Miguel Ángel Quevedo

Miguel Ángel Quevedo
Born	July 31, 1908
Died	August 20, 1969
Nationality	Cuban
Occupation(s)	Publisher and editor
Known for	One of the pioneers of Cuban Scouting

For the architect, please see Miguel Ángel de Quevedo

Miguel Ángel Quevedo (July 31, 1908 – August 20, 1969) was the publisher and editor of Bohemia Magazine, the most popular news-weekly of its day in Cuba and Latin America, known for its political journalism and editorial writing. He was also one of the pioneers of Cuban Scouting.

In 1914, the first Scout groups in Cuba were founded, and Carlos Alzugarai, Miguel Ángel Quevedo, Jules Loustalot and others wrote up the statutes and began Scout activities.

Bohemia became the principal voice of opposition to the administration of Carlos Prio Socarras, and in support of the insurrection and revolution against the regime of Fulgencio Batista. On July 26, 1958 the magazine published the Sierra Maestra Manifesto, a document that purported to unify the opposition groups fighting Batista. On January 11, 1959, one million copies of a special edition of the magazine were printed, and sold out in just a few hours.

Quevedo sought political asylum in the Venezuelan embassy in Havana in the summer of 1960 and arrived in Miami on September 7, 1960. The following month he published Bohemia Libre with $40,000 monthly from the U.S. State Department until after the failed Bay of Pigs invasion in April 1961. The magazine was subsequently edited in Miami, Florida, San Juan, Puerto Rico, and Caracas, Venezuela. On August 19, 1969, weeks after his publication went bankrupt and he was heavily indebted to loan sharks and had cashed large checks without funds, the inveterate bachelor committed suicide in the Caracas apartment that he shared with his sister Rosa Margarita Quevedo. He shot himself in the right temple with a 38 caliber revolver. Next to his body was found a letter to "the competent authorities and to public opinion" saying that "absolutely no one should be blamed for his death." He "begged forgiveness from anyone he may have offended in any way." Another letter was addressed to his sister, who heard the gunshot in his bedroom while she was in the kitchen.

After his death, journalist Ernesto Montaner published in Miami an apocryphal suicide letter from Quevedo stating that Bohemia Magazine invented the 20,000 figure that is commonly cited for the number of deaths under Fulgencio Batista's regime. The original letter or its facsimile has never appeared and journalist Agustin Tamargo denounced it as a fraud by Montaner.

External links

• https://web.archive.org/web/20081010165028/http://www.babalublog.com/archives/001452.html
• https://web.archive.org/web/20120425015229/http://www.economiaparatodos.com.ar/ver_nota.php?nota=657