A chair flying through the air landed on the anatomy of Carlos Prío Socarrás, one of the latest politicos to arrive in Miami as part of plans for invading Cuba.

It was the climax of a row that had been brewing for weeks between Batista’s henchmen Esteban Ventura and Rolando Masferrer, and Eisenhower’s embezzlers Tony Varona and Prío Socarrás. The former called themselves the "purists" and called those who arrived in Florida after them "arrivistes" and "penitents".

Batista’s men began to arrive in the United States on the same date of the revolution, January 1, 1959 and were very quickly well received. Their merits were recognized. Others went later.

Ventura did not make any distinction between Tony Varona and Miró Cardona (the latter elected provisional president of Cuba in exile). The motive for the Batista followers’ unrestrained dislike was that the newer arrivals had taken control of funds provided by the U.S. government and managed via the CIA. Moreover, these were even more substantial that those received by them.

A few days before the brawl, one of pro-Batista newspapers launched an attack on the group set up by the CIA as the leading front for the invasion that was being planned.

The article read, "The Democratic Revolutionary Front is in agony. Its ‘coordinator’ (Tony Varona) is attempting to make it react; he is traveling to Washington, to New York, to Guatemala. He is knocking on all the doors. He is inviting in those he previously shut out by considering himself the owner of the keys, but one thing is a fact. The FRD has already won itself an R.I.P." The piece went on to add, "All of that, linked to the unbridled management of the considerable funds placed in their hands, which have only been utilized to create divisionism, obstruct the anti-Castro battle and provide a group of favorites with the comfortable lifestyle they have been leading – and are still leading in exile – in better economic conditions than they previously enjoyed in Cuba."

The newspaper commentary followed a highly polished technique of coercion. It gave the real information at its disposal, but did not enter into details, while letting it be known that it was prepared to come out with them if there was no financial reaction.

Effectively, Tony Varona had had to travel to Guatemala to try and silence protests resulting from the CIA having placed former Batista soldiers at the head of the invasion brigade, despite the fact that he himself mistrusted them. And he had been forced to travel to New York and Washington, because the U.S. government had imposed Miró Cardona above him and wanted him to include on the payroll Manuel Ray, a known deserter, formerly minister of Public Works. Given that both of them had been members of the first 1959 Cabinet in Cuba, the U.S. administration felt that the group would be less questionable.

The part about the "easy lifestyle" that they led with generous checks from the CIA, which was investing several million dollars in the project, was not true, merely a matter of "the grass being greener on the other side.

Upon the arrival of the Cuban exile "leaders" at a event organized in a ship fitted out with silk chairs by the FRD, Batista’s men took up position in the street to jeer. Arguments and punches broke out before U.S. police agents intervened to restore order with clubs.

Physically and mentally in pain, Prío refuted the idea that the meeting had been called in order to create divisions. Miró Cardona summed it up, also complaining about the incident, and ended in his habitual pompous style, "Untainted history will pass on from communion to communion, as long as there is a Cuban woman to hold the chalice of procreation…"

The fight, of course, was not only between pro- and anti-Batista Cubans. It was about something more than that, which was defined by Lomberto Díaz, former minister in the Auténtico Party governments and head of Tony Varona’s organization in Cuba until he fled the country. Together with César Lancis and others, Lomberto declared, passing judgment on the conduct of his leader Tony Varona, "We have painfully witnessed the deplorable spectacle presented by men who, disconnected from Cuban realities, have abandoned themselves to a frenetic struggle for personal power…"

That is what the "democrats who were going to liberate Cuba" were like. Knowing them well, Fidel judged them as: "The greatest thing that has happened to them in their lives is to go as beggars to the yankee government, asking for money, asking for weapons, and to seek out the FBI and the CIA, the yankee henchmen, to supply them with weapons and make plans for them and train them for terrorist campaigns… These are the men who are going to come and defeat the armed people? Don’t make us laugh! …Because that government of mercenaries won’t even last 24 hours (in Cuba)."

At the same time, in Washington, President Kennedy invited James William Fulbright, chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, to spend the Easter weekend with him in Palm Beach. Both of them were Catholics.

When he received the invitation, Fulbright, with the help of Pat Holt, a member of his working group, drafted a memo which he gave to the president on boarding the plane that would take them south, close to Cuba.

The memo, which contained the Senator’s points of view on U.S.-Cuba relations, read, "The issue of U.S. policy toward Cuba presupposes choosing between two practical possibilities:

"1) Overthrowing Castro’s regime.

"2) Tolerance toward Castro’s regime, combined with efforts to isolate him and separate the rest of Latin America from him.

"A third possibility could be added – to modify the Castro regime. But Castro has had many opportunities to modify it and has rejected them, for which reason this course would seem more theoretical then real. However, perhaps it shouldn’t be rejected until the President can be consciously satisfied, via any appropriate private channel, that it is not possible to take this course."

Fulbright went on to add: "One cannot count on the collapse of the Castro regime or its violent overthrow without the aid of internal forces.

"However, almost daily, the press brings us accounts and in some cases, photos of Cuban exiles undergoing military training on secret bases in Florida or somewhere in the Caribbean, or in Guatemala, for an invasion of Cuba. It is a known secret that the U.S. government has pressured exiles to join and that the United States is supporting, or at least tolerating, activities on its soil with the objective of returning to Cuba…"

After analyzing the pros and cons – for the United States – of the possible courses of action in relation to Cuba, Fulbright stated:

"We also have to face the prospect that an invasion of Cuba by exiles would meet with a strong resistance that the exiles, on their own, would not be able to overcome. So then the question arises as to whether the United States wants to drop the attempt (probably in the hope that its role could be hidden) or whether the United States will respond with the necessary progressive assistance to ensure success. In the final instance, this would include the use of armed forces, and if we get to that point, even with a cover of legitimacy, we would be throwing away the work of 30 years trying to make people forget about early interventions…"