Tropicana Nights: The Life and Times of the Legendary Cuban Nightclub

by Rosa Lowinger

Ramón Grau San Martín had entered the quagmire of Cuban presidential politics a decade before his 1944 election. In 1933, following Gerardo Machado’s resignation, he had served as interim president twice—first as part of a five-man team that served for six days and was called La Pentarquia, and then for a five-month stint that ended in January 1934. Grau was itching to be president. In 1940, he ran for the office, and was soundly defeated by Fulgencio Batista in what was the most expensive political campaign in the history of the republic. In 1944, Batista had decided not to run again; but no one in Cuba—not the press, nor the United States, which kept close watch on the politics of its closest trading partner in Latin America—expected Grau to win over Batista’s hand-picked successor, Carlos Saladrigas. First of all, no opposition candidate since 1913 had won a Cuban election. Second, there were Grau’s repeated failures at attaining the presidency. Third, there was Batista himself.