- "But, rest assured, we will tolerate no guerrillas in the casinos or the swimming pools."
- ―Fulgencio Batista[src]
Fulgencio Batista was the dictator of Cuba in the 1950s.
Biography
Coming to power after a coup in 1933, Batista gained the presidential seat in 1940 and 1952 and served as a dictator. He began to make deals with numerous gangsters, including Hyman Roth, who introduced him to Michael Corleone.
Batista would open Havana to large scale gambling, and his government would match, dollar for dollar, any hotel investment over $1 million, which would include a casino license. By 1955, Batista had changed the gambling laws once again granting a gaming license to anyone who invested $1 million in a hotel or U.S. $200,000 in a new nightclub. The government would get U.S. $250,000 for license plus a percentage of the profits from each casino. Once all the new hotels, nightclubs and casinos had been built Batista wasted no time collecting his share of the profits.
At a gathering where Michael Corleone was present, UTT Corporation presented Batista with a gold plated telephone in gratitude for the telephone rate increases that Batista had implemented at the urging of the U.S. government.
Downfall
In 1958, Batista's regime was fighting a vicious war against the guerrilla forces of Fidel Castro, who managed to get Batista to resign on New Year's Eve, crippling Roth's power structure and scoring a hit for the Corleone family. There were various CIA funded attempts to return him to power, notably through the assassination of Castro by Carmine Marino, but they all failed.
Batista died in 1973, and Castro continued to serve as President until his resignation due to ill health in 2008.
External links
| President of Cuba | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by: Carlos Prio |
1952-1959 | Succeeded by: Fidel Castro |