When the Directorate went from secrecy to the headlines

"It was a convulsive but formidable period, the most extraordinary, intense and glorious of my life," Julio Garcia Oliveras says as he recalls his student days and the struggle against Batista's tyranny at the University of Havana and in the streets. Those were his words when I interviewed him, some time before his death in 2017.

Then I asked him to look back and go over his memories about the Revolutionary Directorate, of which he was a founder and whose existence remained in the utmost secrecy until its proclamation, on February 24, 1956.

Joy, fervor, pride, longing: a myriad of emotions came together in his eyes, voice, face and gestures as he told his story as a survivor of many fights and vicissitudes alongside comrades-in-arms José Antonio Echeverría, Fructuoso Rodríguez and many other figures of Cuban history:

"Actually, the idea of creating the Directorate arose on March 10, 1952, and many of us doubted, despite the prestige of our past, that we could do anything against the military through a Federation of University Students (FEU) whose leaders were more eager to make a political career than to serve their Homeland.

"As a student leader, José Antonio already had other plans. He said that what was usurped by force, had to be regained by force, holding that a rebellion was the only choice. The events of July 26, 1953 reaffirmed his certainty.

"The FEU created the Directorate to coordinate the steps toward the uprising intended to overthrow the dictatorship and establish the revolutionary State. (…) February 24, 1956 marked a call to action and to the unity of all forces intent on such a supreme endeavor. José Antonio himself chose the anniversary of the resumption of the Cuban people's struggle for independence to announce to all and sundry the existence of the Revolutionary Directorate and issue a public declaration of war to the death against tyranny.

"Then would come his historic meeting with Fidel, whom he admired and respected and whose ideals and purposes he shared, and with whom he sealed, in late August 1956, a strategic alliance, that pact with the 26th of July Movement known as the Letter of Mexico, a political action to achieve the kind of unity that will make this people invincible forever and until then the most notable absentee from key moments of Cuban history".

We all know what happened next. The Directorate engaged in successful armed actions that kept Batista’s army on the rack, the bravest of which, one bold enough to earn him an eternal place in our memory, was the combined operation of the attack to the Presidential Palace and the seizure of the radio station Radio Reloj on March 13, 1957.

At that point in the conversation, sadness darkened the radiant look in the eyes of García Oliveras, who took part in the assault on the radio station and then, by a trick of fate—or of traffic, to be accurate—lost sight forever of his boss and dear friend José Antonio Echeverría.

"What was ‘Gordo’ like? One hundred percent Cuban. Friendly, affable, talkative, witty, a good dancer, a fan of Benny Moré’s music. He was well liked, always smiling, although in the face of an injustice or affront his face would light up with anger. He was also of a courage bordering on recklessness, but had great political vision; an excellent orator, a natural leader, a passionate follower of Martí, a patriot, and a revolutionary...”