Chapter . . . . . 10 ........................................ The Batista Dictatorship and Drug Trafficking
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ccording to Harry J. Anslinger, the director of the U.S. Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN), while serving as Cuba’s dictator between 1952 and 1958, Fulgencio Batista failed to cooperate with U.S. antidrug efforts: “Our agents made more than fifty cases against Cuban pushers and deal ers in the Batista era. The Batista government did nothing about putting these men in jail in spite of our co-operation in working with their own people to get the evidence.”1 This lack of cooperation stemmed from the corruption that existed more generally in Cuba during this period. As Louis A. Pérez has trenchantly written, “Millions of dollars were distributed among Cuban officials high and low in the form of graft and rake-offs. Criminal activities expanded on all fronts, most notably drugs and prostitution, without the slightest interference from Cuban authorities and wholly free of any fear of local prosecution.”2 That graft and corruption pervaded Cuba during this period is incontestable. With respect to drug trafficking, however, the reality was more shaded, since evidence indicates both that in certain key cases, Batista’s government collaborated in apprehending foreign criminals and in approving requests for their deportation and that in other cases, the laxness of the Cuban judiciary allowed drug traffickers to escape punishment. Although Batista’s detractors accused him of corruption and of governing dictatorially, they never charged that he was linked to drug trafficking. Fidel Castro did not include such an allegation in the manifesto he issued prior to his July 1953 assault on the Moncada Barracks in Santiago.3 Orthodox Party leader Eduardo Chibás lodged a slew of other charges against Batista, however: “What I accuse General Batista of is having stolen, during his period of government, many millions of pesos from funds for hospital medicines, local road projects, school breakfast programs, military pensions, etc., etc.”4
