As a rebellious, intelligent and audacious young man remembers Fidel Castro in her memoirs the legendary clandestine combatant Gloria Cuadras de la Cruz, who met him here during an orthodoxy rally, Prensa Latina publishes.
According to the chapter Who was that courageous young man, from the book The Uncovered Face of the Underground, Cuadras recounts the experiences of that day in which “The most fiery speech was the one he gave”, with his easy and eloquent word.
For her, already an expert in calibrating potential leaders after her links with Antonio Guiteras and Eduardo Chibás, together with her experience from several years of confrontations with dictatorial and corrupt governments, it was not difficult to identify, at first glance, the qualities of the new lawyer.
That favorable impression was opposed to the one she had when she saw for the first time the then sergeant-stenographer Fulgencio Batista y Zaldívar during a government ceremony at the Castillo de la Punta, in Havana.
Then, her appreciation was so unpleasant that it led her to predict that it would be fatal for Cuba, while “the first blow of sight” to the young lawyer was enough to intuit that it would be decisive in a better future for the country.
The pages of the text of the Oriente publishing house also review the days after the assault on the Moncada Barracks on July 26, 1953, led by Fidel Castro at the head of young revolutionaries, which puzzled her as well as many Santiago residents awakened at dawn by the shots.
Together with her husband, Amaro Iglesias, she was the architect of the patriotic gesture that made it possible to safely secure the bodies of the murdered assailants piled up without identification in mass graves in the Santa Ifigenia cemetery.
Another significant chapter that linked them was that of the trial following the audacious military action, which began on September 21 of that year and in which she was present, despite the vigilance of the guards because she was quite known for her rebelliousness and protagonism in the urban insurrection.
There, in the Palace of Justice, she was able to witness her sessions as a radio commentator for the CMKC radio station and thanks to the help of a lawyer belonging to Orthodoxy.
She was saddened by the entrance of the accused with the handcuffs that tied his hands, but she was rewarded by the upright figure and tall stature of Fidel, dressed in black and blue, whose serene face instilled respect and admiration.
