Marta Fernandez de Batista

Marta Fernandez de Batista, widow of Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista, died Monday at her residence in West Palm Beach. She was 82.

Mrs. Batista lived a private life in Palm Beach for more than 20 years after Fidel Castro overthrew her husband in 1959. Batista, a father of eight from two marriages, died in 1973 of a heart attack.

Mrs. Batista's health had worsened gradually after hip surgery in 1995.

She was a major contributor to Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami and purchased inscribed bricks there as part of a fund-raiser.

In the early hours of the new year of 1959, Fulgencio Batista Salazar, then 58, ended a reign of a quarter-century when he fled Cuba aboard three airplanes. He was accompanied by his family, his friends and - critics charge - art and money looted from the country's coffers, perhaps as much as $700 million.

Batista was charged with running a corrupt government that harshly subdued critics with torture and imprisonment, used its military to defend plantation owners and other important business figures, and let American gangsters run his casinos.

Castro claimed Batista's government killed more than 20,000 Cubans.

Supporters noted he built highways, broadened education, and held at least some democratic elections. Many exiles say at his worst Batista was better than the man who overthrew him.

When Batista remarried, Marta Fernandez de Batista became a matron of the arts and convinced him to build a national gallery in Havana. Spurred by his wife's interest, Batista began gathering colonial-era paintings and artifacts and modern paintings.

Batista had won the presidency in 1940 and held office for four years under a new constitution closely modeled on that of the United States. He was defeated in 1944 and bought a home in Daytona Beach, where he lived off and on, continuing to influence Cuban politics.

Batista had gone shopping for a Florida getaway, and his first stop was Palm Beach, but he was shunned. He and Marta rented a car and headed north up U.S. 1. The end of the day found them in Daytona Beach. Pleased by their warm welcome, the Batistas found a real estate agent the next day and bought a large riverfront home.

Batista ran for the Cuban senate in absentia and won a seat in 1948. Then, on March 10, 1952, Batista led a second coup. He was reelected in 1954, in an election in which he was the only legal candidate.

When Castro's rebellion began to brew in the mountains, Batista dismissed it, until the U.S. government declared an arms embargo in March 1958. Batista made plans to retire. But the U.S. ambassador to Cuba, Earl Smith, who later became mayor of Palm Beach, told Batista that Washington would not recognize his successor.

"Any real possibility that the government would continue in power was finished," Mrs. Batista's stepson, Coral Gables property manager Fulgencio Ruben Batista, said in a 1998 interview.

On that fateful New Year's Day, Batista's plane was denied entry to the United States, and ended up going to the Dominican Republic. The former president then went to Portugal and finally to Spain, where he died 14 years later.

Batista had deeded the Daytona Beach home and his collection to the city, and the house was briefly a museum, then was sold in 1971 to become a church, with proceeds helping pay for the 90-acre museum complex and park.

The museum insists Batista's trove, which comprises about a third of the museum's total Cuban collection, is not booty looted from Cuba, but rather art bought by Batista. But the Castro government says Batista both stole art and bought works with money he plundered from the nation's treasury.

Mrs. Batista is survived by her sons Jorge Luis of New York, Roberto Franciso and Fulgencio Jose and her daughter, Marta Maluf Batista.

The family will receive friends from 10 a.m. to noon Saturday at Quattlebaum Funeral Home, 1201 S. Olive Ave., West Palm Beach. A Mass will follow at St. Juliana Catholic Church, 4500 S. Dixie Highway, West Palm Beach.

Burial will be in Madrid.