Cuba, 1956 — military coup conspiracy
Event Summary
The Conspiracion de los Puros, or Conspiracy of the Pure, was a plot in April 1956 by more than 120 professional officers of the Cuban armed forces, roughly a fifth of the officer corps, to overthrow dictator Fulgencio Batista and restore constitutional democracy through free elections. Led by Colonel Ramon Barquin, the respected military attache in Washington whom Batista had summoned home and promoted to general in the mistaken belief he would be loyal, the plotters organized among discontented officers in Columbia military city, La Cabana, and the cadet and artillery schools. The coup was set for 4 April 1956 but was betrayed by conspirator Major Enrique Rios Morejon; loyalist forces arrested the plotters on 2 and 3 April, and the government announced the foiled plot on 4 April.
Barquin and a dozen other officers were court-martialed and imprisoned on the Isle of Pines. The purge of the professional officer corps crippled the army's later ability to combat Fidel Castro's guerrillas.
Researched Details
Researched
Independent research, added record by record. Hover any label for what it means.
Sources
Editorial Note
Cross-Reference
Only one dataset carries it. One of the three reference datasets we check against carries this event; the others do not list it. That is not a contradiction — the datasets cover different periods and use different thresholds — but it means the record has had less outside corroboration.
Identifiers for finding this same event in the other datasets:
- Cline Center id
04004031956
How the match is made is described in crossref-report.md.
Outcome and Target
Coup Atlas research identifies the target as: Batista survived the plot, but the resulting purge of the officer corps weakened his army against Castro.
Baseline coding: Plot discovered and disrupted before execution. Recorded leader fate: remained in office; not physically harmed. The baseline file does not name individual targets; researched names are kept in a separate layer.
Baseline Dataset Citation
Baseline Source-Document Entries
Wikipedia
New York Times
Daily Boston Globe
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
This is the citation trail carried by the baseline dataset, grouped by outlet and rejoined from the line-wrapped original. Coup Atlas has not independently re-checked every document; read the original before citing a specific claim. URLs the import damaged beyond safe repair are shown as plain text and listed in citations-report.md. How this list is built →