1959, May 24 – August 22: (Duvalier’s Cardiac Arrest, Barbot Rules with a Rod of Iron, the Casino Bomb, the Feast of St.

1959, May 24 – August 22: (Duvalier’s Cardiac Arrest, Barbot Rules with a Rod of Iron, the Casino Bomb, the Feast of St. Anne, and the Cuban Invasion at Les Irois): On May 24, 1959, Duvalier suffered a cardiac arrest which, compounded by a misdiagnosis by Dr. Fourcand, kept him in deep shock and coma for nine hours and incapacitated him until midsummer. Barbot ruled with a rod of iron — his opportunity was unlimited, but it says much for his integrity that when Duvalier could raise his head in early July, Barbot handed the country back, a decision that four years later cost Barbot his head. Bombings in June and July reached the highest level ever sustained: on June 15, seventeen persons were killed or wounded by a bomb on the Casino dance floor; Interior Minister Jean Magloire was injured in an attempted bombing-assassination; and forty-two people were hurt when a large bomb went off on July 26 in the middle of the traditional Feast of St. Anne. A suspicious fire burned out one wing of the casernes; shots in the night accompanied by cries of à la porte were common; empty fuel drums went out at sundown to block uninvited landings at Bowen Field. During the night of August 12–13, a sailboat off Cap des Irois was overtaken by a small diesel coaster out of Baracoa, Cuba — under the guns of a Castro boarding party, the sailboat took on a thirty-man Cuban platoon headed by Henri d’Anton, a Creole-speaking Algerian Frenchman who had married into the Déjoie family and served under Castro in the Escambray Mountains. On dawn’s light breeze the sailboat eased into Les Irois, the invaders went over the side, routed the four-man avant-poste, engaged guides from willing villagers given Déjoieist liberation insignia, and struck off into Goman’s ancient strongholds in the Massif du Sud. On the advice of the just-arrived Marine officers, air and seaborne reconnaissance was instituted, units were airlifted to Jérémie, and after two sharp contacts the Cubans — who had suffered appreciable casualties — separated into small parties run down and killed or captured by Haitian forces or by paysans whom Barbot offered 500 gourdes for each dead invader. D’Anton was killed in a cave; five boyish-looking young Cubans were eventually brought in alive, roped together as in olden times. On August 22 it was over.