Manuel Benitez Valdés

In this Spanish name, the first or paternal surname is Benítez and the second or maternal family name is Valdés.

Manuel Benitez
Aide-de-camp to Colonel Fulgencio Batista
In office 1933–1942
National Chief of Police of the Republic of Cuba
In office 1942–1944
President	Fulgencio Batista
Preceded by	Bernardo Garcia
Delegate to the Congress of Cuba
In office 1948–1958
President	Fulgencio Batista
Prime Minister	Fulgencio Batista
Offices held	Congressman (1948 - 1954) Senator (1954 - 1958)
Personal details
Born	Holguin, Cuba
Parent	Manuel Benitez Gonzáles
Nickname	El Bonito
Military service
Rank	Brigadier General
Unit	Sergeant's Coup
Commands	Pinar Del Rio Regiment
Battles/wars	Cuban Revolution of 1933 World War II Cold War La Capa Negra

Manuel Benítez y Valdés was the Chief of the national police of the Republic of Cuba under President Fulgencio Batista. He has been described as a "...rough, tough General..." He would often carry out Batista's orders with ruthless efficiency. Cuban historian Abel Rojas Barallobre writes that he is "...one of the most nefarious men in the history of Cuba."

Early life

Benitez's father was Manuel Benitez y Gonzáles, a former Machadista (follower of Gerardo Machado) and soldier in the Cuban Liberation Army who helped purge the Spanish Empire from Cuba, and later a journalist for the Havana newspaper La Discusión.

Life in Hollywood

Before he joined the Cuban army, Benitez was a supporting actor in several movies produced in Hollywood, Los Angeles. It has been written that "Tenía una suerte loca con las mujeres," which is translated to read: "He had crazy luck with women." Nicknamed "El Bonito," or "Pretty Boy," he had sexual encounters with many early Hollywood actresses and other personalities.

1933 Revolution

In 1933, Benitez - son of the prominent Machadista - was in the Cuban Machado Army as a Second lieutenant, and was sent to a training camp in Colombia, Cuba. While at this training camp, he was arrested for falling asleep on guard duty.

After this, he was made aware of a young soldier named Sergeant Fulgencio Batista.

Benitez heard Batista speak to a group of misfit soldiers in a small tent, and his words were inspiring to Benitez. Benitez stood up, tore off his officer's rank, and declared his allegiance to the movement, demanding a demotion to Sergeant in the process. This would be known in Cuba as one of the first moments of the Sergeant's Coup, also known as the Cuban Revolution of 1933.

Colonel Manuel Benitez y Valdés, in center of photo not wearing a hat, posing with his regiment in Pinar del Rio, 1934.

Benitez became one of Batista's most trusted confidents in the revolution. He was Batista's Aide-de-camp, head of the Pinar del Río Regiment, and Adjutant general of the Army.

Benitez was involved in the planning of the bombing of the Hotel Nacional de Cuba in October 1933.

Batista was a member of the Junta of the Eight - which was composed of men who had agreed to lead the Army on a rotating basis. Another member of the Junta of the Eight was Mario Alfonso Hernández. Alfonso asked Batista when he was planning on rotating the duties as leader of the Army.

Batista told him that he would give him an answer soon.

Colonel Manuel Benitez (left) and Fulgencio Batista (center) in Pinar del Río, 1936.

Benitez later visited Alfonso at his barracks house and murdered him with a machine gun on his front porch in front of his wife. Batista would later announce to his troops that Alfonso had been suspected of drug trafficking, and was killed because of his violation of the law.

Complicated relationship with his father

As a result of Benitez's actions as a revolutionary, and after the success of the Sergeant's Coup in 1933, and the overthrow of Gerardo Machado, Benitez's father Gonzáles - as Commander of the 8th Regiment of the Rural Guard - was dismissed from his command and imprisoned at La Cabaña. When he was released from prison, he joined the Liberal Party of Cuba.

Under the presidency of Laredo Bru, Gonzáles then served as the director general of immigration, and was a welcome recipient of Jewish refugees from Europe. In 1939, Gonzáles sold forged permits to German Jewish refugees for 150 dollars each, allowing them to enter the country for sanctuary and asylum.

However, certain people in the government did not appreciate this, and these forged permits were eventually denied entry into Cuba by the Palace. This scandal by the palace eventually forced the entire transatlantic ship MS St. Louis to return to Europe with over a thousand Jews on board, after having been anchored in Havana for a full week. This is considered one of the darkest moments in Cuban-Jewish relations, and is known today as the "Voyage of the Damned."

Gonzáles was later elected to the Constituent Assembly, where he signed the Cuban Constitution of 1940. He later became a Cuban Senator, and head of the Senate Defense Committee. Gonzáles died in 1946.

Chief of Police

Promotion to General and Chief of Police

In January 1942, as Cuba officially entered World War II with Decree Law 7 (Organic Law of the Armed Forces), President Batista reestablished the rank of General in the Army of the Republic of Cuba. Benitez became one of only four Generals in the entire army. At the end of January, Batista replaced the National Chief of Police Bernardo Garcia with Benitez, without consulting the head of the Army, Colonel José Pedraza.

This series of events created a major schism in the government, and resulted in an attempted coup by Colonel Pedraza, Chief Garcia, and Captain Angel Gonzalez (Head of the Navy of the Republic of Cuba). These men showed up at the Presidential Palace and demanded total control over military appointments and military affairs, accompanied by a large force of armed soldiers.

Batista told them that he would give them a reply soon.

Batista and Benitez showed up at their military headquarters in Colombia soon after. Batista roused the troops there with a fiery oration and convinced the soldiers to turn on their commanders. Benitez arrested the three men and expelled them to Miami.

Corruption while in office

Benitez was notoriously corrupt as the Chief of Police. He profited from his relationship to the Illegal drug trade, illegal gambling, and prostitution.

The drug trade between Cuba and the United States was so bad in 1942 that the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN) sent an agent named Claude Follmer to the country to liaise with the Cuban Commissioner of Drugs in the Ministry of Health, Eduardo Palacios Planas.

FBN Agent Follmer wrote of the situation at the end of 1942:

“As the result of inefficiency and corruption, past and present, in the national police, all of the vices known to modern civilization have prospered for many years in Cuba. At present, just as in the recent past, the major criminal conduct in Cuba revolves around assassination, gambling, prostitution, and an extensive traffic in marijuana and narcotic drugs.”

The FBN and its Commissioner Harry J. Anslinger were also keenly aware at this time that criminal narcotics trafficking syndicates like Unione Corse, the Sicilian Mafia, and gangsters like Lucky Luciano were using Cuba as a major distribution hub into the United States from Europe.

However, in 1943, Agent Follmer made FBN headquarters aware of a new source of Cuban narcotics trafficking:

"the Republic of Cuba is literally inundated with Peruvian cocaine, which in the case of Havana is sold to several thousand of the city’s cocaine addicts.”

The United States Ambassador to Cuba, Spruille Braden, wrote:

“Illicit dealings and corruption in all its forms are fully operative in Cuba and involve both low and high-level individuals. Even those in the president’s immediate circle, and some members of the cabinet . . . have a direct interest in the profits realized from such practices... Corruption has never before been so rampant, so organized, or so profitable for those at the top.”

Benitez also used his connections to ensure that the Tropicana Club remained open despite complaints of excessive noise and illegal gambling by the Colegio de Belén, which was run by the Jesuits.

Reportedly, Benitez made between $4,000,000 and $5,000,000 as the Chief of Police.

Hunting Nazis and the Abwehr

Benitez standing next to George C. Marshall as a guest speaker at the FBI Academy graduation in October, 1942. J. Edgar Hoover is not seen, but he is in the room. The FBI's Special Intelligence Service was the American agency responsible for hunting Nazis in Latin America during the War.

In Cuba during World War II, Benitez was responsible for the hunting of any Nazis and Abwehr agents in Cuba. He oversaw a notoriously violent young officer, Captain Mariano Faget, who ran the Servicio de Investigaciones de Actividades Enemigas (SIAE) or the "Office of the Investigation of Enemy Activities," dedicated to eliminating all Nazi influence in Cuba. This organization has been described as "the Cuban FBI."

This would eventually result in the capture and execution of Heinz Lüning, the only German spy executed on espionage charges in all of Latin America during World War II. This arrest led to the capture of the PYLREW espionage network in Chile, which was connected with Operation Bolívar.

In his memoirs, the OSS officer assigned to the SIAE, Ian Maxwell, writes of his first encounter with Benitez:

"General Manuel Benitez Valdes was a tall man for a Cuban; he was considered very handsome, and he, personally, showed that he did not disagree with this; he had been in some three or four Hollywood-made movies, two of them westerns; and he was considered quite a swordsman, where the ladies were concerned.

He was shocked to think that I had come, loaded with dictionaries, ready for work on my first day in the S.I.A.E.

He said;

"Senior Ian, first we must make a credential for you; next, you must learn something of good eating and drinking places in La Habana; and, next, you must see and try some, at least one, of our Cuban girls. Then, after you are acclimatized to La Habana, you can bring your dictionaries and we will assign you to Principe Prison and let you interrogate Germans all day, every day." He then added, "I can tell you how to learn Spanish very rapidly – that is, get a sleeping dictionary and have her teach you! That is how I learned my English!"

His English was so poor and so heavily accented and his vocabulary so limited that I did not know whether he meant this as a serious recommendation; but, the General was so conceited that he did not realize that his English was bad; and he was so girl crazy that he would recommend sleeping with a girl for any difficulties a man might encounter. He thought a sleeping doctpra was good for a cold; a sleeping dictionary was excellent for learning Spanish; and a sleeping beauty was just good!

...I was disappointed to learn that I would not be assigned to Capitan Faget – but, instead, that I would work directly under the Director himself."

First period of exile, (1944-1948)

In October 1944, Ramón Grau returned to power as President of Cuba, overthrowing and prosecuting President Batista and forcing him into exile in Miami. Benitez also fled to Miami to avoid prosecution by Grau's government.

However, historian Irwin Gellman writes that Benitez was forced to leave Cuba by Batista, whom Benitez had publicly denounced as a traitor, because he had allowed Grau to win the election.

In 1946, Grau allowed Benitez to return to Cuba to visit his father who was terminally ill from chronic kidney failure, complicated by liver and heart problems.

Later in 1946, Benitez joined La Capa Negra (The Black Cloak), which was a failed attempted and coup attempt against Grau. Other failed conspiracies with the same aim include the Cepillo de Dientes (Toothbrush), and the Mulo Muerto (Dead Mule).

As part of The Black Cloak, Benitez was the leader of a failed beach landing at Pinar del Río Province. He attempted to recruit his former regiment to revolt against Grau, but this attempt failed.

Election to public office

In 1948, Grau was successfully ousted as president, and Batista returned to power behind the scenes, reportedly controlling the President. Later in 1948, Benitez was elected as a delegate to the Chamber of Representatives in the Congress of Cuba, representing the Liberal Party of Cuba (PL).

In 1952, Batista ousted the puppet President and assumed full dictatorial powers of Cuba, becoming both President and Prime Minister.

Benitez served as a Congressman until 1954, when he switched political parties and became a senator.

In 1954, Benitez was elected to the Cuban Senate in the Partido Auténtico (PRC) - strangely, this was the party that had been led by his greatest political rival, Grau.

Permanent exile

In 1959, Fidel Castro successfully led the Cuban Revolution to overthrow Batista and install a Communist government. Benitez became exiled permanently, trading his time between Santo Domingo and Miami Benitez also spent time in other locations in the Caribbean region, including Mexico.

In the 1960s, Benitez was hired by François Duvalier (Papa Doc) to assassinate someone close to Paul Magloire. The target died of natural causes, but Benitez was able to convince Papa Doc that he had accomplished his mission through a slow acting poison, and received $50,000 for the contract.

Benitez was described by the Central Intelligence Agency WAVE station in Santo Domingo at this time as a longtime contact with KUBARK.

CIA officer W.H. Carley, stationed in Santo Domingo at the time, wrote of Benitez:

"Benitez has long and checkered background. Repeatedly characterized as indiscreet, unscrupulous and unreliable. He was considered one of worst gangsters around Batista in Cuba."

Benitez also spent a lot of time in Miami, as leader of the Government in Exile movement. In 1961, his group approached Governor C. Farris Bryant to seek zoning permission to establish a Cuban residential and industrial zone in Fort Lauderdale.