That was also the day that Manuel Urrutia, Fidel Castro’s handpicked choice for interim president, arrived in Havana by airplane from Santiago de Cuba and took up residence in the presidential palace. A somber judge who had presided in Santiago at the trial of the Granma survivors, Urrutia had been chosen because he had called for the acquittal of the captured men. He had little platform other than a vehement opposition to gambling and prostitution, which he linked and vowed to abolish.
