837.00/4113: Telegram
The Ambassador in Cuba (Welles) to the Secretary of State
[Received 9 p.m.]
332. There has been during the past 2 hours a great deal of shooting throughout the city. At one time the shooting around the Embassy [Page 467] was considerable as well as at the Palace a block away. So far as I can ascertain it is due in particular to cars filled with opposition groups who drive at all speed about the city firing on soldiers or known adherents of the government and in part to encounters between soldiers and lawless elements.
The circumstance that gives me most concern is the fact that the soldiers are looting the wine cellars of the National Hotel and the probability is that many of them will be dangerously drunk before midnight. I have just sent a message to Batista urging him to place a guard in which he has confidence at the hotel to prevent the soldiers from having access to the wine stored there. The mobs have so far been kept out of the hotel grounds. The report has reached me that while the bulk of the officers were safely transported to the prison a few were murdered by soldiers and a number were shot by the mob while a few who refused to surrender are still in refuge on the top floor of the hotel prepared to fight to the last.