CUBA: Agonizing Reappraisal

Fidel Castro's rebels reeled back in bitter confusion last week, but Cuba's civil war was not yet ended—and both sides knew it.

Emerging victorious from the biggest battle of the war, Strongman Fulgencio Batista prepared his positions for the next round. As shoppers once more filled peaceful Havana streets, the Cabinet decreed all public-service employees subject to military draft. That meant that if the rebels again threatened a general strike, President Batista could order some 250,000 workers in transport, communications, power, banks, hotels, government offices to stay on the job and, if need be, shoot them for desertion. Another decree...