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¶ Faustíno Pérez, a bearded Gramma survivor, traded his uniform for natty civilian clothes and the title of Minister for Recovering Stolen Government Property. As a start he took inventory at Batista's estate outside Havana—mansion, movie house, museum, library, $4,000 lamps.
If these men have their way, they will not cripple Cuba's sugar-based economy by drastic agrarian reform. They will keep the climate warm for U.S. investors, whose $800 million stake in Cuba includes huge plantations producing 40% of the sugar. In turn. Cuba will keep its big, guaranteed share of the U.S. sugar market. A dozen U.S. industries in Cuba, including Firestone, Du Pont, Reynolds, Phelps Dodge and Remington Rand, finished plants last year, and other big firms are going ahead with building plans.
Communists, strong in the new labor organization but weak elsewhere, will try to stir anti-U.S. hatreds. Che Guevara, a frank proCommunist, will give Communism all the help he can in the new army. A Communist-lining journalist, Carlos Franqui, is in a powerful spot as editor of the official rebel newspaper, Revolución. But Cubans know the U.S. too well to swallow the usual Communist whoppers. Any party that wins free elections in Cuba will doubtless be in the Western camp.
Castro is on the record with a promise of free elections a long 18 months or two years from now. "The parties must have time to reorganize," he argued. "If we held elections tomorrow, we would win. People tire quickly. In 18 months, the people may be very tired of us." Castro led a revolution against personal government and for restoring a rule of law; since the date of his victory, he has built a government based largely on his personality, while his men have violated his country's basic law. If he can summon maturity and seriousness, the bloody events of last week may yet turn out to be what Puerto Rico's Muñoz Marin thinks they are: "A bad thing happening in the midst of a great thing." If not, the seeds of hate sown in the execution ditches will sprout like the Biblical tares.