Castlemain’s first visit to Cuba after many years absence had been with a banking delegation. During that visit he had decided to renew his earlier contacts with Fidel Castro, whom Castlemain had somewhat forgotten during the declining period of international communism and the disastrous collapse that had followed it. He did not consider himself as a friend of convenience, he had always kept contact with his larger circle of friends and acquaintances, sending messages of congratulations and good wishes, for special occasions, such as for anniversaries, national days, birthdays and any other worthy events.
Castlemain was a keen yachtsman, preferring the warm waters of the Caribbean to the cold stormy shores of Ireland. He owned several properties in the Caribbean, including a fine house in Gosier, Guadeloupe where his ketch the Marie Galante was moored. He took a keen interest in all developments in the Caribbean, which he considered to be a zone of particular interest. The bank, through his initiative, had participated in banking pools with the BCN for financing hotels and tourist developments in the French Antilles and more recently in Jamaica.
A couple of years previously during a visit to his house in Gosier, he had been embarked, more by curiosity than anything else, on a so called BCN mission, organised together with the Paris Chamber of Commerce, to explore investment opportunities in Cuba. It had been a typical binge, lavishly laid on for investors with the usual receptions, visits to tourist installations, rum distilleries and cigars factories and of course the Tropicana Night Club.
Castlemain immediately realised that things had changed in Cuba; there was a unique opportunity to be seized and he set about renewing his old contacts. The moment was ripe, the Castro regime was rapidly approaching the end of its reign, Castro was not immortal, but Castlemain could still take advantage of his old relationship with El Lider.
During the visits organised by the Cuban authorities in Havana and its surroundings he had been surprised by the naively painted revolutionary and political slogans adorning public buildings and hoardings, not by the slogans themselves, but by their crudeness, their primitive quality, they were more worthy of an impoverished African banana republic than the revolutionary ideals of Cuba.
They also reminded him of the IRA or Loyalist slogans painted on the walls of Belfast. He shuddered at the thought, those grim inflexible Ulstermen, Catholic or Protestant, caught in a time warp, where their world and ideas stood still, as appeared to be the case in Cuba!
The idealistic images of Che and his Rebeldes with their slogans ‘Ayer, Hoy y Manaña Presente Siempre’ looked out of date, an incongruous throwback, when compared to the slick posters for Benetton or San Cristobal beer and other products that were making their appearance, which he saw as an encouraging sign of change. As to the political slogans, he doubted that anybody was still inspired by them, how the regime survived remained a mystery for Castlemain.
That was the way it went, revolutions come and revolutions go, for the banker it was like an economic cycle, boom and bust, and Cuba was definitely in the bust phase.
Florida, which had once been connected by a regular ferry service to Havana, five or so hours away by sea, was a little more than a hundred miles to the north; the island was a tourist paradise awaiting a signal from the US government. It was potentially a prime destination for those snow bound citadens of the northern states of the USA, not to speak of Canada and Europe.
Times had changed, Cuba before its revolution had been a magnet for Americans seeking pleasure and excitement, though the next time it would not be like the gangster ridden thirties and forties, when gambling and prostitution reigned. Of course there would always be vice, but most tourists would be respectable citizens seeking sun, sand and cocktails.
Cuba had all it took as a tourist attraction. A sub-tropical paradise, a friendly Christian population, yes, that was important for Castlemain, even though he was not a fervent Catholic he was nevertheless a church going Christian, if only for appearances, respecting Irish tradition, and why not, it only took an hour once a week and on Sundays.
He had been brought up with Irish Christian values and he took certain of them very seriously, that is to say he aided those who shared the same belief in Christ, they were brothers, with however the proviso they stayed where they were, he did not want County Meath looking like certain parts of London he had glimpsed on his frequent visits to the City. The rest, in their war torn, disease ridden countries of Africa and other unsavoury places, full of infidels or savages, were merely to be prayed for. As for communism it was anathema, an enemy of not only God, but also the very principals his rich family had lived by for centuries. It was an evil spirit that had possessed the Cuban people, for whom the time was now ripe for rescue from the ills of that atheistic dogma.
He calculated there were profits to be made, thanks to modern air transport Havana was no more than three or four hours flight from the northern most American cities. All-in packages would cater for over ninety five percent of all tourist visits, one or two weeks, as in other Caribbean tourist destinations.
He understood that mass tourism required airports, highways, hotels and catering, beach facilities, restaurants, car rentals, travel agencies, breweries, distilleries, soft drink bottlers, trips to restored cathedrals, museums, forts, banking, staff training and so on, the list was endless.
Cuba had all of that in an embryonic form; it would require huge investment to bring it up to international standards. The country had been bled dry by its revolution and now needed new money and investors. He put out feelers through diplomatic channels in the hope that Castro would remember him, would give him an audience.
The greatest risk was that the drug barons from Colombia, or the new Mafiya that controlled Miami and New Brighton, would take over the country. It seemed inconceivable to Castlemain that the US government would allow such a thing to happen, but so many unforeseeable events had occurred in the world over the last half a century that anything was possible.
A certain degree of liberty was necessary, he reasoned, if banks and business were to be profitable. However, there should be a limits set so that businesses could prosper, violence and disorder only destroyed the delicate balance needed to create profits. He imagined a financial centre where funds could freely flow in and profits flow out, tourist complexes and tax free zones.
Politicians would be as they always had been in such countries; there was little chance that would ever change, but hopefully prosperity would ensure that the spectre of revolt by the working class was kept at large. Rebuilding Cuba would require many decades; it also required men with vision, men who had been born to lead. He had learnt from his long experience in Latin America that the money and power of the ruling classes were part of an unchanging and necessary system. It had been part of their Hispanic Christian heritage for five hundred years.
Such leaders were necessary in the new world, which was still a new world. The leaders and hidalgos, as he imagined them, had to be strong to establish order and prosperity in a violent society, so that the masses in those vast territories could work, building a dutiful new Christian world with respect for those who had bestowed on them the chance a worthy life.
He had such a vision of a new Cuba and it was necessary to be there from the very outset.
Chapter 18
Castlemain’s Dream