837.00/4140: Telegram
The Ambassador in Cuba (Welles) to the Secretary of State
[Received 5:30 p.m.]
343. I am advised this morning that at a full meeting of the Student Directorate yesterday the majority of the students determined that they would be inevitably forced to get rid of Batista. They were moved to this decision by the strong popular reaction in his favor due to his determined stand against Communist agitation and to the increasing prestige which this popular reaction had given him as well as by their desire to shift all responsibility for the death of the officers on last Monday to the Army. The bitterness of feeling engendered by the National Hotel incident is becoming increasingly strong and many of the students in the Directorate fear the public antagonism to them which this is creating.
In the meeting a possibility of an armed attack on Batista was seriously discussed as was likewise the attempt to obtain the support of the A.B.C. and other revolutionary organizations in the endeavor to overthrow Batista.
Three of the members of the Directorate on several occasions during the past 24 hours have stated to my informants that the Army and Batista were now in control and that it was their patriotic duty to find at once means of doing away with the latter in order to avoid the creation of a military dictatorship.