Book III Prints 81-82: Public trials of Batistiano officialsYale University. Department of Manuscripts and Archives1959 January 14engspaOverview shots of the public trials of Batistiano officials held in Havana's National Stadium. This trial in particular was held on January 14, 1959, before 18,000 spectators and members of the international press corps. The man tried was Captain Jesús Sosa Blanco, commander of the military garrison in Holguín, Oriente Province, and one of the most despised batistiano officials on the island. Calling the plan "Operation Truth," Fidel Castro had personally invited members of the international press to witness the trials and come to Cuba at the revolutionary government's expense. Operation Truth was launched earlier that week with the mass rally in support of the executions and trials of Batista's agents, largely considered war criminals and torturers by the public, depicted in Prints 69-75. The trials were the subject of an intense United States-led campaign to discredit the Cuban revolutionary government, but were immensely popular among Cubans. Fidel Castro and other members of the guerrilla movement presided over the trials; witnesses present included family members of Cubans who had been captured, tortured and had disappeared at the hands of the very men being tried. See also Prints 69-75, 83, 84, 85 and 86.