From the Collection: Yale University. Department of Manuscripts and Archives
Published / Created:
1959 January 2
Call Number:
MS 650
Container / Volume:
Box 2, folder 143
Image Count:
1
Description:
Top frames show Fidel meeting with and speaking to a reporter in the first days after the rebel victory at the airport in Camagüey where he awaited the arrival of Manuel Urrutia, the man whom Fidel Castro had designated Provisional President of Cuba as early as 1957. Appearing in frames 8-14 and 19, Urrutia can be seen in the center, wearing glasses and a suit and tie. In the background is the plane named Guaímaro, formerly used by Batista as the presidential plane. Urrutia had been sworn in as President sometime earlier in the city of Santiago where Fidel formally took the reins of power on January 1st. Also present to receive him is Melba Hernández (frames 23-26), one of the two heroines of Fidel's disastrous 1953 assault on the Moncada military barracks on the 26th of July. The event founded the guerrilla movement. See also Prints 19, 49 and 50.
From the Collection: Yale University. Department of Manuscripts and Archives
Published / Created:
1959 January 2
Call Number:
MS 650
Container / Volume:
Box 2, folder 144
Image Count:
1
Description:
These images document the arrival of Manuel Urrutia Lleó, the man whom Fidel Castro had designated Provisional President of Cuba as early as 1957, at the Camagüey airport. Urrutia apparently arrived by the plane named Guaímaro, formerly used by Batista as the presidential plane. Urrutia would be sworn in as President later that day. See also Prints 18, 49 and 50.
From the Collection: Yale University. Department of Manuscripts and Archives
Published / Created:
1959 January 1
Call Number:
MS 650
Container / Volume:
Box 2, folder 145
Image Count:
1
Description:
Taken on January 1, 1959, and stamped January 7, 1959, on the reverse side, this print documents the first victory speech given by Fidel Castro upon the fall and flight from Cuba of the dictator Fulgencio Batista. Having taken the reins of power in the city of Santiago de Cuba earlier that day, Fidel declared Santiago the temporary capital of the country and spoke for over three hours, well past midnight, to a huge crowd gathered in the city's central plaza. Frames 13-14 and unnumbered frames in the very bottom row show Juan Almeida Bosque on Fidel's left and Felipe Guerra Matos to his right. See also Prints 9, 22, 31, 32, 39 and 41.
From the Collection: Yale University. Department of Manuscripts and Archives
Published / Created:
1959 January
Call Number:
MS 650
Container / Volume:
Box 2, folder 146
Image Count:
1
Description:
This print shows Fidel Castro as he prepares to deliver a radio address from a transmission post located on the former base of Batista's air force in Oriente. Standing with him in frames 36 and 37 is Armando Hart (to the right, wearing dark shirt). Prints 4-7 appear to show rebels dividing up some roasted meat amongst themselves from the back of a truck. Prints 8-12 show a group of rebels, reporters and former pilots of the air force gathered at the entrance of the building where Fidel will deliver his radio address. See also Print 15.
From the Collection: Yale University. Department of Manuscripts and Archives
Published / Created:
1959 January 1
Call Number:
MS 650
Container / Volume:
Box 2, folder 147
Image Count:
1
Description:
Taken on January 1, 1959, and stamped January 7, 1959, on the reverse side, this print documents the first victory speech given by Fidel Castro upon the fall and flight from Cuba of the dictator Fulgencio Batista. Having taken the reins of power in the city of Santiago de Cuba earlier that day, Fidel declared Santiago the temporary capital of the country and spoke for over three hours, well past midnight, to a huge crowd gathered in the city's central plaza. These images were taken from inside the building whose balcony Fidel used as a podium for his speech. See also Prints 9, 20, 31, 32, 39 and 41.
From the Collection: Yale University. Department of Manuscripts and Archives
Published / Created:
1959 January
Call Number:
MS 650
Container / Volume:
Box 2, folder 148
Image Count:
1
Description:
Images of the rebel takeover of an unidentified provincial city in Oriente and its surrounding military establishments, including the bombed-out shell of a rural guard post whose façade reads "Cuartel General Borrero. Esc[uadrón] 16 G[uardia] R[ural]" (frames 29-33). The second row of frames show townspeople gathered on the street "Luis Varona" in the central part of the city; political posters advertising the candidates for Fulgencio Batista's recent fraudulent electoral "show" are still visible on the walls of buildings in the background. These images were taken in the first days of January 1959 as St. George accompanied Fidel Castro's motorcade on its way to Havana.
From the Collection: Yale University. Department of Manuscripts and Archives
Published / Created:
1959 January
Call Number:
MS 650
Container / Volume:
Box 2, folder 151
Image Count:
1
Description:
This print shows rebel officers and soldiers lounging in the driveway and conversing with foreign reporters outside the house where Fidel Castro is granting an interview to a Cuban television reporter on route to Havana in the first days after the fall of the Batista regime in January 1959. The location of the house is probably along the national highway in Camagüey. In Frames 10-19, Humberto Sorí Marín is second from the left in the group of rebels, most of whom probably belong to Fidel's personal bodyguard unit, or esolta. Frames 20-23 show an unidentified American man, possibly a reporter, speaking to the rebels and leaning against the back of the car Fidel used in the motorcade to Havana. The final two frames (24 and 25) appear to show Raúl Chibás (on the left, wearing glasses and full beard) sitting next to an unidentified member of Fidel Castro's escolta, later joined by an unidentified older man wearing two-tone leather shoes. See also Prints 24 and 25.
From the Collection: Yale University. Department of Manuscripts and Archives
Published / Created:
1959 January
Call Number:
MS 650
Container / Volume:
Box 2, folder 152
Image Count:
1
Description:
This print shows members of Fidel's personal bodyguard unit guarding the gate of a house at which he is staying along the national highway of Camagüey as his motorcade made its way from Oriente to Havana in the first days of January 1959. Frames 18-36 show Fidel speaking to other rebels and reporters along the tarmac of the Ignacio Agramonte Airport in the city of Camagüey. Shown standing near Fidel to his immediate left in frames 20, 22 and 23 is Armando Hart, a member of the revolutionary underground, whose father, a judge, famously objected to the prosecution of rebels on constitutional grounds and was dismissed from the bench by the Cuban Supreme Court in the summer of 1958. Armando's brother, also an urban revolutionary activist, was killed by a bomb some weeks before this incident. Armando himself later became the first Minister of Education, a post he held until he was promoted to Minister of Culture in 1976. See also Print 38.
From the Collection: Yale University. Department of Manuscripts and Archives
Published / Created:
1959 January
Call Number:
MS 650
Container / Volume:
Box 2, folder 153
Image Count:
1
Description:
Four frames of two rebels guarding the exterior of a private home, presumably where Fidel Castro was granting reporters an interview in the first days of January 1959. One of the rebels appears quite old, with graying hair and wrinkled skin, an unusual combination among the very young rebel forces. See also prints 24-27.
From the Collection: Yale University. Department of Manuscripts and Archives
Published / Created:
1959 January
Call Number:
MS 650
Container / Volume:
Box 2, folder 154
Image Count:
1
Description:
Images of Fidel Castro's motorcade as it made its way along the national highway in the victorious march to Havana. These images were taken as Fidel stopped his car (shown in frames 20, 29-34) to greet a priest, a nun and an opulently dressed lay woman (shown in frames 35-36). These latter frames were famously reproduced in the first of the three million "liberty" editions of the Cuban magazine Bohemia, published over a three-week period beginning the second week of January 1959. See also Print 30.