Tom Gjelten > Quotes

“They would like to impose on us that era when the conscience did not exist, because only the [priest] confessor ruled,” he wrote, “when bright ideas were smothered before they could be born, and when terrified men went around mindlessly crossing themselves all day and wondered where their God was.”
― Tom Gjelten, Bacardi and the Long Fight for Cuba

“Show much guile and smiles to everyone. We will have time later on to trample underfoot all the cockroaches.”
― Tom Gjelten, Bacardi and the Long Fight for Cuba

“In the wake of the attack against him, Fulgencio Batista began demanding public demonstrations of loyalty from anyone who depended on government largesse or favors—public employees, landowners, pro-Batista union leaders, businessmen, and bankers. Workers who failed to take part in scheduled demonstrations could be fired. A succession of industrial leaders, fearful of alienating the regime, called on Batista to offer their sympathy and pledge their allegiance.”
― Tom Gjelten, Bacardi and the Long Fight for Cuba

“In August 1956, about a year and a half after Hemingway won the Nobel Prize in Literature, the Bacardi Rum Company hosted a reception for him and his wife, Mary, at its Hatuey brewery, not far from the Hemingways’ home. He had been offered parties at exclusive private clubs, but he agreed only to the event at the brewery, because he knew he could bring his fisherman friends, even if they came barefoot and in shorts—as they did.”
― Tom Gjelten, Bacardi and the Long Fight for Cuba

“In response to Fidel Castro's revolution, a million Cubans - a tenth of the country's population - went into exile. A broken thread in modern Cuban history was left to dangle, with its own cast of characters and a unique set of experiences, ideas, and possibilities. Part of the Cuban question now is whether and how its past and future can be reconnected.”
― Tom Gjelten

“The French agronomist René Dumont identified the problem: “The man who opposes Castro’s ideas is quickly rejected, and as a result when Castro sets forth a mistaken proposition nobody dares oppose him if he wants to hold on to his job.”
― Tom Gjelten, Bacardi and the Long Fight for Cuba

“Morocco in front of me, Spain to one side, lost in the haze…. And over there, across the immense Ocean, bluer and bluer the more it looks toward the sky, Cuba; yearning and battling for her freedom…with the flames of her fires edging the clouds with red and highlighting the colors of her flag, falling at times, but never defeated!”
― Tom Gjelten, Bacardi and the Long Fight for Cuba

“¡Qué Suerte Tiene el Cubano!”
― Tom Gjelten, Bacardi and the Long Fight for Cuba

“The 1950s would be seen simultaneously as Cuba’s best and worst years. The country’s irresistible sensual pleasures were on full display, but it also became clear that the overripe fruit was due to burst. The good life would succumb to ills that had gone untreated for too long. There were Cubans skilled enough to lead their country through those difficult years, and there were Cuban enterprises, such as Bacardi, with the outlook and the resources to help. But they were too few in number or too weak to make a lasting difference, and the Cuba that entered the 1950s did not make it to the decade’s end.”
― Tom Gjelten, Bacardi and the Long Fight for Cuba