U.S. Tourism and Empire in Twentieth-Century Latin America
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U.S. Tourism and Empire in Twentieth-Century Latin America DENNIS MERRILL FOUR Pa•ad,se l.ost Castro's Cuba -~ r The "magi.:al charm of a tropical night, the rollicking rhythms -]~ -~ of the Cuban countryside," the 23 March 1958 Havana Post gushed, "colorful dances that range from the African-derived 'guaguanco' to the dignified 'danzon,' dinner and dancing climaxed the opening of The Havana Hilton Hotel."' The long-delayed extravaganza drew an eclectic crowd. In addition to the Tropicana Club's corps de ballet, the three hundred invited guests included television and radio talk show host Tex McCrary, gossip columnist Hedda Hopper, Time magazine's Frank Shea, Serafino Romnaldi of the AFL-Cio, and William H. Bowe from the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. Hilton executives even arranged for an "official bless ing" of the new building by Havana's Manuel Cardinal Arteaga. 2 Located in fashionable Vedado, the Hilton towered over the city. Some thirty stories high, it ranked as the tallest building in all of Latin America and attested to Cold War Cuba's special claim on modernity. The twenty-four million-dollar edifice boasted 588 rooms and 42 suites, all equipped with circulating ice water and three-channel radios. Central air-conditioning, a ballroom with banquet facilities for twelve hundred, multiple restaurants with shiny, stainless-steel kitchens, including the street-level Trader Vic's and the rooftop Sugar Bar cocktail lounge, bespoke the hotel's lavishness. De signed by the Los Angeles-based Welton Becket and Associates, it blended 'uburban U.S. and European motifs more than Cuban, with its imported Italian blue mosaic glassworks, courtyard graced by a Spanish fountain, and California-inspired swimming pool surrounded by cabanas.·' At a gala dinner held on 27 March for Cuban and foreign dignitaries, Conrad Hilton delivered one of his signature histrionic orations: "To say that Christopher Columbus was a world traveler must be something of an under statement," he remarked, "I am very happy today that four hundred and sixty six years later Hilton Hotels has discovered Cuba." Addressing the ideological fissures of the Cold War and in a veiled way Cuba's unrest, Hilton spun his reliance on the Gastron6mico Union's pension fund for investment capital into an act of social consciousness. He explained, "The usual thing is for employees to work for employers .... But here in the building and operation of our new Havana Hilton, we have reversed the picture: Capital is working for Labor; the Employers for the Employees."4 The firm's leading executives were less sanguine in private. Keenly aware of the growing strength of the 26th of July Movement and the recent spate of bombings in Havana, they had considered postponing or canceling the grand opening. Company vice president and general manager Robert J. Caverly later recalled that State Department officials had expressed concern that a major U.S. company's failure to move ahead on schedule would reflect badly on the Batista regime, which the U.S. government "recognized and spon sored." Thus, the company decided somewhat reluctantly to go ahead, but only after hiring a hundred or so private security guards to mingle among the guests, arranging for local police to post guards at hotel entrances, and de ploying marksmen on nearby rooftops to protect visiting dignitaries. 5 It turned out to be a bad decision. In February and March 1958, explosions occasionally broke Havana's nights, marking the beginning of what historian Julia E. Sweig has termed the "golden age" of the Llano insurrection. By December, tourist traffic to Havana plummeted, and the Hilton operated deeply in the red. 6 Over the same period, Castro's Sierra Maestra-based insurrection spilled out of Oriente Province. In December, M-26-7 forces took the strategic city of Santa Clara, more than halfway along the central highway to the capital. On New Year's Day 1959, the Fidelistas, now popularly celebrated as the barbudos (bearded ones), entered Havana hours after Ful gencio Batista boarded a plane and took flight to Rafael Trujillo's Dominican Republic. On 8 January, Fidel Castro arrived in the capital to an outpouring of exuberance. In an act of considerable irony, he took up residence and established working quarters in the Havana Hilton. Prospects for tourism in Castro's Cuba seemed dim. The revolutionary leader reserved special venom for the industry, which he held to be inherently corrupt and dehumanizing. In addition to an unbending nationalism, he displayed a pronounced puritanical streak. He relished Havana cigars but shied away from Bacardi rum. He viewed gambling as a moral vice that preyed on human frailty, especially that of the working poor. In his legendary "History Will Absolve Me" speech following the Moncada Barracks attack, Castro lamented that foreign interests, including the travel industry, had bled 142 I Paradise Lost ~onrad N. Hilton choreographed each of his international hotel openings to resemble a Hollywood premier. At the grand opening of the Havana Hilton in March 1958, Hilton and a 'imner Miss Minnesota posed before a replica of the ultramodern hotel. As celebrities mingled, ·narksmen took up positions around the building's exterior as a precaution against insurrec •ionist attacks. Cm1rad N. Hilton College Library and Archives, Houston, Texas. :=uba of millions of dollars, including "losses of all types due to gambling, 1ice, and the black market.'' 7 Despite the animosity, U.S.-Cuban tourist relations hobbled along after lanuary 1959, as did bilateral diplomatic ties. For the next year and a half, the :=astra and Eisenhower administrations snapped at one another and visitors Paradise Lost I 143 and hosts waited for a moment of decision, yet both Washington and Havana sought to avoid a sudden rupture in relations. Historians and political scien tists have offered a number of explanations for this uneasy state oflimbo. The media undoubtedly played a role. In the wake of Herbert Matthews's stories, a parade of journalists tramped through the jungle to report on the youthful revolutionary army at war with a repressive dictatorship. As even the sea soned New York Times reporter had done, many exaggerated Castro's com mitment to political pluralism and raised hopes for the establishment of warm U.S.-Cuban ties. In addition, U.S. government leaders had difficulty deciphering the new leader's intentions. Castro derided Washington for its past support of Batista but insisted that the new regime wanted normal relations with the United States. He ran show trials and executed several hundred Batistianos but showed no stomach for a massive, Stalin-like purge of political enemies. He denounced U.S. capitalism but nationalized private property in spurts. Am bassador Earl E. T. Smith, who left the Havana post soon after Castro took charge, maintained the anticommunist drumbeat. But most State Depart ment officials wagered that Castro led a revolution he did not fully control and that the new government would mellow in time as more elderly and moderate elements within M-26-7 assumed command. While the U.S. press and Castro's unpredictability helped prevent an abrupt U.S.-Cuban collision, the tourist-visitor arrangement and the long-estab lished everyday habits of empire played a critical role as well. As debased as the industry had been, it produced a web of interest groups, many of whom proved willing to cooperate with the new regime. Throughout the first two years of Castro's rule, travel agents still booked vacations for clients, U.S. air lines maintained a schedule of regular flights, and print and broadcast media continued to entice U.S. tourists to visit the island. Of the U.S. players in the travel industry, the Hilton Hotel chain made one of the most sustained efforts to accommodate the revolution and keep its Havana hotel afloat. Important elements within the host society, especially recently unemployed hotel, casino, and restaurant workers, also pressured Castro to nurse the industry back to health. Cuban and North American familiarity died a slow death. While the U.S. government devised policies to contain Cuba's revolution, Castro's government evolved a tourism program that promoted travel while containing its antisocial and anti-Cuban impulses. In the end, the two con tainment strategies turned out to be incompatible. In Cuba, unlike postrevo lutionary Mexico, Washington refused to accept any erosion of U.S. political and economic hegemony, and Castro moved steadily leftward toward a pop- 144 I Paradise Lost ulist authoritarianism. Nonetheless, the tourism bond remained strong dur ing many months of upheaval, and U.S. and Cuban tourist interests came close to preventing a political rift. This chapter examines the collapse of Batista's tourist paradise in 1958, Castro's efforts to build a revolution friendly alternative, and the many ways in which cultural dynamics shaped the U.S.-Cuban political crisis. Things Fall Apart: Tourist Agency and Official Paralysis For the tourist industry and the Batista regime, the grand opening of the Havana Hilton constituted one last bright, shining moment. By late winter 1958, one or two bombings per night had become the norm in Havana, regularly knocking out power stations and disrupting electrical service. In February, M-26-7 "action" and "sabotage" teams set fire to four hundred thousand gallons of jet fuel stored in Regia, outside of Havana, at the Belot oil refinery owned by Esso corporation. Three weeks later, underground units kidnapped but subsequently released unharmed a famed Argentinean race car driver, Juan Manuel Fangio, wh_o had come to Havana to participate in the annual carnival week auto race. 8 In light of the Hilton hoopla, Herbert Matthews recorded in his notes that visiting North Americans "must have gone back believing that all the stories in the U.S.