837.00/4322: Telegram
The Ambassador in Cuba (Welles) to the Secretary of State
[Received 12:05 p.m.]
420. Mendieta last night had his anticipated meeting with the other political party leaders and agreed definitely upon a program and upon most of the names for a new provisional government. He was then visited by the five members of the Student Directorate who have been outstanding in the Grau San Martín government. The students urged him to support the Ortiz solution permitting the retention of Grau San Martín but giving him to understand that should he refuse to accept it they would not openly oppose a provisional government headed by himself. Mendieta’s meeting with the students lasted so late that he did not have his anticipated meeting with Batista.
Batista at 2 o’clock this morning reached the following decisions: to call this morning a meeting of the four members of the revolutionary junta who had elevated Grau San Martín to the Presidency and obtain from them a demand for Grau’s immediate resignation; thereupon to call at 1 p.m. a meeting of all of the opposition leaders and the individuals who had taken part in drafting the revolutionary proclamation which had been issued as a result of the mutiny of September 4th and which had caused the constitution of the present revolutionary government; to state to them that the Army considered that the present government had resulted in absolute disaster to the Republic and that in the interest of Cuba a new provisional government was imperative and that only a provisional government headed by Colonel Mendieta offered any sure prospect of success.