When Castro Put Out the Welcome Mat for Americans in 1959

When Castro Put Out the Welcome Mat for Americans in 1959
By MARY JO MURPHY MAY 5, 2016

The letter from Fidel Castro to the American people read like this:

"I wish to invite the American tourists and the American business men to
come back to Cuba."

"We are back to normal in Cuba, a Cuba where there is liberty, peace and
order, a beautiful land of happy people. Our hotels, shops and offices
are open and we want our friends from the United States to come and see
Cuba, which can now be counted among the countries where freedom and
democracy are a reality."

This was not the invitation that led an American cruise ship to sail
into Havana on Monday, the first from the United States to dock there in
40 years. Other forces and figures smoothed those choppy waters. Rather,
this invitation, according to a report in The Times, was issued by Mr.
Castro in January 1959, shortly after he overthrew the government of
President Fulgencio Batista.

Just months earlier, in November 1958, Mr. Castro's rebels were still
fighting hundreds of miles from Havana, and it was Batista who was
trying to revive tourism.

"To the visitor, Havana continues to be a charming, cosmopolitan city
which is rapidly becoming one of the most modern in Latin America," The
Times reported on Nov. 2.

"Streets are crowded and there is heavy traffic both day and night.
Motion picture theatres have good houses. At the big casinos and
nightclubs the play over the green tables is heavy. The Sevilla Biltmore
Hotel Casino has no limit on any wager in any game and recently two
Americans won $59,700 in two hours there at the blackjack table. This is
not rumor but an authenticated report."

When the Batista regime fell, it was left to Mr. Castro to resume the
enticements. And he did so with gusto.

A year after Mr. Castro's letter, the headline "Yankee Tourist Now a
V.I.P. in Cuba" ran in The Times along with a photograph issued by the
Cuban government showing a bikini-clad model posing seductively on
Varadero Beach.

"That secretary of a number of years ago who went to Havana on one of
those cruises for $49.50 to spend a few days may be able to do so
again," R. Hart Phillips wrote. "Maybe not for $49.50, but for not too
much more than that. This is because Premier Fidel Castro has launched a
crash program designed to attract American visitors to Cuba, where
tourism is rapidly becoming a state owned and operated business."

Castro had made himself president of a new tourist organization with
"unlimited powers in tourism," Mr. Phillips reported. "With great
enthusiasm, he flies around the island, ordering the confiscation or
seizure of hotels and motels, the development of new beaches and the
construction of new roads, hotels, motels and other facilities for tourists.

"Strangely enough, Dr. Castro simultaneously talks of an 'imminent
invasion' by enemies of his regime and of blood flowing in the streets."

Nevertheless, Mr. Phillips reported, "the American tourist has become,
in the second year of the Revolution, a Very Important Person. He is
welcomed everywhere he goes. To the visitor, Cuba is a peaceful island
where the present Government is striving to remedy all evils of past
Governments."

It may not have worked out quite as planned.

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