The Sugar King of Havana (42 page)

90
“unless Cuba was able to sell more sugar”:
Lobo recalled the moment during a speech on June 10, 1964; also reported in the trade journal
Sugarnews
, July 1964. LAM.

90
“the sea pounding against the rocks outside”:
Lobo memoir, LAM.

90
“It is so comforting to hear an English voice”:
Daily Express
, London, Sept. 21, 1933;
The Western Mail
followed up the story on Sept. 22–23.

91
Julio, who knew Churchill:
Winston Churchill wrote to Julio from his house at Westerham in Kent on August 7, 1946, responding to a note that Julio had sent. Churchill, then leader of the opposition, thanked him for his message, “which brought back many happy memories of the times we spent together in Havana and Miami Beach.” I am grateful to Pedro Arellano Lamar for showing me the letter. I hope he eventually finds the Churchill photograph taken on Senado’s tennis court too.

92
“ When the situation in the country is sorted out ”:
Efraín Morciego,
El Crimen de Cortaderas
(La Habana: Union de Escritores y Artistas de Cuba, 1982), 132–33.

92
He had also instituted an eight-hour day:
Ibid
.
, 114.

93
sugar workers elsewhere were then lucky to be employed for seventy days:
The sugar output restrictions had shrunk the average length of the
zafra
to 66 days in 1933, from 250 days or more during the boom years. Carr, “Mill Occupations and Soviets,” 131.1.

93
“Although we know the capitalist class is always antagonistic”:
Gjelten,
Bacardi and the Long Fight for Cuba
, 125.

93
“a harmonious end to the conflict is expected”:
Diario de la Marina
, Nov. 5, 1933.

93
The final death toll ranged between two and five hundred:
Argot-Freyre,
Fulgencio Batista
, 120.

95
In the most folkloric version of the story:
The description probably stems from another event, equally folkloric, that took place during La Chambelona rebellion in 1918. Private information to author. See also Morciego,
El Crimen de Cortaderas
, 156.

96
Eyewitness accounts gathered by a Cuban researcher:
Morciego,
El Crimen de Cortaderas
.

97
“the Giant from Senado”:
Roberto González Echevarría,
The Pride of Havana: A History of Cuban Baseball
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), 282–83.

99
“There must have been three thousand of them”:
Gabriel García Márquez,
One Hundred Years of Solitude
, trans. Gregory Rabassa (London: Pan Books, 1981), 251.

99
Senado “always had a good reputation”:
Dispatches by Grant Watson, Dec. 13, 1933, and March 1, 1934 (Public Records Office, London, FO 371/17518).

100
“Eyes still young today”:
Rubén Martínez Villena, “The Rise of the Revolutionary Movement in Cuba,”
The Communist
, XII, 1933. Cited in Aguilar,
Cuba 1933
, 231.

104
“The new sugar magus”:
Cuba Importadora e Industrial
, March 1937. “Nuevo mago azucarero, convierte su ciencia en oro, y en resumen es un toro, para entrar en el dinero.”

104
“the Sephardic millionaire”:
Alejo Carpentier,
La consagración de la primavera
(Havana: Editorial Letras Cubanas, 1978), 41. “El millonario sefardita, famoso por su milagrosa vivencia en cuanto a alzas y bajas de valores.”

105
Then it was an almost dingy place:
Xavier Galmiche et al.,
Havana: Districts of Light
(Paris: Vilo, Telleri, 2001), 182.

105
“Es anticuado vivir en la ciudad”:
Ibid., 25.

106
“The only other trader”:
Freeman Lincoln
,
“Julio Lobo, Colossus of Sugar,”
Fortune
, Sept. 1958.

106
“G[albán-Lobo] with his organization”:
Braga Brothers Collection, BBC III 61, Box 3. See cables from Braga to Sharples and Rook 3/28/1941, and from Rook to Rionda 1/3/40.

106
“in white pantaloons and thin shoes”:
Dana,
To Cuba and Back
, 44.

106
Cuba’s first plantations were named after saints:
Moreno Fraginals,
El Ingenio
, Vol. 1, 112.

107
From the second floor of
la casa
he could see:
Lobo Montalvo,
La Habana
, 28.

107
There were also smells:
Guillermo Jiménez,
La Habana que va conmigo
(Havana: Editorial Letras Cubanas, 2002), 28.

108
The plain-looking dowager was a
su altesa
:
Parker,
We Remember Cuba
, 138.

108
“a master or a slave”:
Merlin,
Viaje a la Habana
, 112.

108
Even Havana’s beggars:
Parker,
We Remember Cuba
, 131.

108
“I am the
King of This World
”:
Luis Calzadilla Fierro,
Yo soy el Caballero de París
(Badajoz, Spain: Gráficas Diputación de Badajoz, 2000), 21.

110
“lively and passionate, even to excess”:
Merlin,
Viaje a la Habana
, 12.

111
Lobo never commented:
It is possible, though, to piece together roughly what happened from available evidence. Lobo commented briefly on the deal to Lincoln, in
Fortune
, 1958. There was also nearly daily coverage by the
New York Times
from Dec. 15, 1934, to Jan. 18, 1935. The names of the main shorts and longs are in an unpublished letter that Lobo wrote to Margarita González in 1979 (LAM). That said, it is not clear why Douglas, Hayden, et al. were shorting Cuban sugar. It may have been as a legitimate hedge for their own production. It may have been with the aim of making a quick trading profit. Conceivably, it may even have been to try to drive weaker Cuban-owned milling companies out of business.

112
the quota was used more often to subsidize and protect:
Julio Lobo, speech to annual convention of U. S. confectioners, June 10, 1964, LAM; also reported in
Sugar News
, July 1964.

113
they netted an estimated profit of some $150,000:
The calculation assumes that the cost of sugar for the Cuban longs was 2.18 cents per pound—the same as that charged to the U.S. sugar refiners in October’s prearranged sale. However, if Cuban holders of physical sugar such as Lobo and García had paid less for their original stakes, then their subsequent profits would also have been more.

114
Plans had even been submitted:
Galmiche et al.,
Havana: Districts of Light
, 182.

114
a Potemkin village for foreign visitors:
James C. McKinley Jr., “Old Havana gets a lift, but Cubans don’t benefit,”
New York Times
, Dec. 6, 2007.

115
a parasitical vine that strangles Cuba’s noble ceiba tree:
Rev. Abiel Abbot,
Letters Written in the Interior of Cuba
(Boston: Bowles and Dearborn, 1829), 59; cited in Roland Ely,
Cuando reinaba su majestad el azúcar
(Buenos Aires: Editorial Sudamericana, 1963), 318.

115
“the exorbitant interest doubles the debt”:
Merlin,
Viaje a la Habana
, 113.

115
“those persons [who] have a peso sign in the head”:
Fidel Castro Ruz, speech, Sept. 28, 1966,
http://www.cuba.cu/gobierno/discursos/1966/esp/f280966e.html
.

115
“Jews of the Caribbean”:
Ann Louise Bardach,
Cuba Confidential
(New York: Penguin, 2002), 101.1.

115
“seeking, prying and executing on information”:
Letter to Gerry Ascher, April 22, 1967, LAM.

116
the first submarine telephone cable:
Heriberto Lobo was invited to join the project as an early investor, but turned it down because he thought the investment too risky. Heriberto’s relatively low appetite for risk—born of his experiences in Venezuela, as well as the Cuban bust of the 1920s—is a marker of how the father differed from the son.

116
When President Harding finished a brief call to his Cuban counterpart:
Diario de la Marina
, April 12, 1921.

116
“an astonishing aptitude”:
Leland Jenks,
Our Cuban Colony
(New York: Vanguard Press, 1928), 207.

117
“carnivals of speculation”:
For more on this fascinating subject, see Edward Chancellor,
Devil Take the Hindmost: A History of Financial Speculation
(New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1999).

119
“A fat blond man is summoned”:
“Perfil financiera: Julio Lobo,”
Cuba Importadora e Industrial
, March 1937.

120
“The difficulty,” Lobo confided to one competitor:
Letter to Maurice Varsano, Jan. 14, 1977.

120
the speculator “is not so much a prophet ”:
Keynes,
Collected Writings
, Vol. XII, 260.

120
“not due to clair voyance”
: LAM.

121
“In that way, I gained a huge advantage”:
Lobo memoir, LAM.

121
“No man can control a commodity”:
Lincoln, “Julio Lobo, Colossus of Sugar.”

122
“The sugar b[usines]s has mostly been handled by gentlemen”:
Cable from George Braga to Sharples and Rook, March 28, 1941, Braga Brothers Collection, to author from McAvoy. See also McAvoy,
Sugar Baron
, 284.

122
“I generally believe the worst about
lobos
”:
Luis Conte Agüero,
Eduardo Chibás, el adalid de Cuba
(Mexico: Editorial Jus, 1955), 392.

122
“Papa always told me”:
Lobo memoir, LAM.

123
León, a shrewd man, meanwhile provided Lobo with political advice and legal counsel:
He had been a schoolmate of other Cuban liberals such as Felipe Pazos, who later became president of the National Bank, and Aureliano Sánchez Arango, a respected education minister.

123
León never regretted:
León to author.

123
He rarely stopped for an elaborate lunch:
Letter to Mercedes Formica, Feb. 18, 1971, LAM.

124
“When a Cuban mill owner needs money to pay bills”:
Lincoln, “Julio Lobo, Colossus of Sugar.”

124
He fenced, boxed:
Cuba Importadora e Industrial
, March 1937.

124
“She was the most beautiful woman in Cuba”:
Undated letter to John Ryan, LAM.

125
“Please explain to Madame Reine”:
Letter to Margarita González, Dec. 21, 1941, LAM.

125
One of Lobo’s worst moments:
Lobo memoir, LAM.

126
Batista frequently denied that he was either a socialist:
Argot-Freyre,
Fulgencio Batista
, 231.

126
“Re yr wire of this morning”:
Franklin Delano Roosevelt Presidential Library, Hyde Park, NY; papers of Charles Taussig; Lobo file; Aug. 9, 1940, cable #52.

128
Lion, incidentally, had recently married the singer and dancer Josephine Baker:
Lion’s marriage also showed that Paris was then more open to black culture than Havana. When Baker visited Havana in 1950, she was feted by journalists and her shows were sold out, but the Nacional barred her from entering.

130
Heinz Lüning, known as the “Canar y”:
Phillips,
Cuba: Island of Paradise,
215.

131
Britain—Cuba’s largest market for tobacco—banned Cuban cigar imports:
Ibid., 193.

131
The 1944 crop hit 4.3 million tons:
Anuario Azucarero de Cuba
, Vol. XXIII (Havana: Cuba Económica y Financiera, 1959).

132
Pilón, a midsize mill:
Also known as Cabo Cruz.

134
the kerosene lamps inside the countryside’s thatched
bohios
:
“Problems of the New Cuba,”
Report of the Commission on Foreign Affairs
(New York: Foreign Policy Association, 1935), 73–74.

134
“How much does Rionda pay you?”:
LAM. The Cuban peso was pegged to the U.S. dollar, at an exchange rate of 1:1.

134
“with his wife and smart friends”:
Esteban Montejo,
The Diary of a Runaway Slave
, ed. Miguel Barnet (London: Bodley Head, 1968), 19.

134
“One of the things I learnt”:
Lobo memoir, LAM.

134
Lobo tromped through the
batey
:
The description is by Lincoln in
Fortune,
but just one reference among many that corroborate Lobo’s engagement with his mills.

135
women of good breeding passed their time:
Cited in Thomas,
Cuba
, 147.

135
“travel on the bus”:
González to author.

136
“This evening light is so difficult”:
Lobo Montalvo,
La Habana
, 21.

137
Lobo gave the girls simple instructions:
Ibid
.
, 20.

137
tobogganed down steep hills of sugar:
Ibid
.
, 18.

138
“Julio, business is not always this good, you know”:
León to author. Alfredito Fernández owned the exclusive Funeraria Fernández in Vedado, on the corner of Paseo and Second streets.

139
Carlos Manuel de Céspedes:
Interim president of Cuba’s rebel forces during the Ten Years’ War, was deposed and sent into exile by the revolutionary House of Representatives. He traveled without escort and was killed by Spanish troops at San Lorenzo in Oriente Province in March 1874.

139
Celia remained close to the Lobos:
For an official version of Celia Sánchez’s childhood and subsequent role in the revolutionary government, see Pedro Álvarez Tabío,
Celia; ensayo para una biografía
(Havana: Oficina de Publicaciones del Consejo de Estado, 2004).