837.00/3794: Telegram
The Ambassador in Cuba (Welles) to the Secretary of State
[Received 5:40 p.m.]
217. The Hotel Nacional in Habana, where many of the American colony are living at the present moment and to which I myself have moved since the lease on my house expired, has been decided upon today by the Cuban Army officers as headquarters. Approximately 500 officers fully armed are in the hotel. Some of them have received information that their houses have been sacked by the soldiers this morning and many of them are in fear of their lives. They refuse to leave the hotel since they state that it is the only place open to them in Habana which can be readily defended. At the present moment there appears to be no likelihood that the soldiers will attack the officers so long as they remain in the hotel but the possibility, of course, exists and in that event the protection of the lives of Americans resident in the hotel would be a very serious problem.