Office of the Historian

356. Memorandum From the Director of the Executive Secretariat (Calhoun) to the President’s Staff Secretary (Goodpaster)1

Washington, August 19, 1959.

SUBJECT

  • Departure of Former Cuban President Batista from the Dominican Republic to the Portuguese Island of Madeira

Because of its continuing concern over tensions and unrest in the Caribbean and its desire to take all steps necessary to alleviate this situation, the Department, through Embassy Lisbon, presented a note on August 11 to the Portuguese Government asking if that Government would consider the issuance of a visa to Batista as “a definite contribution to the maintenance of peaceful relations in the Caribbean”. The Portuguese Government gave immediate verbal assent, stating that it would grant visas to Batista and his immediate entourage for admittance to the Island of Madeira.2

On August 13 Mr. Lawrence Berenson, Batista’s American attorney, flew to the Dominican Republic and returned with Batista’s passport on August 16. The Portuguese Consul General in New York issued the visas on August 17 and on that same date Mr. Berenson [Page 592] arranged with Seaboard & Western Airlines a charter flight to go to the Dominican Republic today to pick up Batista and his group, numbering about twenty persons in all, to fly via the Azores to Lisbon from whence [sic] they will go by boat to Madeira.

On August 18, Ambassador Farland called on Minister De Moya in Ciudad Trujillo, informing him of the arrangements worked out by Mr. Berenson and expressing the hope that Batista and his party would be permitted to leave the country. De Moya indicated that his government had no objection to Batista’s departure and Seaboard & Western Airlines was granted a flight clearance on the evening of August 18.3 If there are no untoward developments, the plane will arrive in Ciudad Trujillo about 1430 today and depart about 1630 for the Azores.4

Thomas W. McElhiney for John A. Calhoun
  1. Source: Eisenhower Library, Project “Clean Up” Records, Cuba. Confidential. John Eisenhower’s handwritten notation indicates that the President saw the memorandum on August 20. Also published in Declassified Documents, 1983, 231.↩
  2. The presentation of the note and the verbal assent given by the Portuguese Foreign Minister were described in telegram 67 from Lisbon, August 11. (Department of State, Central Files, 737.00/8–1159)↩
  3. This meeting was described in telegram 108 from Ciudad Trujillo, August 18. (ibid., 737.00/8–1859)↩
  4. Batista arrived in Lisbon on the afternoon of August 20.↩