The 1957 Havana Presidential Palace attack was a failed assassination attempt on the life of President Fulgencio Batista at the Presidential Palace in Havana, Cuba. The attack began at around 3:30 PM on March 13, 1957, carried out by Menelao Mora, a group of members of the Partido Auténtico, and the student opposition group Directorio Revolucionario 13 de Marzo, but was unsuccessful in its goal of killing Batista. According to one of the group's founding members, Faure Chomón, they were following the golpe arriba strategy and sought to overthrow the government by killing Batista.
The same day, a similar attack occurred at the Radio Reloj at the Radiocentro CMQ Building. The plan was to announce Batista's death over Radio Reloj; however, this attack also failed.
Attack
The plan of attack, as explained by Faure Chomón Mediavilla, was to secure the Presidential Palace by a commando of fifty men (46 participated) and simultaneously support the operation by one hundred men occupying the radio station Radio Reloj at the Radiocentro CMQ Building to announce the death of Batista. The attack on the palace would result in the elimination of Fulgencio Batista.
Presidential Palace attack
At 3:40 pm, the main assault force arrived before the main entrance to the Presidential Palace in two sedans and a delivery truck. They were armed with rifles, submachine guns, pistols, and grenades. All were in shirtsleeves for identification, since suits or uniforms were required for persons within the palace.
Twelve government soldiers on guard at the entrance were shot or scattered. Of the 46 attackers, nine were able to reach the second floor of the east wing of the palace, about ten were shot down in the open area before the building and the remainder occupied part of the ground floor. The palace switchboard was disabled with a grenade.
Batista's office on the third floor was reached by a group of the rebel force and two of his guards were killed near his desk. Batista himself had retreated to the presidential suite on the top floor where the palace defenders rallied and fired on the attackers both within the palace and the forecourt below. At this point military and police reinforcements arrived while tanks were summoned. The rebels within the palace were forced to retreat, some being killed on the main staircase. Only three escaped the building.
The main assault force was to be supported by a group of 100 armed men who would occupy the tallest buildings in the surrounding area of the Presidential Palace (La Tabacalera, the Sevilla Hotel, the Palace of Fine Arts) and, from these positions, support the main force. However, this secondary support operation was not carried out as the militants assigned to capture the buildings hesitated and did not arrive.
The attackers spoke in code to frustrate a potential infiltration or a divulging of the attack in any conversation. It had been agreed early on that they would refer to the palace as "la casa de los tres kilos."
Although the attackers reached the third floor of the palace, they did not locate or harm Batista.
Radio Reloj attack
The attack at Radio Reloj, located in the Radiocentro CMQ Building at Calle 23 and L in El Vedado, was led by José Antonio Echeverría who was accompanied among others, by Fructuoso Rodríguez, Joe Westbrook, Raúl Diaz Argüelles, and Julio García Olivera. The group departed from a basement apartment located on Calle 19 between Calles B and C towards the Radiocentro CMQ Building in three automobiles, including a delivery truck. At 3:21 PM on March 13, 1957, José Antonio arrived at Radio Reloj and after being announced, read a prepared statement over the radio, announcing Batista's death despite that such an event had not actually happened.
"People of Cuba, in these moments the dictator Fulgencio Batista has just been justified. In his own burrow of the Presidential Palace, the people of Cuba have come to settle accounts. And it is we, the Revolutionary Directory, who in the name of the Cuban Revolution have given the shot of grace to this regime of opprobrium. Cubans listening to me. It's just been removed..."
The operation failed, Batista was never killed, and the troops guarding the Radio Reloj transmission tower in Arroyo Arenas had knocked down the transmission. José Antonio was shot and killed by police on the corner of November 27 and L, on his way back to the university.
Otto Hernández Fernández, the last survivor of the Radio Reloj attack, recalled the events: