Arthur Gardner

Who was Arthur Gardner?

Arthur Gardner was a United States foreign diplomat and American ambassador to Cuba 1953-1957. Gardner was a close confident of President Dwight D. Eisenhower and was also strongly pro-Batista.

Gardner fought in World War I, and worked for the War Production Board during World War II. Following the war Gardner became an assistant to the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, John W. Snyder. As the ambassador to Cuba, he actively obstructed release of information from the embassy to Washington that was adversely critical to Batista. In the early days of the second Eisenhower administration Gardner was pressured to resign his position as ambassador to Cuba, even though Gardner had gone directly to President Eisenhower to ask to stay on. Pressure also came to bear that Gardner's inability to communicate to the US the terrorist nature of Fidel Castro, blinded him to the perceived atrocities taking place by the 26 of July movement all over the island and the significance of the uprising.