared for collaboration to this effect with the Communist party--though Chibas was an inveterate anti-Communist--but since both Grau and Batista had also had their time of collaboration this seemed rather different than it might seem in other countries...Chibas had a programme for agrarian reform, like most other Latin politicians: this, as usual was 'land for those who work it' and the distribution of '*latifundios*' to landless peasants."
At the height of his popularity, however, Chibas overreached himself: when Aureliano Sanchez Arango, Prio's Minister of Education, attacked Chibas as a liar and a demagogue, Chibas accused Sanchez Arango of embezzlement. It turned out that Chibas had no evidence to back this claim. (According to one version, a group of congressmen held the documents of proof against the minister and at the last minute reneged for political reasons on their promise to deliver them to Chibas) For Chibas, whose prestige was based on his reputation for honor and truthfulness, this was a terrible embarrassment. The whole nation was waiting to see what he would have to say on his August 5 broadcast. He spoke briefly, said that Galileo had been right to point out that the earth went around the sun even though he lacked the evidence to prove it, warned against Batista (already angling for a presidential run in 1952) and concluded "Comrades of Ortodoxia, forward! To economic independence, to political liberty, to social justice! Take a broom and sweep away the thieves in the government! People of Cuba, rise up and move! People of Cuba, awaken! This is my last *aldabonazo* [a favorite word of Chibas's, meaning "loud knock on the door"] to awaken the civic conscience of the Cuban people..." And then he shot himself in the stomach with his revolver. He was taken to the hospital, where doctors at first said that his wounds were serious but not likely to be fatal. However, they were unable to stop the internal bleeding, and Chibas died ten days later. He was forty-three years old.
(In the Cuba of those days, Georgie Anne Geyer remarked in her biography of Fidel Castro, *Guerilla Prince*, nothing, even a suicide, went quite right. Chibas thought that his pistol shot would be heard on the radio by Cubans throughout the island and would stir them to action; as it turned out, only the people in the studio heard the shot, because he was already off the air when he fired it. Apparently he had forgotten that he had only paid for twenty minutes of air time. Also, there may have been an even more serious miscalculation if, as some claim, he only intended to wound himself...)
The death of Chibas set off a political crisis which led to Batista's coup of 1952 and ultimately to Castro's triumph of 1959. Distaste for politicians mounted. None of the presidential candidates for 1952, neither the Autenticos' choice, Carlos Hevia (who had briefly served as president in 1934) nor Batista, nor the Ortodoxo candidate Roberto Agramonte (Chibas's uncharismatic cousin) aroused much enthusiasm. When Batista saw that he could not win the election (the Autentico machine had co-opted some of the backers he was counting on), he decided to take power by staging a coup d'etat. And because of the general disgust with politicians, there was very little popular resistance to this coup.
If Chibas had lived--let's say he had never made his accusations against Sanchez Arango--it is generally agreed that he would have been the favorite to win the election, though as I will explain below, I do not think his victory would have been certain. In any event, the first question is whether the election would have been allowed to take place, or whether Batista would still have staged a coup as in OTL. Eddy's brother Raul Chibas and many others are convinced that Batista would not have dared to do so, because Eddy was just too popular and would become the chief of a powerful opposition movement. I happen to think that even if Batista did not stage a coup in 1952 and Chibas became president, there would at some point in his administration be a Batista coup against him. (After all, the pro-Batista officers knew that Chibas if successful would almost certainly have tried to purge them.) But in any event even if there were a coup in 1952 or later, provided it did not result in the death of Chibas (and that's a big "provided") he, rather than Fidel Castro would have led the resistance to Batista. (The exact relationship betwen Castro and Chibas is btw somewhat controversial. Castro at the time claimed to be the most loyal of Ortodoxos, a true disciple of Chibas, etc. but Raul Chibas--who fought on Castro's side in the Sierra Maestra but broke with him after he came to power--has claimed that Eddy and Fidel never liked each other, and that Fidel was just using Eddy's popularity for his own purposes. Robert E. Quirk in *Fidel Castro* writes that Castro's "reputation at the university as a gunman militated against success in a party of reform and probity. Annoyed by the young lawyer's overtures, Chibas brushed him off. 'What's he doing here?' he asked. 'I don't want to be seen with gangsters.' "
https://books.google.com/books?id=DmCrViAE2AsC&pg=PA32 )
Incidentally, I am not as certain as some are that if Chibas had lived and the election had been allowed to take place, Chibas would have won. After all, he had finished in third place in 1948. (The results were 900,000 votes for Prio Socorras; 600,000 for Nunez Portuondo, candidate of the old Liberal, Democratic, and Republican parties and of the Batista supporters; 325,000 for Chibas; and 142,000 for the Communist Marinello.) Perhaps in 1952 as in 1948 the Autenticos could have managed a minority victory? Admittedly, corruption had gotten much worse, and voters who believed in 1948 that the Autenticos were basically OK, that the trouble was with Grau, and that Prio would restore honesty, might not be willing in 1952 to give the party a third chance, despite Hevia's reputation for integrity. Still, the economy was prosperous, the Autentico machine was powerful, and as in 1948 the opponents of the Autenticos would be divided, though not to the same extent.
Anyway, this is my first of two Chibas what-ifs. My second will have to do with an audacious proposal by Fidel Castro on how the Ortodoxos could have used Chibas's death to seize power in 1951. Incredibly enough, it might have worked...
***
(2) "Let's take Chibas to the palace..."
The following account is based mostly on Georgie Anne Geyer's *Guerrilla Prince: The Untold Story of Fidel Castro* (and to a lesser extent on Robert E. Quirk's *Fidel Castro*):
Upon Eddy Chibas's death in August 1951, Ortodoxo leaders spent hours debating where the body of their martyred leader should lie in state. Fidel Castro--who had been a minor young supporter of Chibas and was apparently not much liked by Chibas--somehow managed to take over the meeting and insist that the body must lie in state at the university, and at the Aula Magna or Great Hall. There actually were good reasons for this: the police could not enter the university, so Chibas's body would be protected from any danger of "foul play" on the part of the Prio government. However, what was probably at least as important to Castro was that the decision gave him and a few other student leaders control over Chibas's funeral.
So the next morning the body of Chibas lay in state at the university. Radio stations set up microphones to record the words of condolence of the huge number of mourners. As one might expect, Fidel Castro spoke longer than anyone else. (He had prepared five different versions of his statement and read a different one for each network!) Later in the day, he approached his friend Jose Pardo Llada, who had assumed responsiblity for the funeral.
Where are we taking the body? asked Castro.
To the cemetery, replied Pardo.
No, said Fidel, we have to take it to the presidential palace.
Pardo was stunned. "To the palace, what for?"
To seize power, Castro replied. The hundreds of thousands of mourners will follow the body to the Palace. You, Pardo, will proclaim yourself president, and I will be chief of the army. "We are going to give Chibas after his death the satisfaction of sweeping away the government of Prio. I assure you, if you carry him to the palace, Prio will flee Cuba. The coward must be terribly frightened."
As Pardo recalled it, he told Fidel that this was madness and reminded him that "with the burial there will march a batallion of the army for the military honors and that all the police are confined to quarters. They are capable of killing thousands of people, if we decide to assault the palace. I will not take responsibility for such a slaughter..."
Fidel insisted, "I tell you that they won't do anything. They are not capable of shooting even one shot. They are all cowards. The president, the army, the police. the government, all of them. Let's take Chibas to the palace and seat the dead in the presidential chair."
According to Pardo, that last phrase--"seat the dead in the presidential chair"--made him cut off the dialogue then and there. He said, with finality, "There's nothing more to say, Fidel. I am taking Chibas to the cemetery." Later that day, Castro chided Pardo: If you had paid attention to me, you would now be president of the republic.
A crazy idea, right? But before being too sure, consider this:
Years later, in Montreal in 1955, Pardo Llada met Prio (they were both refugees from the Batista dictatorship). Pardo told him the story and asked whether he would indeed have given the order to shoot if they had tried to carry "the wave of the people" to the palace "with the body as a flag." Prio replied, "If I had known about it, you can be sure that I never would have ordered anyone to shoot against my people. Nobody could say that my government would kill anybody." Pardo later discovered that (1) Captain Maximo Rabelo, who accompanied the troops to the burial of Chibas, carried only blanks and had been explicitly ordered *not* to intervene in case of any disorder, in part because Prio was cowardly and in part because he genuinely hated the idea of civil war. (2) A pilot of the Military Aviation, Roberto Verdaguer, revealed five years after the death of Chibas that on that very day Prio had packed his bags and ordered a plane ready to take him out of the country in case Chibas's burial resulted in a popular insurrection.
So if Pardo had gone along with Castro's wild idea, it just might have worked, at least temporarily. Of course, once second thoughts set in, one may question just how long "President" Pardo and "Army Chief" Castro would have remained in power. They were not well known at that time even to most Ortodoxos. Yet their audacity--and their success in ousting the unpopular Prio--would no doubt win them a mass following, and even the pro-Batista elements in the army might hesitate before ousting them if that would cause a civil war...