Tuesday, May 19, 2009

1956: DR assassinates Secret Service Chief

Cuba History Timeline Events
October 28, 1956
Directorio Revolucionario (DR) members assassinate Col. Antonio Blanco Rico, Chief of Batista's secret service (the Servicio de Inteligencia Militar, SIM) at the Monmartre night club in Havana. Despite the DR/M-26-7 alliance recently announced as the Mexico Pact, Castro publicly condemned the assasination and the DR as well. Even as Castro directed other terror and murder plots, he publicly declared: “Such acts must not be indiscriminate" and added "From a political revolutionary standpoint, his assassination was not justified. Blanco Rico was not a Fascist executioner.”

A series of now declassified US diplomatic messages beginning on November 2, 1956 commented extensively on the assasination and related events: US Foreign Service Cuba Dispatch 11/2/56 (facsimile).


based on Manuel Márquez-Sterling's Cuba 1952-1959 and
Cuba 1952-1959 Interactive Timeline

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