ABSTRACT
The Cuban revolution of Fidel Castro has captured the imagination of the media and the public alike as has no other twentieth century event in Latin America. Since Castro's triumph in 1959, reams of material have poured out of the printing presses assessing the reasons for the triumph in one of the richest countries in Latin America of a Marxist-Leninist revolution inimical to ideals and interests. Any history of the Autentico movement from its inception in 1933 until its practical demise in 1952 must inevitably take into account the political personality of its leader during all those years. Ramon Grau San Martín was unknown outside a small circle in the National University, where he taught medicine; Grau at the time was in his mid-forties and had been exiled from Cuba during the last half of the Machado regime because of his intemperate denunciations of Machado at the University.
