At 2 a.m., on the morning after Cuba's presidential election last week, Fulgencio Batista told his followers: "From the results so far, it appears that I am the President-elect." It was a modest enough statement for a dictator who controlled the electoral machinery and whose only competitor in the race, ex-President Ramón Grau San Martin, had withdrawn before the election (TIME, Nov. 8).
When the vote count was barely under way, Batista gave the counters their cue. ''Seventy percent of the electorate voted, and 60% have voted for me," he told his followers. To no one's surprise, the final returns...
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