Felipe Pazos
Felipe Pazos Roque (September 27, 1912 – February 26, 2001) was a
Cuban President Carlos Prío Socarrás
.
After
Cuban military soon found themselves fighting against a young Castro and the forces of his 26th of July Movement. At the time, Castro was waging a guerrilla campaign in the mountainous Sierra Maestra region of Cuba. Batista had declared that Castro had been killed; however, Pazos arranged for The New York Times reporter Herbert Matthews to come and meet Castro in February 1957. The resulting interview refuted Batista's claims, and gave Castro and his revolutionaries international attention. In July 1957, Castro convened a meeting in the Sierra Maestra between his group of rebels and pro-Capitalist representatives, including Pazos. Pazos' signature on the July 12 Sierra Manifesto
was meant to help reassure the Cuban people that the revolutionaries were not radical ideologues. Pazos and his family were forced to flee Cuba soon after its release.
After Castro's victory in 1959, Pazos returned to Cuba and once again headed the National Bank of Cuba. However, he soon found himself becoming increasingly disillusioned with the new Cuban government. In April 1959, Castro and his aides, including Pazos, visited the United States. Many had suspected that the purpose of the visit was to ask for economic aid, but Castro forbade Pazos from making any such requests. Pazos privately expressed his frustrations to officials at the U.S. State Department and Treasury Department.
Pazos' confidence was further weakened when Castro ordered the arrest and imprisonment in October 1959 of
Pedro Luis Diaz Lanz, Pazos decided to resign. He tendered his resignation to President Osvaldo Dorticós Torrado on October 23, 1959. Pazos transferred the Presidency of the National Bank of Cuba to Che Guevara
on November 26, 1959, and was allowed to leave Cuba soon afterward.
Pazos ended up working at the
Puerto Ordaz. He had three sons and a daughter. His son Felipe starred alongside Spencer Tracy in the 1958 film adaptation of Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea
.
References
- Falcoff, Mark (Winter 1994). "Cuba and the United States: Back to the beginning". World Affairs, Volume 156, Issue 3.
- Harnecker, Marta (1987). Fidel Castro's Political Strategy. New York: Pathfinder Press. ISBN 0-87348-666-8.
- Hispanic Foundation, Library of Congress (1966). National Directory of Latin Americanists: Bibliographies of 1,884 Specialists in the Social Sciences & Humanities. Washington, D.C.: Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office.
- Lewis, Paul (March 9, 2001). "Felipe Pazos, 88, Economist; Cuban Split Early With Castro". The New York Times. Retrieved on December 28, 2007.
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