    11

    11

    direct

    ly to the Maximum Leader.  As for elections, those would be

    totally out of the question.

    Gradually, the moderate figurehead--President Urrutia--began to

    sense what was going on.  And he, like many other Cubans, was not

    pleased.  Urrutia resisted the power-grab in the only ways he knew.

    He refused to attend cabinet meetings when Fidel was present.  He

    made anti-Communist speeches and television statements.  He warned

    the Cuban people that something unsavory was being pulled on them.

    Many Cubans were alarmed.  But Fidel stayed firmly on his course of

    secretly collectivizing society.

    Finally, in despair, Urrutia volunteered to go on a leave of

    absence from his official duties...and not return.  This, however, would

    not suit Fidel's purposes.  It could be read too easily by the people as

    precisely what it was, an act of protest.  Castro had a better idea.  He

    persuaded Urrutia to remain in office.  Then he went on a campaign to

    smear Urrutia's name.  First, Fidel appeared on television, implied that

    he himself was a staunch anti-Communist, and called Urrutia's public

    statements dishonorable.  Then Fidel arranged to have hundreds of

    thousands of Cuban peasants shipped to Havana for a celebration.  As

    the peasants streamed into the Cuban capital, the bearded national

    savior went on television and delivered a two-hour speech announcing

    his resignation as prime minister.  What had forced this hero of the

    people to leave office?  President Urrutia.  Said Castro, Urrutia had

    concocted the phony specter of a Communist menace and used this

    appalling lie to sabotage the Revolution.  Urrutia, explained Castro,

    was an American patsy, paid to spread the poison of Yankee

    propaganda.  His duplicity, said Fidel, moved to the very "brink of

    treason!"

    The mood of the crowds gathered in the streets of Havana grew

    ugly.  They chanted for Urrutia's resignation.  The earnest president

    who had tried to warn his countrymen signed his resignation while

    Fidel was still in mid-oration.  Then Fidel piled the fantasy of an

    American-inspired conspiracy to even larger heights.  A former Cuban

    air force commander flew a light plane over Havana dropping

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