Gutierrez steps down as Finance Minister 1955

In the top newspaper photograph one can see from left to right, Marino Lopez Blanco, then Minister of Finance; Minister of State, Dr. Miguel Angel de la Campa and Gustavo Gutierrez, Minister without Portfolio. This photograph must have been taken in the summer of 1952, after Fulgencio Batista's, March 12, 1952, coup d'etat because Gutierrez and Lopez Blanco are wearing white suits and because Gutierrez would replace Lopez Blanco as Minister of Finance the following year. Gutierrez's daughter, Yolanda, remembers this date vividly since she was living with her parents at the time and was awaken by the sound of the telephone at about 4AM. Yolanda recalls her father pacing in the hallway screaming, "This is terrible what Batista has done. We have been forced back 50 years of democratic rule!" An aide to Batista had called asking that Gustavo accept the position of Minister of State. Dr. Gutierrez's daughter stated that Batista had originally wanted Gutierrez for that post but Gutierrez refused. According to his daughter, Gustavo was livid that Batista had violated the 1940 Constitution, which Gutierrez had participated in drafting, by forcing himself into power with the help of the Armed Forces two moths before Cuba's 50th Anniversary of Independence from Spanish rule. At this time Gutierrez was serving under President Carlos Prio as President of the Junta Nacional de la Economia.

The curious thing about this photograph is that Dr. Gutierrez is standing with de la Campa whose post as Minister of State had originally been offered to Gutierrez in March of 1952 and with Lopez Blanco whom Gutierrez replaced as Minister of Finance in 1953, the only post that Gutierrez finally accepted under Batista.

In 1955 Dr. Gutierrez resigned as Minister of Finance. In the bottom newspaper photograph one can see Gutierrez turning over the office to Dr. Justo Garcia Rayneri, standing to the left of Dr. Gutierrez, wearing a dark suit and glasses. Enlarge the photograph by clicking on it.

During his three years as Finance Minister beginning in 1953 Gutierrez discovered irregularities in certain departments resulting in confrontations with President Batista who did not "allow" Dr. Gutierrez to abandon his administration after Gutierrez attempted to resign on two previous occasions. Gutierrez had mentioned on occasion to his daughter Yolanda, and former office administrator, that he would refuse to sign off on documents that required his signature where he saw such irregularities. What finally forced Gutierrez to resign was Batista's lack of initiative regarding an investigative report that Gutierrez had prepared with a private investigator and presented to Batista exposing a certain general of theft at the customs office at Rancho Boyeros airport.

Shortly after Gutierrez resigned and as a bargaining point for staying in Batista's government, Gustavo proposed the creation of a ministry of economy which up until that point had not existed, a ministry which he could head and exercise complete control over. Batista accepted these demands and Gutierrez created El Consejo Nacional de Economía in 1955 and took the title of Ministro-Presidente.

Carlos Marquez-Sterling, in an article he dedicated to Dr. Gutierrez in 1976, please see blog entry "Internationalist...Carlos Marquez-Sterling," June, 2008, stated, "...and later, becoming absolute director of the Department of Economy which drafted and implemented financial and monetary plans, where Gustavo Gutierrez became a great power and one of the most responsible public figures of that time period, where the Cuban economy reached levels never dreamed of, culminating in 1957..."

Regarding his six years in Batista's last Government Gutierrez wrote on Februrary 4, 1959 from exile in Buenos Aires, "Me lei un tiron el articulo de Pino Santos. Creo que ha tergiversado los numeros y los ha hecho aparecer como le ha dado la gana. Seria facil refutar esa parte. Pero tiene razon en los costos de muchas obras y en una serie de negocios escandalosos... Muchos de esos asuntos fueron impugnados por mi y en dos ocasiones presente mi renuncia. Pero pasaron por arriba de mi. De todos modos, como yo no he participado en nada de eso, me siento tranquilo. El pie de grabado bajo mi retrato admite que yo trate de impulsar proyectos en beneficio publico, y es verdad que la mayor parte fueron torpeados o desfigurados."

"La politica economica del régimen (de Batista) fue buena en cuanto aumentó extraordinariamente las recaudaciones, el producto nacional bruto, las inversiones y los niveles de empleo y salario, pero fue mala en la forma en que se empleo el dinero. La responsabilidad es fundamentalmente de Batista y del pequeno grupo de sus priviligiados. De todas las personas citadas en el escrito de Pino Santos, la unica que puede temer es Martinez Sanz. Los demas es injusto cuanto se diga de ellos."

"Lo que yo quiero ver ahora son las maravillas que va a hacer el nuevo regimen. Ojala que se dedique a la tarea constructiva y no a la persecucion sanguinaria que lo esta encenegando ante el mundo y no produce ningun beneficio al pueblo."