The Role Of Beards In The Cuban Revolution

"Most regular armies in fact, command their men to shave closely...In the Sierra, hair beat the smooth chins, and military art was made to look ridiculous.

'Batista's soldiers," a companion of Fidel told me, 'found us so incorrect, so improper, that it gave them the willies. The beard according to them meant ambush, the law of the jungle, and extermination...Toward the end, when they saw, in a narrow mountain pass, a beard behind a shining rifle barrel, they broke ranks."

- Jean Paul Sartre in "Sartre on Cuba" 1961