Carlos Manuel Piedra
Carlos Manuel Piedra Piedra (Havana, 1895 - Havana, July 31, 1988) was a Cuban lawyer and politician.
On January 1, 1959, he was spuriously designated to become President of the Republic, but the Supreme Court refused to receive his oath, so hours later he renounced the nomination.
Biographical sketch
He held various positions as a judge in the interior of the country. In 1933 he was promoted to magistrate of the Havana Court. In 1936 he obtained the position of magistrate of the Contentious-Administrative and Special Laws Chamber. In 1945 he wrote a book: The immobility of workers (it is unknown if he wrote others). In May 1949, the full Superior Court appointed him as substitute for Dr. Guillermo de Montagú Vivero (president of the TSE).
On January 1, 1959, when the dictator Fulgencio Batista fled, Carlos Piedra was the oldest of the judges of the Supreme Court of Justice. When the escape occurred, General Eulogio Cantillo and the American ambassador Earl E. T. Smith attempted to carry out a coup d'état to provisionally place Dr. Carlos M. Piedra in the presidency of the Republic. For this reason he was called - at three in the morning on January 2 - by General Eulogio Cantillo to head a civil-military junta as "president of the Republic", according to the United States embassy in Havana.
Although Piedra accepted in the first instance ―at 9 in the morning―, the members of the Supreme Court of Justice did not appear at the presidential palace. Not finding anyone willing to take the oath of office, at 2 in the afternoon he renounced his candidacy, and did not hold the presidency. At the same time, magistrate Manuel Urrutia Lleó was acclaimed provisional president in the province of Oriente by the victorious Revolution, destroying the maneuver that sought to elevate him to the presidency.
Later, President Osvaldo Dorticós appointed him ambassador of the Republic of Cuba in Rome (Italy).
He was married to María Luisa Martínez Díaz, with whom he had two daughters, Isis and Flavia Piedra Martínez.