Cuba Betrayed

By the end of 1948 Cuban politics had been the source of many acts of violence. One of Dr. Grau's supporters aspired to the Presidency and organized a new party, demagogic in nature, which obtained strong popular support by disclosing the immoral and criminal nature of the Administration from which he had just seceded. This turncoat was Eduardo R. Chibás, who took his new stand when he realized he would not be Dr. Grau's candidate. For the President and leader of the "Auténticos" had decided to support another disciple, politically inferior to Chibás.

Dr. Pío Elizalde, in his book The Tragedy of Cuba, asserts that Prío's election "was based on the action of the so-called BAGA, letters which survive in Cuban political history to signify an official instrument of corruption and blackmail for the attainment of an election objective."

The letters represented the political combination of Grau and the Minister of Education José Manuel Alemán, whom the President permitted to rifle the Cuban Treasury at will. In his schemes for re-election, Grau authorized the use of the initials. Elizalde goes on to say, " The Bloc of Aleman-Grau-Alsina- BAGA which took shape in the last days of the Grau Administration was the culmination of the thievery, tyranny and mismanagement characteristic of those men. When Grau failed in his bid for re-lection, being unable to modify the Constitution so that he could run again, he gave his support to the former President of the Student Directorate, Dr. Prío, in opposition to both Chibás and Miguel Suárez Fernandez."

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