One of the characteristics of St. George’s photography is that it often resisted the mythification of revolutionary reality. Here, his lens reveals dusty, exhausted Rebel Army soldiers marching through a town in Oriente province on New Year’s Day, 1959. St. George also regularly photographed Judge Manuel Urrutia, hand-picked by Fidel Castro to be President of the Republic, in the first weeks of 1959 when few other reporters seemed interested. His trust in Urrutia lasted and deepened, especially when Urrutia’s efforts to echo Fidel Castro’s own disavowal of Communism got him in trouble. In June 1959, Urrutia’s assertion on national television that the government was “anti-communist” elicited rebuke from Fidel Castro who attacked him in turn as morally weak and incapable of rule. St. George subsequently hand-delivered Urrutia’s letter of resignation to Fidel. Urrutía’s marginalization contributed to Fidel’s power and ultimately, his ability to rely on Communists, not the members of his own 26th of July movement, to rule unconditionally.
