General Ruben Fulgencio Batista y Zaldívar was the "de facto" military leader of Cuba from 1933 to 1940, and thus the eminence grise of Cuban politics for that period of time, and the "de jure" President of Cuba from 1940 to 1944 after having won election. He then became the country's leader after staging a coup, from 1952 to 1959. Wikipedia
The definitive Wikipedia entry for Fulgencio Batista. Wikipedia is the biggest multilingual free-content encyclopedia on the Internet. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fulgencio_Batista
