But the United States could not continue to prop up Batista. Acting Secretary of State Herter explained that Batista had lost the confidence of his people, suppressed basic democratic freedoms, and alienated “some 80 percent of the Cuban people,” as well as public opinion across Latin America and in the U.S. Congress. Batista had created “a very difficult public relations problem” and had to go. Despite their grave worries about Castro, the Americans now pressured Batista to resign. On the last day of December 1958 he flew out of Cuba and into exile in the Dominican Republic.
