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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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