Dan Snow's History Hit - When Fidel came to Harlem

Episode Date: September 9, 2020

Simon Hall joined me on the pod to talk about Fidel Castro’s trip to New York in September 1960. Based at Harlem’s Theresa Hotel, Castro met with a succession of political and cultural luminaries, including Malcolm X, Gamal Abdel Nasser, Nikita Khrushchev, Amiri Baraka, and Allen Ginsberg. We discuss the coming together of revolutionaries embracing the politics of anti-imperialism, racial equality, and leftist revolution.Subscribe to History Hit and you'll get access to hundreds of history documentaries, as well as every single episode of this podcast from the beginning (400 extra episodes). We're running live podcasts on Zoom, we've got weekly quizzes where you can win prizes, and exclusive subscriber only articles. It's the ultimate history package. Just go to historyhit.tv to subscribe. Use code 'pod1' at checkout for your first month free and the following month for just £/€/$1.

Hello everyone, welcome to Dan Snow's History at New York City, September 1960. There was an event that would help shape the character of that pivotal decade. Fidel Castro arrived in America. He'd just seized power in Cuba. He was here for the opening of the UN General Assembly and he was the hottest date in town. Great leaders from all over the world beat a path to his hotel in Harlem, from Khrushchev to Nasser. And in their wake came other political and cultural luminaries like Malcolm X and Allen Ginsburg. He was selling anti-imperialism, racial equality, leftist revolution, and there were plenty of takers. The Eisenhower administration didn't know what to do with him. This is a fantastic

episode, and it's one caught by Professor Simon Hall. He's at the University of Leeds. He's been on the podcast before a long time ago. He's coming back on now to talk about these 10 days that were a critical hinge point, really, in the trajectory of the Cold War, international relations, but also the culture of the 60s. If you want to watch more Cold War documentaries,

you can do so at History Hit TV. If you want to go and listen to Simon Hall's previous appearance on this podcast, you can only do so on History Hit TV. All the back episodes of the podcast are there. They're all ad-free, so you don't have to listen to my boring voice. You go onto History Hit TV. It's like Netflix. You take out a subscription using the code POD1, P-O-D-1, at checkout. That gets you a month for free, and the second month is one pound, euro, or dollar.

And then you'll be a History Hits subscriber. You'll be joining the revolution. But in the meantime, everybody, here is Simon. Thanks so much for coming on the podcast. Thanks, Dan. It's really great to be here. You've done that thing that I love it when historians do. You've found that little 10-day period that just, with the most extraordinary cast list you can imagine.

What was the background to this famous visit of Fidel Castro to New York City? Yeah, so he's flown in for the 15th General Assembly of the United Nations, which is one of the great set-piece diplomatic moments of the post-war period. And he's gone there, I think, to make some mischief and have some fun. Can I just go first of all, because I'm so fascinated by the history of the UN. People today, they don't realise it was very briefly,

it was a kind of global parliament. I mean, it mattered. JFK, Eisenhower, those guys sweated what happened on the assembly floor, didn't they? Yeah, it mattered. And it mattered in a way that it doesn't seem to matter at the moment, which is telling. And it particularly mattered in September of 1960, because it was a moment when more than a dozen newly independent African countries were about to join the United Nations.

And this was seen both as a hugely symbolic moment in the history of the end of European Empire, but also these countries, their allegiances were sort of up for grabs in the Cold War contest between the United States and the West and the Soviet Union and the Communist bloc. So the United Nations seemed to matter very much in the autumn of 1960. And what's Fidel's reputation? Well, first of all, what's the reality of his position in Cuba and his approach to ruling there? And then what's his reputation in the West and also different communities, not just in the west but even within the city of new york yeah so fidel had um had seized power um his revolution had succeeded

in ousting uh batista in in january of 1959 and um it was a kind of a revolution that had sort of thrilled people lots of people around the world including um uh kind of many liberals and leftists in Western Europe and in the United States. But as his government had kind of begun to kind of consolidate its hold on Cuba, support among many white liberals basically started to drift away. They'd been particularly alarmed by two things. One, a kind of flurry of sort of show trials and executions in the early months of the revolution and then an increasingly sort of independent economic policy which had seen the government in Cuba nationalize and expropriate companies that were owned by particularly by American

businessmen and so by the time we get to the autumn of 1960, his stock is definitely falling among many constituencies in the United States and in Western Europe. But he's still very popular among leftists and particularly among African-Americans. weeks of taking power in January of 1959, he had committed his government to eliminating racial discrimination and segregation on the island. And so this was particularly kind of exciting because Cuba was just 90 miles off the coast of the segregated south. And Fidel's kind of boldness contrasted very sharply with the Eisenhower administration's kind of caution when it came to American race relations. Eisenhower sort of basically said to African-Americans, you know, you know, I support I support your demands for greater freedom and equality, but you need to be patient. and there was a certain lack of empathy, I suppose, with the increasing urgency of demands in the United States for racial reform and real change.

And I love the popular response to Fidel. Paint everyone a picture of what happens when Fidel gets off his plane and heads into downtown. The American government is really very unhappy that he's come to New York. They'd much rather he wasn't there. They place all of these security restrictions on him that mean that he's not able to leave the island of Manhattan. He's kind of manhandled a bit when he gets off the plane by the security, the American security,

when he attempts to go over and greet a crowd of supporters who've assembled at Idlewild Airport, which is modern day JFK, to kind of greet him. And then as he drives in to Manhattan, there are quite a lot of supporters, Cuban-American supporters of the revolution, people of South American origin who are Latin American origin who are supportive of the revolution. African-Americans are out. And they gather outside his hotel in Midtown, the Shelburne Hotel, to kind of cheer him. And they did this despite the fact that the weather is filthy. It's pouring with rain all afternoon. But they're there on the streets to kind of greet him and catch a glimpse of him. Does he enjoy this? I mean, how does this impact on him?

Yeah, I think obviously, whenever he sees people who are cheering him, how does this impact on him? Yeah I think obviously whenever he sees people who are cheering him that's kind of grist to his milk really. He's pleased by it. He's not pleased by the American security presence. He gets very annoyed when they you know he tries to get out of his car at one point at the airport and they basically force him back in and that puts him in a bit of a bad mood. But the sight of the supporters is definitely one that puts a smile on his face. But the one person who didn't support him was apparently the hotel. You tell me all about the hotel owner was not a big fan. No, so I mean, the Cubans had had a real tough time in actually securing accommodations in New York.

The original hotel they were going to stay in cancelled the reservation when Fidel announced that he would be heading the delegation and bringing a much larger contingent to New York. And then basically no hotel would accommodate them. And it started to become a bit of a diplomatic embarrassment for the United States. So the State Department, together with the UN, basically put pressure on the owner of this hotel in Midtown, the Shelburne Hotel, a guy called Edward Spatz. And they convince him to accommodate the Cubans. But Spatz is an anti-communist, and he's a great American patriot. And he makes it very clear to the press that he's only taking in the Cubans sort of under sufferance, really. And he kind of makes it clear to the Cubans as well when they arrive that he doesn't really, he's not really particularly happy that they're staying there.

So there's a moment when they ask, you know, he puts a big, huge American flag outside the hotel to kind of burnish his patriotic credentials. And when they ask if they can fly the Cuban flag, he just says, you know, no way. And he tells the press that he hates the Cubans. So it's probably not much of a surprise that the stay at the Shelbourne is a short and relatively unhappy one. He threatens to sleep outside. He's like, yeah, I've been sleeping in Under the Stars during the revolution. I'm cool with that. Yeah. So even before he gets to New York, he said, you know, we might end up having to sleep in Central Park, but that's fine. We're a mountain people. We're used to the open air.

And then there's all these rumors flying around shortly after the cubans have checked in that says that they're plucking chickens and cooking them in their hotel rooms and stubbing out their cigars in the on the expensive furniture and so spats demands a ten thousand dollar additional security deposit and and and then refuses a cuban government bond on the grounds that it looks dodgy and this really is the trigger for fidel to basically storm out of the hotel and then refuses a Cuban government bond on the grounds that it looks dodgy. And this really is the trigger for Fidel to basically storm out of the hotel, head straight to the United Nations headquarters,

complains to Diag Hammersholt, the Secretary General, about the terrible, insulting treatment of his delegation, threatens to sleep in the UN Rose Garden if an alternative can't be found, and then then after a couple of hours at the United Nations ends up relocating to the Hotel Teresa in Harlem the so-called Waldorf of Harlem. And where he's he's he's more popular uptown isn't he because it because then that's when it all turns into a sort of well a whole different scene. Yeah he's enormously popular it causes huge excitement news of his move to Harlem spread, so even before he gets there, there are several thousand people crowded onto the streets around the

hotel, cheering, waving flags. And basically that's the scene that repeats itself night after night. Crowds gather every day to try to catch a glimpse of Castro and also to catch a glimpse of many of his high-profile guests who come who come calling and so yeah he gets a very warm reception in Harlem um itself tell me about those guests because I mean this is the thing that's just completely fascinating and and for for that few well for that few weeks I mean people often talk about New York being the world's capital but it was just everyone who was anyone was in New York. And he seemed to be one of the big players. Yeah, I mean, his very first guest is Malcolm X, who arrives just a few, maybe less than an hour after Fidel checks in at the Teresa.

And that really sets the tone of his stay there. So his second guest is Nikita Khrushchev, the leader of the Soviet Union. stay there so his second guest is Nikita Khrushchev the leader of the Soviet Union Nasser goes there Nehru goes there on the evening of September the 22nd there's a great sort of gala reception held at the Teresa for him and you get the kind of great and the good of the worlds of kind of politics culture the black freedom struggle who there, people like Alan Ginsberg, C. Wright Mills, the new left sociologist, the magnum photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson. So you have, you know, the great and the good of the, not just the United States, but kind of global figures there too. I mean, the British theatre critic Kenneth Tynan is there at the reception. So it's kind of a great moment

in the history of this stay, but also great, kind of becomes an iconic moment in the history of this stay, but also becomes an iconic moment in the history of the wider 1960s. And yeah, for a while, the whole world's attention is really on the comings and goings at the Hotel Teresa. I mean, Fidel really steals the show. Land a Viking longship on island shores. Scramble over the dunes of ancient Egypt and avoid the Poisoner's Cup in Renaissance Florence. Each week on Echoes of History, we uncover the epic stories that inspire Assassin's Creed. We're stepping into feudal Japan in our special series Chasing Shadows, where samurai warlords and shinobi spies teach us the tactics and skills needed not only to survive but to conquer whether you're preparing for assassin's creed shadows or fascinated by history and great

stories listen to echoes of history a ubisoft podcast brought to you by history hits there are new episodes every week apart from the sort of just creating a good vibe, what did these anti-imperialists like Nasser and Fidel, did they have anything in common? Was there anything constructive? Or were they there for the Instagram shots? Yeah, I'm not sure they were there just for the Instagram shots, although there are some absolutely wonderful photographs,

loads of wonderful photographs of this whole series of events that take place. I think Fidel wants to be seen with these people because it helps to burnish his own claims to be a kind of leader of the global anti-imperialist movement. of leader of the global anti-imperialist movement. When it comes to Nasser, they do have things in common. So the Cubans had admired Nasser for kind of standing up to the British and the French in 1956 during the Suez crisis. And so they did have a kind of shared interest there. But the meeting with Nasser doesn't go as well as it might have done. They're two very different characters. I mean, Fidel is always in his olive green battle fatigues. His suite at the Hotel Teresa is extremely messy. And Nasser is a very smooth, a very polished, extremely smart, always very immaculately dressed and turned out. And Nasser is sort of appalled by the surroundings in the

Hotel Teresa when he goes to visit Fidel. But they also don't get along brilliantly. There's a moment when Nasser presents Fidel with a beautiful silver tea service as a gift, and Castro can't contain his disappointment at not being given a crocodile. And Nasser is kind of, he's like, well, there are only four crocodiles in Egypt, they all in the zoo I mean and for days late days after that meeting he's overheard sort of muttering to himself you know crocodile crocodile Fidel gets on much better with Nehru where they do they do seem to bond very tightly over the kind of granular detail of how to do land reform so they do seem to share a common interest in that but a lot of it is about the symbolism it's not just the photos but it's the it's the kind of the the wider symbolism of crafting this kind of

anti-imperialist movement and and and anti-imperialist moment i suppose yeah because you think of the transnational architecture of post-second world war the un the world bank the imf is built by the kind of is built by churchill and truman and Churchill and Truman and these figures from the Western powers. This must have felt, in Harlem, this must have felt like a sort of alternative with great potential, kind of global, a transnational system, but one that wasn't dependent, didn't run through Washington DC and Whitehall. Yeah, and I think there'd been a sort of an early indication of that. I think it was in 1955 at the Bandung Conference in Indonesia, which was a sort of the first coming together of the so-called non-aligned nations that ultimately become the non-aligned movement, a kind of an

attempt to kind of bring together this new, potentially this new force in global politics. potentially this new force in global politics. And this is, in the autumn of 1960, this is, as I said earlier, it's given real added traction by the influx of so many newly independent countries to the United Nations, including the likes of Nigeria and Senegal and stuff. So there's a real feeling, I think, that this new force or this growing force can really make a difference, that it can maybe challenge the bipolar system, the kind of the Cold War contest between the West and the communist powers, that it can kind of pull together the kind of the interests and the power of these new nations and really make a difference. So it's quite exciting in that sense i think and then speak it's really exciting speaking

of the non-aligned is that castro was trying to have his he's trying to ride a couple of different horses there right because he's also what was his relationship like with khrushchev the soviet premier yeah so he meets khrushchev for the first time uh in harlem um khrushchev makes a point of going to the hotel teresa meet with Fidel, who had offered to go down to the Soviet mission on Park Avenue. But Khrushchev wants to go to Harlem to make two points really. One, to show solidarity with the Cubans who have been allegedly mistreated in Midtown, but also to draw attention to America's race problem and to cause embarrassment for the Eisenhower administration. And the two get on really well.

They don't meet for very long that first time. It takes, the meeting lasts for about half an hour, but they emerge onto the sidewalk kind of beaming. They share a kind of very enthusiastic, because of the, you know, Christopher is very short and quite rotund and Fidel is extremely tall and thin. They share an awkward

but enthusiastic embrace on the sidewalk outside the Teresa. When Fidel enters the General Assembly later that day, Khrushchev makes a big thing of getting up and going over and greeting him again and having another kind of back-slapping embrace with him. Krzysztof is even extremely patient when Fidel turns up about 45 minutes late for dinner at the Soviet mission a few days later, and is really at pains to put Castro at ease and to be as relaxed as possible. So the chemistry, the personal chemistry between the two of them, is very good and is on show for the whole world. So yeah, at the same time that Fidel is seeking to kind of burnish his credentials

as a leader of the kind of anti-imperialist global South, he's also growing ever closer to the Soviet Union. And did Khrushchev say, do you want some tactical nuclear missiles on your island? He didn't say that. As far as I know, he didn't say it right then, no. But obviously a year or so later after the Bay of Pigs invasion, that's when he does. But he does make it clear, and it has in fact, the Soviet Union has made it

clear in the run-ups of the General Assembly that they're supportive of the Cuban revolution, and they do talk about, you know, if Cuba is attacked by the United States, that they will, you know, use their own rockets to protect Cuba. So they've already started to intimate that they're prepared to support the Cuban revolution. What about the African-Americans in Harlem and beyond? What is the importance of the visit there? I think it's important symbolically.

I mean, it's not that everybody who's out on the street cheering for Fidel is a kind of diehard supporter of the Cuban revolution or a potential communist or communist sympathizer. Part of it is they're just really excited and pleased that the world's spotlight has been shone on Harlem, an area which is usually kind of cut off from wider public view. And there's a kind of a general glee i suppose that um the american government has been embarrassed by all of this there's a rumor that does the rounds that says that um you know when fidel um said he was going to move up to harlem that immediately the american government offered to pay uh for the cubans to stay in another hotel in midtown for free and it's a rumor that's not true but the fact that it's so popular and it's so widely kind of communicated in Harlem kind of indicates, I think, the kind of, yeah,

the kind of glee that the African-American community there takes with the evident embarrassment of the State Department and the Eisenhower administration is suffering. But they also know that Fidel and his government are committed to ending racial segregation on Cuba, that they are committed to racial equality. And I think the fact that he's prepared to stay in Harlem and to show that kind of solidarity is symbolically very important and kind of on an emotional level is deeply kind of appreciated. And there's a kind of a reciprocal sense of this sort of solidarity that's in the air, really.

I mean, on the, I think it's Wednesday the 22nd when Eisenhaus speaks himself at the United Nations and then he hosts a lunch for the delegations of the Latin American countries, but deliberately excludes Fidel Castro. So Castro goes back to the Hotel Teresa and treats the black employees of the hotel to lunch and, of course, invites the press there to take photographs

and makes a big play about how he's not offended at not being invited to the grand lunch with Eisenhower. He's much more happy and honoured to have lunch with the humble people of Harlem. What a player I mean is there any was there any possibility that there could have been rapprochement I mean this was a trip from Fidel to the US and we see the Bay of Pigs invasion to try and topple Fidel within months was was there any suggestion that he might this visit it was a missed opportunity? I think I mean

it's a really interesting question that sort offactual. I think there's certainly a point where you could see Cuban-US relations not ending up as difficult and as tense and as hostile as they eventually became. By the autumn of 1960, things have got pretty bad. And certainly what happens in Harlem and in New York in September, you know, just really confirms the Eisenhower administration's conviction that they can have no rapprochement with Fidel or no meaningful kind of way of working things out. But there's sort of an inflexibility on both sides, really. I mean, I think there's a nice contrast really between Eisenhower, who just sort of refuses to meet Fidel, dismisses him in private as a madman. And with Harold Macmillan, who, when he enters the General Assembly, he makes a big play of going over to Nasser and shaking him by the hand and being friendly with him.

Even though Britain has been humiliated a few years earlier by Nasser and Egypt, and even though Macmillan had been one of the leading hawks in the suez crisis and you i do kind of think you know if eisenhower just been a little bit more a little bit more flexible you know if i mean it was never going to happen but if he'd gone over to fidel and kind of shaken him by the hand and said you know maybe we should try to um you know meet quietly and try to work some things out you know history might have taken a different turn, but it was never really on the cards, I don't think. As it was, so moving away from the counterfactual, back in the actual historical record,

what's the main legacy, do you think, of this remarkable 10 days? Yes, I think it is a key moment in the history of the Cold War because it kind of cements this growing closeness between the Soviet Union and Cuba which is a really important relationship in its own right but also indicates how the kind of wider focus of the Cold War is shifting away from Europe to the countries of the of the global south of the Cold War which is going to focus on Latin America, on Africa and on Asia. I think it's also... I think there's something about the kind of anarchic,

sort of rip-it-up style of this trip, which I think sets the tone for the rest of the decade. And the way in particular in which Fidel is kind of fated by the great and the good of the American kind of left is a kind of an early sign of that kind of politics of so-called third worldism and radical chic which becomes really important during the 1960s particularly during the later 1960s with the support for the Viet Cong and the support for the Black Panthers, for example. So I think those are probably the two biggest kind of consequences, the kind of Cold War relationship and the kind of mood music,

the style, the way that the 60s kind of unfold as we go forward from these extraordinary 10 days. Well, the book is called appropriately 10 days in harlem uh fidel castro and the making of the 1960s go and get it everybody it's brilliant simon thank you very much for coming back on the podcast you were on years ago talking about 1956 um and so it feels to me like you're you should know you feel free not to answer this but you're heading on a unstoppable trajectory towards 1968. That's what it feels like from this point of view. We'll see, yeah, but it's great to be back on, so thanks for inviting me.

Hi everyone, it's me, Dan Snow. Just a quick request. It's so annoying, and I hate it when other podcasts do this, but now I'm doing it, and I hate myself. Please, please go onto iTunes, wherever you get your podcasts podcasts and give us a five-star rating and a review. It really helps and basically boosts up the chart, which is good. And then more people listen, which is nice. So if you could do that, I'd be very grateful. I understand if you don't subscribe to my TV channel. I understand if you don't buy my calendar, but this is free. Come on, do me a favor. Thanks.