Lot Details
Lot 116
BATISTA, FULGENCIO Interesting archive of signed items relating to Batista's article comparing Cuban affairs to the Nuremberg Trials.
[Havana:] circa February 1959-April 1960. An archive of letters and signed items from Fulgencio Batista to Mr. H. Keith Thompson in New York comprising: 1) a typed letter in English signed with initials dated 12 March 1950 from Batista to Thompson enclosing the materials; 2) a typed attestation from Batista signed with initials and in full allowing Thompson to publish the materials and photograph; 3) a manuscript inscription from Batista to Thompson signed with initials gifting his book Respuesta; 4) a two page typed description of Batista's public life in Cuba from the 1930s onward; 5) Batista's four page typed article "Nuremberg y el Caso de Cuba dated 23 February 1959, each page with an ink flourish mid-page resembling Batista's initials; 6) a two page English translation of the previous; 7) a vintage 7 x 5 inch photograph inscribed with initials from Batista to H. Keith Thompson; and two typed letters signed by representatives of Batista offering these materials, dated April and September 1960. A few markings and handling creases but very well preserved overall.
An interesting archive of materials between Fulgencio Batista, the ousted former President and military dictator of Cuba, and H. Keith Thompson, publisher and literary agent described as a post-War "Nazi agent" for his commitment to Fascism. While Thompson was Batista's publisher, here the Cuban leader seeks to distance the situation in Cuba from the Nuremberg Trials. Batista writes (in translation): "It is obvious that it is only with the disloyal intention of disorienting world opinion that the comparison has been attempted between the International Tribunal of Nuremberg, its origins, motives, structure and procedure and the slaughter which is now being carried out in Cuba in the face of general indignation ... Therefore I shall reserve for a more appropriate occasion my comments, which you ask of me in so gracious a manner, on the Nuremberg Tribunal, and the trials which bear its name, reiterating that they neither resemble, nor are they similar to in any respect, and therefore incapable of serving as a precedent for the organized massacre which Cuba is suffering."
C The Collection of Jay I. Kislak sold to benefit the Kislak Family Foundation
Additional Notes & Condition Report
No condition report? Click here to request one.