Fulgencio Batista: Berets and Bribery

In the pantheon of Latin American Dictators, there are few as awesomely corrupt as Fulgencio Batista, Cuba's pre-Castro puppeteer. He staged TWO coups d'etat, accepted millions in bribes, and wore a blinged-out uniform. The uniform is the most important part of a Latin Dictator's public persona. Nothing says "I'm pocketing education dollars" like a pair of gold-laced epaulets or unearned valor medals. Just grin playfully like Batista and everyone will laugh their suspicions away.

As a prominent sergeant in the Cuban Army, Batista led a coup in 1933 to depose the dictator Gerardo Machado, as if a coup would make the society less dictatorial. With the army in his pocket, he put up figurehead presidents for several years until he ran himself in 1940 and won the presidency. After increasing the army from 8,000 to 20,000 soldiers, he lost the next term in 1944 and took an 8-year break from politics to plot his comeback. He was asked back to be on the presidential ticket in 1952. Instead of waiting to see the outcome, he just seized power in a matter of days using his military connections. He later defended this in his book Growth and Decline of the Cuban Republic by saying "I have been forced to carry out this coup because of my love for the people." If only all tyrants would so eloquently refuse to apologize .

Batista managed to run Cuba like a rock star from 1952 to 1959, when Fidel Castro marched into Havana with his bearded hipster rebels. These seven years were full of all manner of dirty things that a Latin lothario could wish for. Batista brought the Mafia in via his friend Meyer Lansky, a Jewish mob mastermind. He built the Havana Hilton and numerous other gambling shangri-las. Time magazine called 1950s Havana a "fleshpot," and with nearly 12,000 prostitutes doing business, they were right. If you're going to be deposed for your decadence, then don't half-ass it. Batista matched Mafia investment in casinos nearly dollar for dollar. He cancelled corporate taxes to encourage foreign investment. And each night, he sent a bag-man to the casino floors to collect as much as ten percent of the gambling floor earnings on his behalf. He most certainly spent his nights in a crushed velvet corner booth, passing out cigars to mobsters, winking at bonitas and sipping on Havana Club Anejo.

Batista held a mock presidential election in 1954 with himself as the only candidate just to give his critics a laughing middle finger. At a televised baseball game on December 4, 1955, fifteen students rushed the field to whine about his policies. A cadre of police took their cue and proceeded to beat the crap out of them in front of a national audience. This was a crucial moment in Batista's reign. He should have had the entire audience at the game beaten on national TV to send a message, but instead he let the opposition grow. The University of Havana cried out in protest, so Batista shut it down indefinitely. A few other times he let soldiers fire on demonstrators, but like most hastily-planned crowd massacres, this one hurt Batista more than it helped him. If you're trying to make a point, at least send a tank to run them down!

The last few years of Batista's reign were marked by Fidel's rebel armies gathering support for their cause, the July 26th Movement. Fidel and Raul Castro botched their first attempt at landing a sizeable force on Cuba. Their force of 82 was dead, captured or scattered, and in proper dictatorial form, Batista ordered that "ten prisoners must be shot for every dead soldier." But Che Guevara, Fidel, and the rest of the revolutionaries were able to escape and regroup. Although Batista rained down American-bought napalm on the rebels, tortured suspected sympathizers, and squashed peasants like a Russian Tsar, his days were numbered.

Instead of going down with the ship and holing up in his office with a machine gun, Batista abdicated the presidency and left Cuba on New Year's Day 1959. He spent the remainder of his days in Portugal with dictator Antonio Salazar, writing unapologetic books and spending the $300 million he absconded with. Oh, the perks of letting the Mafia run your capital city! Gracias, Fulgencio. If only all dictators had your sense of style.