Fidel Castro brands Huber Matos a traitor before 5,000 people
By Roy Castellano ·
Major Huber Matos spent twenty years in prison after Fidel Castro publicly claimed he was free while students protested the regime's shift toward communism.
October 21, 1959, at 1 p.m. in Camaguey, Fidel Castro stood before a crowd estimated at four to five thousand people. He was not there to administer the province, but to dismantle a man. According to a priority telegram sent that evening from the U.S. Embassy in Havana to the Department of State, Castro’s objective was to "head off coalescence public support" around Major Huber Matos.
Matos had been a key figure in the 26th of July Movement, fighting alongside Castro to overthrow the Batista dictatorship. But by late 1959, the alliance had fractured. The embassy record describes Castro's speech as an attempt to discredit Matos through "character assassination," a tactic the document notes Castro had previously used against other dissidents, specifically Urrutia and Diaz Lanz.
The Three Musketeers
In the eyes of the revolutionary government, Matos was no longer a comrade; he was a "traitor, conspirator, bad revolutionary." Castro told the crowd in Camaguey that Matos had attempted to "spring revolt" in the province, seize control, and then move on to other parts of the island. The timing of this alleged coup was framed as a calculated move to embarrass the government while thousands of ASTA representatives were visiting Cuba.
Castro grouped Matos with Diaz Lanz and Urrutia, referring to them as the "three musketeers." He argued that these men had failed to realize that the Cuban people were "firmly behind revolution" and could not be swayed by what he termed "petty conspirators." By the time the speech ended, Castro declared that the "great conspiracy" had been eliminated without a single shot being fired.
However, the rhetoric of a clean victory was punctuated by a pointed threat. Castro told the people of Camaguey they could feel easy because the situation was under control, but he added that this had been achieved "even though government had not had time to mobilize peasants with their machetes."
"We do not want communism"
While Castro worked the crowd, Consular Agent Tate was monitoring the ground reality. His reports, relayed through the embassy, painted a picture of a city on edge. Tate noted that while there was "much excitement," it had not yet translated into organized action. He observed that Castro’s effort to isolate the conflict to the person of Matos was failing to stop a wider ripple effect; Matos’s resignation had already impacted provincial leaders who remained loyal to him.
At the local public high school, the sentiment was not one of revolutionary unity. Students had displayed a large sign outside the school that read: "we want this situation clarified—we do not want communism."
This student protest highlights the specific friction point of 1959. Public records indicate that Matos had become increasingly critical of the regime's tilt toward Marxist principles and its ties to the Popular Socialist Party. The sign in Camaguey was a direct reflection of that anxiety, suggesting that Matos’s defiance provided a vocabulary for others who feared the direction of the revolution.
Confined to Barracks
Beyond the students, the military environment in Camaguey was one of forced stillness. Tate reported that all officers had been "confined to barracks." There was also a desperate attempt by local officials to intervene. Provincial and municipal commissioners, along with the provincial coordinator for the 26 July movement, had reportedly tried and failed to see Castro that morning. Their goal was to persuade the leader to refrain from the public denunciation of Matos.
As the day progressed, the status of the schools in the city shifted. Tate reported that all private schools were closed, and he believed the public schools had followed suit.
Then there was the question of Matos himself. In his public address, Castro claimed that Matos was "free to travel and speak as he wished." This public assurance of liberty clashed with the intelligence reaching the embassy. The telegram notes that "some reports reaching Embassy indicate Matos under arrest," though it admits there was "no confirmation as yet."
That gap between the official word and the reported fact—the freedom to speak versus the reality of a cell—defined the transition of the Cuban state in late 1959. The embassy file ends with this uncertainty, leaving the actual status of Major Matos an open question on the evening of October 21. Public records later confirmed that Matos would spend the next twenty years in prison for treason and sedition.