Havana Nocturne: How the Mob Owned Cuba & Then Lost it to the Revolution

by T.J. English

Havana had always been a place of great music, but in the era of the Havana Mob a generation of musicians found their voice. In the late 1940s, arranger Dámaso Pérez Prado and his band, along with other renowned orchestras, created a craze called “the mambo.” The mambo was both a type of music and a dance, a sensual transaction between two people engaged in mutual seduction. The mambo was the unofficial dance of the Havana Mob, and the sultry Latin rhythms that inspired the phenomenon were to underscore the entire era.

In later years, this connection between U.S. corporate interests and corrupt local politicians would help to create the moral rot that would inspire a revolution.

“his instinct told him Kennedy had a yen for the ladies, and he and [Evaristo] Garcia offered to arrange a private sex party for him, a favor Santo thought might put the prominent Kennedy in his debt.” The orgy was set up in a special suite at Trafficante’s Hotel Comodoro, a beachside hideaway in the upscale neighborhood of Miramar. The mobster arranged for Kennedy to spend an afternoon with “three gorgeous prostitutes.” Unbeknownst to Kennedy, the suite was outfitted with a two-way mirror that allowed Trafficante and Garcia to watch Kennedy’s tryst from another room.

For months afterward, the Kennedy orgy was a topic of conversation among members of the Havana Mob. Trafficante and Garcia were still amused by the incident when they told Ragano about it months after it happened.

Later, Trafficante kicked himself for not having secretly filmed Kennedy’s dalliance at the Comodoro. It would have made terrific blackmail material.

THE SEXUAL DEGRADATION of Cuban citizens for the entertainment of North American and European tourists was the dirty little secret of the Havana Mob.

The appearance on television was tremendous for public relations: Fidel solidified his status as a kind of tropical Robin Hood. Disgruntled Cubans flocked to the 26th of July Movement. By summer the Ejército Rebelde, or rebel army, had grown from its initial twelve surviving members to somewhere around three hundred. They divided up into columns and spread out around the mountains and surrounding llano (lowlands).

Joe Rivers knew DiMaggio and helped set up a meeting. Out of respect, the Yankee baseball star met with this group at the Warwick Hotel. He told the men that he could not endorse liquor or gambling because of the adverse effect it would have “upon the youth of the nation.”