Speaker 1: Nineteen fifties Cuba, Havana. There's one place, one club where
Speaker 1: anyone who's anyone can be found.
Speaker 2: On a Saturday night, you always want to Tropic Cana.
Speaker 2: It doesn't matter where you want. You wind up a
Speaker 2: Tropic Canna because it was world famous and just to
Speaker 2: walk in and look at it was enough.
Speaker 1: It's more than a casino in cabaret. It's a destination
Speaker 1: nestled within a lush six acre estate.
Speaker 2: It was the world's most beautiful nightclub I think of.
Speaker 2: It has a paradise onto the stars.
Speaker 1: You walk into the Tropic Canna ballroom, set within a
Speaker 1: perfectly manicured rainforest, Palm trees and circle the stage, and
Speaker 1: advertisement from the time called it luxuriant vegetation.
Speaker 2: You thought you were outdoors.
Speaker 1: And you look up at the ceiling. It's like an
Speaker 1: enormous shell, but made of last.
Speaker 2: If you look up, you will see the canopy of
Speaker 2: the trees and the stars. So it was very romantic.
Speaker 1: So grab a drink.
Speaker 2: The bar had a cage in the back full of
Speaker 2: colorful Amazonian birds, parrots, cockatoos, tucons, every kind of bird
Speaker 2: was back there.
Speaker 1: You take a sip of your minty sweet Mohito. Relax
Speaker 1: and you start rubbernecking.
Speaker 2: The place was full of celebrities. If you kept walking,
Speaker 2: you ran into possibly Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Rita Haywarth,
Speaker 2: Marlon Brando, Elizabeth Taylor, Debbie Reynolds, Marlene Dietrich, President John F. Kennedy,
Speaker 2: Oh jfk Yes, all the American politicians were there, including
Speaker 2: the presidents.
Speaker 1: And who else could you spot with these A listers.
Speaker 2: Alongside all these celebrities, there were the sugar barons.
Speaker 1: Among the feest people in the country.
Speaker 2: For example, defan Hul family.
Speaker 1: You might even lay eyes on one Alfonso van Hul,
Speaker 1: hair slicked, dashing, old school, dressed to the.
Speaker 2: Nines, because this is a place where the rich and
Speaker 2: famous chose to play. My name is Domitilla Fox, I
Speaker 2: go by Tilly.
Speaker 1: Tilly more or less grew up at the Tropicana. Her
Speaker 1: uncle was the principal owner and her father helped found it.
Speaker 1: Of course, they'd spend every New Year's Eve in the club,
Speaker 1: so in nineteen fifty six it seemed like any other
Speaker 1: celebration to young Tilly.
Speaker 2: There was a show and we were sitting at the
Speaker 2: family table, which was right on the way to the stage.
Speaker 2: Everybody was happily watching Benny More.
Speaker 1: It's all laughter and dancing, peppered with the occasional squawking
Speaker 1: of one of the bar's resident two k Then, just
Speaker 1: before midnight, the orchestra is reaching a crescendo, and.
Speaker 2: All of a sudden you hear a blast and it
Speaker 2: sounded like a huge clap of thunder. It was terrifying
Speaker 2: because I knew it was a bomb. People screaming like,
Speaker 2: oh my gosh, it's a bomb, la bomba bomba and
Speaker 2: it was panic. It was chaos. Everybody started running out
Speaker 2: because you didn't know if there were more bombs in
Speaker 2: the place.
Speaker 1: The explosion came from the ladies bathroom, where there was
Speaker 1: a woman.
Speaker 2: Her arm had come off literally with the bomb.
Speaker 1: A revolution was underway. Its ripples would change the world.
Speaker 1: Not to mention the global sugar industry and the lives
Speaker 1: of two budding Cuban sugar princes, Alfi Junior and Pepe
Speaker 1: van Hul, the same men who today in the United
Speaker 1: States sit at the top of the sugar world, the
Speaker 1: men behind Florida Crystals. Two of the men, the sugar
Speaker 1: cane cutters and their lawyers in this story are taking
Speaker 1: on who are they? Will buckle up? It's going to
Speaker 1: be quite a ride. I'm Celeste Hedley and from iHeartMedia,
Speaker 1: Imagine Audio and the teams at Weekday Fun and Novel.
Speaker 1: This is Big Sugar Episode four. Without Sugar, there is
Speaker 1: no country. First up, I need to apologize. You'll endure
Speaker 1: some pretty cringey corporate videos throughout this series, but the
Speaker 1: one I'm about to play might be the worst. It's
Speaker 1: from twenty eighteen when Alfie and Pepe Fun who were
Speaker 1: inducted into the Florida Agricultural Hall of Fame. If I
Speaker 1: was going to take a guess at what the producer
Speaker 1: searched for when sourcing what must be the world world's
Speaker 1: least subtle production music, I'd say inspirational. And again, I'm
Speaker 1: really sorry.
Speaker 3: Brothers Alfonso and Pepe Fund who will own and farm
Speaker 3: some of the finest sugar cane fields in the nation,
Speaker 3: located mostly in Palm Beach County. The family's Florida Crystals
Speaker 3: Corporation was founded as a sugarcane farming and milling company
Speaker 3: in nineteen sixty and has been producing high quality sugar
Speaker 3: for more than fifty years.
Speaker 1: The reason I'm putting you through the production music equivalent
Speaker 1: of hell is so you can hear the voice of
Speaker 1: Alphi Funhold junior.
Speaker 4: People ask me what do you do? What are your
Speaker 4: professional as a farmer, and sometimes to look at me former,
Speaker 4: you know, so what I am? I done everything in
Speaker 4: a farm.
Speaker 1: And here's his younger brother and business partner, Pepe fun Hold.
Speaker 5: But the company has you know, it's still primarily issuar
Speaker 5: company that is diversifying to do other things too, and
Speaker 5: we're very excited about this.
Speaker 1: These guys are two of the riches sugar cane growers
Speaker 1: in the world today. They're in their seventies and eighties
Speaker 1: and they're billionaires with a bee. Alfi says, they've done
Speaker 1: everything on a farm. But let's be real. Their pastel
Speaker 1: socks and gold buckle blofers are serving far more of
Speaker 1: the shareholder meetings in the boardroom look than hacking away
Speaker 1: in the cane fields realness. In the video, drone footage
Speaker 1: shows Alfie and Pepe doing an Armageddon style walk, wearing
Speaker 1: brown and tortoiseshell sunglasses, strutting through a field of sugar
Speaker 1: cane that literally extends into the horizon. In all likelihood,
Speaker 1: you've eaten their products. They own CNH Tait and Lyle
Speaker 1: and Domino Sugar. They're far from the only sugarcane growers
Speaker 1: in the US, and they're not the only rich sugarcane
Speaker 1: growers in the US, but in the story we're telling
Speaker 1: about the class action lawsuit, they're major players. They own
Speaker 1: on three of the five farms that lawyers Edward Tuttenham
Speaker 1: and Dave Gorman took on, Oka, Lanta, Osceola and Atlantic.
Speaker 1: When you first met Alfi, he told you it was
Speaker 1: the first time he'd given an in depth interview.
Speaker 6: Yes, when I first met Alfie, he said, this is
Speaker 6: the first time I've ever spoken in an in depth
Speaker 6: way to any reporter.
Speaker 1: When Vanity Fair journalist Marie Brenner got an interview with
Speaker 1: Alfie and Pepe van Jul, she knew it was a
Speaker 1: big deal. These guys rarely interact with the media unless
Speaker 1: it's fluff videos like the one you just heard, or
Speaker 1: society columnists snapping photos of them with Meryl Streep and
Speaker 1: Angelina Jolie at charity Gallas. But he told her.
Speaker 6: It is time to try to get our side of
Speaker 6: the story across.
Speaker 1: Marie had been trying for months to get an interview
Speaker 1: with the sugar magnets. While she was covering the lawsuit
Speaker 1: in the late nineties and early two thousand.
Speaker 6: I had written long, earnest letters saying it's better for
Speaker 6: you to get your point across, use me to tell
Speaker 6: your side of the story.
Speaker 1: All that perseverance paid off. She was invited to interview
Speaker 1: Alfie and his brother Pepe several times, including one time
Speaker 1: aboard their super yacht Crily.
Speaker 6: They invited me on their boat.
Speaker 1: The press coverage of the case hadn't been flattering for them.
Speaker 1: There were stories of how the workers were living on
Speaker 1: their farms in prison like conditions, doing absolutely grueling work,
Speaker 1: and at the end of the day being underpaid. So
Speaker 1: Alfie starts telling his side of the.
Speaker 6: Story, and he did. He told a compelling story about
Speaker 6: being a young man in Cuba having been shot at
Speaker 6: by the Castro forces, his father was arrested.
Speaker 1: Okay, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, Before we get to
Speaker 1: the shooting, the arrests, the bombs. There is so much
Speaker 1: to unpack here, you see. Even though the fund Hols
Speaker 1: are known as some of the richest sugarcane growers in
Speaker 1: the US, that's not where their story starts. It begins
Speaker 1: in Cuba, where the brothers Alfie and Pepe were born
Speaker 1: in the nineteen thirties and forties and raised where their
Speaker 1: family was from. In the nineteen fifties, the Fundhuls were
Speaker 1: mega wealthy and how did they make their money? No surprise, Sugar.
Speaker 1: There are home videos from the time of Alfie and
Speaker 1: Pepe as young sugar princes, whiling away the hours by
Speaker 1: the pool, and their evenings entertaining a former King of England.
Speaker 6: They were rich boys in the Havana of the nineteen fifties.
Speaker 6: Their parents would have the Duke of Windsor and the
Speaker 6: Duchess of Windsor coming to stay with them. They lived
Speaker 6: in an immense mansion which I've visited on several occasions
Speaker 6: in Havana, that had been done by the great French
Speaker 6: decorator Anre Somuel. Was filled with you know, the most
Speaker 6: beautiful crowned dark and the most beautiful porcels.
Speaker 1: One of the Fanhol family houses was like a Cuban
Speaker 1: version of France's Palace of Versailles. Many of the vast
Speaker 1: rooms had different themes Neoclassical, Chinese and English. In fact,
Speaker 1: as a girl, when she wasn't at her family's club,
Speaker 1: the Tropicana. Tillie Fox hung out there.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, these houses compared to the greatest States
Speaker 2: of England.
Speaker 1: Don't forget her family owned a famous nightclub. So Tilly
Speaker 1: had some wild experiences as a little girl.
Speaker 2: For example, I remember playing piano with Liberacchi and also
Speaker 2: Nat King Cole. We would go fishing, would Ernest Hemingway.
Speaker 1: Right, Just a day on the boat with Papa Hemingway.
Speaker 1: But even with all these fantastical experiences, the fan Hul
Speaker 1: houses stick out in her memory. They were that grand
Speaker 1: I was used.
Speaker 2: To seeing all of this, But I do remember those
Speaker 2: houses what they looked like. Probably they had about fifteen
Speaker 2: guest bedrooms that were on huge estates winding staircases is
Speaker 2: something out of a movie. It was all done with
Speaker 2: exquisite taste, really spectacular.
Speaker 1: But how exactly did the fan whole family get so
Speaker 1: rich that they were living in what was effectively a
Speaker 1: palace holding parties for some of the most famous people
Speaker 1: in the world, even royalty. John Paul Rathbone worked a
Speaker 1: stint as the Latin America editor at the Financial Times,
Speaker 1: and sugar is both a professional interest for him.
Speaker 7: I'm the author of The Sugar King of Havana, the
Speaker 7: Rise and Fall of Julio Lobo, Cuba's last tycoon.
Speaker 1: But sugar and Cuba are also personal for John Paul.
Speaker 7: So my mother is Cuban who was born in Havana, and.
Speaker 1: His great great grandfather actually owned a sugar mill himself.
Speaker 7: So my grandfather was a character and he is the
Speaker 7: family patriarch, the family imagination.
Speaker 1: So let's focus on the fun Holes. The fan Holes
Speaker 1: came from a long line of privilege, partly because they
Speaker 1: married into sugar. The intertwining family dynasties can get a
Speaker 1: little confusing, so bear with me here. Around the turn
Speaker 1: of the twentieth century, they joined forces in holy matrimony
Speaker 1: with the Rionda family. Manuel Rianda was back then the
Speaker 1: largest sugar producer in the world, so when his sister
Speaker 1: Maria married a fan Hul, it put considerable sugar assets
Speaker 1: into the fann Hol name, and then, like a sugary
Speaker 1: game of thrones, in the nineteen thirties, the family married
Speaker 1: into another huge sugar dynasty, that of Pepe Gomez Mena.
Speaker 1: His daughter Lilian married Alfonso Funhoul Senior, uniting two of
Speaker 1: Cuba's leading sugar families to create one mega sugar empire.
Speaker 7: Gami's Manna were very there, were fabulously wealthy. They were
Speaker 7: one of the fabulously wealthy sugarcraft families.
Speaker 1: A sugar c a sugar aristocrat, that's rarefied air.
Speaker 7: So when Doman's men the family and the Fanghul family
Speaker 7: joined it, it was a high society wedding. Essentially, there's
Speaker 7: a kind of ranking in the gossip columns of the
Speaker 7: day where the most lavish wedding was called a boler
Speaker 7: the or a golden wedding, well dressed men and beautifully
Speaker 7: dressed women dancing in the country club, and all stops
Speaker 7: pulled out.
Speaker 1: The sugar credentials of the Fanhole family were firmly secured
Speaker 1: by this marriage, and that came with power. If you
Speaker 1: were a sugar grower, you'd made it to the top.
Speaker 1: Being part of a sugarcrat family, well, it's the kind
Speaker 1: of profession that comes in handy when you're trying to
Speaker 1: get into exclusive restaurants, the kind of profession that allows
Speaker 1: you to say, don't you know who I am? To Matredes.
Speaker 1: Cuban sugar bearings have always had a certain reputation. Like
Speaker 1: back in the fifties, there were stories of an ultra
Speaker 1: wealthy sugar baron called Julio Lobo. He's a guy whose
Speaker 1: wealth these days would be defined in Bill Gates terms.
Speaker 1: There's this legend about him filling up a pool with
Speaker 1: perfume for the American actress and competitive swimmer Esther Williams.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 7: I think it's more likely that he probably sprinkled a
Speaker 7: few drops and said something flattering to her, like, my darling,
Speaker 7: now I'm giving you a pool of perfume. But it's
Speaker 7: those kinds of stories that sort of generate the idea
Speaker 7: of these incredible riches.
Speaker 1: Soon after Alfi Vanholt Senor and Lillian Rosa Gomez Mena
Speaker 1: tied the knot in that high society wedding, the next
Speaker 1: generation of sugar barons were born in nineteen thirty seven,
Speaker 1: Alfonso Fanholt Junior, that's Alfi, and seven years later Jose Vanhuld,
Speaker 1: known as Pepe.
Speaker 7: They sent their children to school in the United States,
Speaker 7: and they gave fantastic parties.
Speaker 1: The boys, Pepe and Alfie were sent to America for college.
Speaker 1: Their new American lives were a long way from the
Speaker 1: family's sugarcane plantations. Apparently, the fun Holes wanted to emulate
Speaker 1: the lives of French aristocracy, who lived like royalty and
Speaker 1: much like their eighteenth century counterparts. The brothers were separated
Speaker 1: both literally and metaphorically from the backbreaking job of cutting
Speaker 1: sugarcane that paid for their fine clothes and expensive educations.
Speaker 1: For many sugarcrats, John Paul says.
Speaker 7: The life of the black part of the population and
Speaker 7: the less well off was completely hidden to them, and
Speaker 7: they were incurious about it. I'm not aware of it.
Speaker 1: But scrolls scroll, scroll back even further, because this didn't
Speaker 1: all happen in a vacuum. The sugar that made these
Speaker 1: families in Cuba, where there's quite a backstory more after
Speaker 1: the break, there's a saying in Cuba sina sukar no
Speaker 1: apayis without sugar.
Speaker 7: There is no country that kind of In brief, sinasuka
Speaker 7: no ipi is encapsulates the whole essence and importance of sugar.
Speaker 1: If you hopped in a bumper car and whizzed through
Speaker 1: Cuban history, you would knock into sugar constantly.
Speaker 7: Sugar had very modest beginnings in Cuba. Before the eighteenth century.
Speaker 7: It was sort of artisanal level.
Speaker 1: There was sugar, but it wasn't yet eaten or traded
Speaker 1: on a grand scale. But then boom, the British capture
Speaker 1: Havana in seventeen sixty two, just for seven months before
Speaker 1: it returns to Spanish hands. And as the world's demand
Speaker 1: for sugar increases, nearly the whole island changes its focus
Speaker 1: to one thing, sugar cane.
Speaker 7: And it was like applying yeast to a solution of sugar.
Speaker 7: The whole thing suddenly.
Speaker 1: Grew not far away. Haiti is a world leader in
Speaker 1: sugar production, but then enslaved workers there lead a successful
Speaker 1: revolution in the late seventeen hundreds, a huge gap in
Speaker 1: the market for sugar, so Cuba steps up.
Speaker 7: In the space of one hundred years or so, Cuba
Speaker 7: became the largest sugar producer in the world, accounting for
Speaker 7: perhaps a quarter of the world market.
Speaker 1: It had the right climate, hot perfect for sugarcane. Cuba
Speaker 1: became known as the sugar bowl of the world. And
Speaker 1: that's when this whole new class emerged, sugar crats. In fact,
Speaker 1: the very concept of Cuba as a nation came from
Speaker 1: these sugar crats.
Speaker 7: They were the first people to call Cuba a country.
Speaker 7: The idea of calling the colony a country is interesting
Speaker 7: that it was Cuban sugar planters who were thinking of
Speaker 7: it in those terms.
Speaker 1: So sugar was a driving force both politically and economically
Speaker 1: for Cuba, but also socially because the booming economy was
Speaker 1: built on the exploitation of hundreds of thousands of enslaved Africans.
Speaker 7: Slavery played a huge role in Cuban history and society
Speaker 7: and helped determine what the eye and went on to become.
Speaker 1: If an enslaved West African survived the harrowing ocean journey
Speaker 1: to Cuba, in all likelihood, they then had the misfortune
Speaker 1: of winding up cutting sugar cane.
Speaker 7: Cutting sugar is backbreaking work, is ferocious.
Speaker 1: Just a reminder if you've forgotten how difficult sugarcane cutting is, you'll.
Speaker 7: Bent over double hacking away this very tough grass. Essentially
Speaker 7: with a sharp blade you can slice off your toe
Speaker 7: or your foot. It's very hot, there are snakes. Everything
Speaker 7: about it is backbreaking, punishing work.
Speaker 1: Enslaved workers were likely to die within a decade of
Speaker 1: arriving on a Cuban sugarcane plantation.
Speaker 7: It was inhumane and the conditions were awful.
Speaker 1: The US abolished slavery in eighteen sixty five, but Cuba
Speaker 1: did the opposite. The use of enslaved people actually increased,
Speaker 1: largely to satisfy the hunger of the sugar industry.
Speaker 7: Slavery persisted for a long time in.
Speaker 1: Cuba until eighteen eighty six. In fact, according to some estimates,
Speaker 1: over the entire history of the Atlantic slave trade, Cuba
Speaker 1: received twice as many enslaved Africans as the US. Cuba
Speaker 1: a relatively small island country, only about seven hundred fifty
Speaker 1: miles long and one hundred miles wide, about the size
Speaker 1: of Tennessee if you're looking for a comparable state. That said,
Speaker 1: much of the sugar harvested by enslaved people was heading
Speaker 1: straight to America.
Speaker 7: It was what joined Cuba economically at the hip to
Speaker 7: the United States, more than gambling, tourism anything like that.
Speaker 7: No Cuba and sugar the United States was fundamental.
Speaker 1: Sugar just keeps popping up throughout Cuban history. The First
Speaker 1: War of Independence.
Speaker 7: It's the first was led by plants in the east
Speaker 7: of the country, and they were sugar owners.
Speaker 1: When that movement failed, there was a second attempt at
Speaker 1: independence from Spain and bump you see sugar again. As
Speaker 1: the rebel forces advanced, thousands of acres of sugarcane are
Speaker 1: set alight. A leader of the movement said the torch
Speaker 1: became the most devastating weapon in the insurrectionary arsenal. It
Speaker 1: was a protest, a way of disrupting the foundations of
Speaker 1: the country.
Speaker 7: Historians generally reckoned that the Cubans were about to win,
Speaker 7: and then the US arrived.
Speaker 1: This is in eighteen ninety eight.
Speaker 7: And when the Spanish are finally booted out, it's an
Speaker 7: American flag that's raised over Havana instead of a Cuban.
Speaker 1: One, with the smoldering sugarcane fields pouring smoke across the horizon.
Speaker 1: So as Cuba became supposedly independent, slavery had been abolished,
Speaker 1: but the sugar industry still remained, and working in the
Speaker 1: fields and mills continued to be unbelievably demanding work. On
Speaker 1: the flip side, if you were a Cuban sugar grower,
Speaker 1: the people who owned the farms, you were at the
Speaker 1: top of the social pyramid.
Speaker 7: You could be well healthy. If you were a Cuban
Speaker 7: sugar planter, and many were, you certainly had social cachet.
Speaker 1: So sugarcane defined the wealth of Cuba, fueled the importation
Speaker 1: of enslaved people, was part of the fight for independence,
Speaker 1: and was the economic glue that bound the island to
Speaker 1: the US.
Speaker 7: It's fundamental. It's like saying, what is oil to Saudi Arabia?
Speaker 7: Now you get it without sugar.
Speaker 1: There's no country without sugar. There is no country. So
Speaker 1: tell me about your impressions when you sat down for
Speaker 1: this interview. What was your first impression?
Speaker 6: Well, Alfie was absolutely charming. He has incredible cool.
Speaker 1: Marie Brenner who met Alfie and Pepe fun Whol when
Speaker 1: she was writing her article for Vanity Fair, So, yeah,
Speaker 1: Alfie has cool. Well, of course he has. He's a sugar.
Speaker 6: They had grown up in what they call the country
Speaker 6: club section of Havana.
Speaker 1: Going to society parties and polo matches. Alfi Junior had
Speaker 1: been raised to navigate social interactions with the fluidity of
Speaker 1: an orchestra conductor wielding his baton.
Speaker 7: I expect they led quite a sort of frivolous and
Speaker 7: claustrophobic life. I would say it was an insular and
Speaker 7: inward looking social group with quite strict social mares and
Speaker 7: no little snobbery.
Speaker 1: But don't forget when and where they grew up. Nineteen
Speaker 1: fifties Cuba. This was when the country was under the
Speaker 1: rule of General Battista. He was elected president in the
Speaker 1: early nineteen forties, and he took power again in the
Speaker 1: nineteen fifties after a military coup with financial and logistical
Speaker 1: support from the US, and again sugar appears as a
Speaker 1: star in the character list of Cuban history. When in power,
Speaker 1: General Bautista cozied up too many rich sugar planters as
Speaker 1: the gap between wealthy and poor continued to widen in
Speaker 1: his country.
Speaker 8: Bautista denies he as a dictator and says some of
Speaker 8: his opponents are pro communist.
Speaker 1: Look if you feel the need to deny, you're a dictator.
Speaker 8: With the sugar industry flourishing, apparently, contented workers also support Bautista,
Speaker 8: who sees power. In nineteen fifty.
Speaker 1: Two, contented, I really wonder if the workers on the
Speaker 1: sugar farms might use a different word. The men who
Speaker 1: caught the sugar cane were still mostly black Cubans descendants
Speaker 1: of enslaved people. The less dangerous jobs in the sugar
Speaker 1: mills and factories those were largely done by white Cubans.
Speaker 1: As for the owners of the sugar farms, there were
Speaker 1: some hiccups that came along with operating a successful enterprise
Speaker 1: under a dictatorship I mean, sorry, alleged dictatorship. The fan
Speaker 1: Hools were no strangers to paying bribes to the regime. Apparently,
Speaker 1: the family otherwise considered themselves above politics, and Alfonso's senior
Speaker 1: even rejected an ambassadorship offered to him by President Battista bribery.
Speaker 1: That was just something they had to deal with on
Speaker 1: the side, bureaucracy, if you will. Otherwise, it was the
Speaker 1: Golden Age, one of the best times to be a
Speaker 1: sugar grower in Cuba, but like all golden ages, the
Speaker 1: good times can't last forever more. Coming up after the break,
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty six a pivotal year in Cuban history. That's
Speaker 1: because that's the year that a thirty one year old
Speaker 1: Fidel Castro returned to the country. Born into a wealthy
Speaker 1: family himself, Castro became a passionate anti imperialist. While studying law,
Speaker 1: the young Castro joined rebel forces fighting in Columbia and
Speaker 1: the Dominican Republic before returning home to Cuba. He had
Speaker 1: a singular intention overthrow Bautista. He was ardent and articulate,
Speaker 1: a natural leader.
Speaker 8: It was on this coast that exile Castro and a
Speaker 8: small band of rebels landed last December.
Speaker 1: There were dozens of rebels on that rickety boat called
Speaker 1: the Grandma, including a young Argentinian named Chay Guevara. He
Speaker 1: also became a zealous leftist at university. While working as
Speaker 1: a doctor in Mexico City, he met Fidel Castro, and
Speaker 1: over the course of a conversation the first time they met,
Speaker 1: Guevara became convinced that the fight against Battista was his
Speaker 1: fight too.
Speaker 2: I do remember when things started getting hot in Cuba
Speaker 2: in nineteen fifty six.
Speaker 1: From the date of Castro's landing, Cuba was in a
Speaker 1: state of virtual civil war, with the revolutionaries trying to
Speaker 1: depose Battista, rid the country of US influence, and impose
Speaker 1: a new communist government.
Speaker 9: This was the scene of tom oil in the capitol Havana.
Speaker 9: As the climax of revolution was reached, anyone suspected of
Speaker 9: sympathy for the Battista regime came in for a rough time.
Speaker 2: They cut the electricity, they set off Molotov cocktails for.
Speaker 1: The people of Cuba. The thunder of explosives became regular
Speaker 1: background noise.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, that's correct. My mother was sey La bon vitas.
Speaker 1: The little bombs like the one that ripped through the
Speaker 1: Tropicana nightclub.
Speaker 2: And at the time they didn't know what had happened.
Speaker 2: They just thought, oh, here's a bomb.
Speaker 1: We just heard the blast.
Speaker 2: You didn't know if there were more bombs in the
Speaker 2: place and if somebody was gonna come in with a
Speaker 2: machine gun or set fire to the place.
Speaker 1: Riots broke out, people were kidnapped, hundreds were killed on
Speaker 1: both sides, while Battista suspended constitutional rights like freedom of
Speaker 1: expression and freedom of assembly.
Speaker 3: This is already the beginning.
Speaker 8: They last Bacon will be helping the capital to come.
Speaker 1: Be sure, and just as Faulkner said, the past is
Speaker 1: never dead. It's not even passed. So like deja vu
Speaker 1: from the independence movement, the sugar fields went up and smoke, it.
Speaker 2: Was actually teenagers and university students went after the rich
Speaker 2: people and they burned down the sugarcane fields.
Speaker 1: Sugar represented so much of what people were fed up with,
Speaker 1: the inequity, the difference between their lives and those are
Speaker 1: the rich, including sugar farm owners.
Speaker 7: Like the fun Holes, they were viewed as class a
Speaker 7: alta upper class. In developing countries, the upper class, if
Speaker 7: you're in the middle class or the lower class, is
Speaker 7: a very distant realm. It can seem very glamorous and
Speaker 7: something one would want to aspire to or overthrow.
Speaker 1: From the Fidalista's point of view, people like the fun
Speaker 1: Holes were villains.
Speaker 2: The problem is that some of them resented the manner
Speaker 2: in which they lived. They were there working at the
Speaker 2: fields and here's this guy in his huge mansion with
Speaker 2: his sorts, cars and his parties.
Speaker 6: They were the parasite class. They were the leeches, they
Speaker 6: were the exploiters.
Speaker 1: Many Cubans felt marginalized by the rich people like the
Speaker 1: fun Holes. Then there was the political corruption and the
Speaker 1: influence of the US in Cuba. All of it fueled
Speaker 1: the revolution. New Year's Eve nineteen fifty eight, brothers Alfie
Speaker 1: and Pepe vun Hul are at the Havana Yacht Club.
Speaker 6: Obviously it's Godfather too. I mean it's like they're at
Speaker 6: their club. They're the fireworks.
Speaker 1: People are there celebrating despite all the chaos at the time.
Speaker 1: But that night the clink of champagne glasses gets interrupted.
Speaker 2: Batista's military turned on him, so he had to leave.
Speaker 1: Rumors start swirling at the party. President Batista has been deposed.
Speaker 1: Castro and his revolutionaries have taken power.
Speaker 6: Suddenly it's the shooting and people having to flee and
Speaker 6: run and run under cover, and run for the airport
Speaker 6: and run for boats, and everyone is fleeing.
Speaker 1: Shortly afterward, armed militia arrive at the fun Hol's house.
Speaker 1: Alfi told Marie all about this for her Vanity Fair article.
Speaker 6: When they got home, they discovered that there were Fidelistas
Speaker 6: in their house and that half the rooms had been
Speaker 6: cordon off, having been shot at by the Castro forces.
Speaker 6: His father was arrested.
Speaker 1: Alfonso Senior is taken by the rebels and interrogated for hours.
Speaker 6: Then the father had to have someone swear for him
Speaker 6: that he had never had anything to do with the
Speaker 6: Baptista government.
Speaker 1: Finally he's released, but he isn't sticking around in Cuba.
Speaker 6: The father was allowed to leave the country and he
Speaker 6: left Alfi in charge of the sugar interests.
Speaker 1: Alfi had just graduated college from Fordham in New York.
Speaker 1: He's twenty one years old. And now responsible for holding
Speaker 1: on to the family sugar empire. At the peak of
Speaker 1: a revolution.
Speaker 9: At last, doctor Fidel Castro himself arrived. Time and again
Speaker 9: he was held up by the crowds. He spoke to
Speaker 9: them of the new regime now being inaugurated, a regime,
Speaker 9: by the way, now formally recognized by Britain.
Speaker 7: So Batista leaves the island is delighted. Castro drives in
Speaker 7: a slow convoy, roses a throne in front of his jeeps.
Speaker 7: My mother is in the crowd and rushes out and
Speaker 7: kisses the Melisium Fuegos, who is one of the heroes
Speaker 7: of the revolution. Everyone is delighted. The tyrant is gone.
Speaker 1: Well, not everyone was delighted. For the rich, the landowners,
Speaker 1: things were unraveling and rapidly their assets were evaporating.
Speaker 8: Fastra operates out of a nineteen story headquarters in Havana
Speaker 8: and covered up business industries in a wide, sweeping takeover
Speaker 8: of all means of production.
Speaker 7: All the businesses, essentially a nationalized first the mills, then
Speaker 7: the smaller land holdings than big businesses, and then small businesses.
Speaker 8: The revolution has taken over fifty one percent of the
Speaker 8: land through cast coos in the government owned canefield, the plantations,
Speaker 8: pasture land, and the guajiros. The workers who were promised
Speaker 8: for land find themselves captives of the stake.
Speaker 2: Those people with the huge land holdings. And we're talking
Speaker 2: mainly the sugar industry because that was the number one
Speaker 2: industry in Cuba. The other one I think was tobacco.
Speaker 2: They were targeted and people lost their farms, and there
Speaker 2: were some that committed suicidles. They couldn't stand it that
Speaker 2: everything they've worked for all their life was now taken
Speaker 2: by the government.
Speaker 1: That also includes Domatilla's Families Club, the Tropicana. It was
Speaker 1: take and by Castro's new government and nationalized. Now Castro
Speaker 1: took Marlon Brando's seat, and it's unclear what happened to
Speaker 1: the Tucan. Meanwhile, Alfie's there watching on as all the
Speaker 1: farms and businesses around him were being snapped up.
Speaker 6: He was part of a culture that he was watching
Speaker 6: lose everything. You know, all over Havana, businesses were getting burned,
Speaker 6: there were riots in the street.
Speaker 1: But Alfie's convinced while everyone was losing their businesses, they
Speaker 1: can keep their farms.
Speaker 6: This will not happen to us, No one would dare
Speaker 6: trifle with us, and that was part of the grandiosity
Speaker 6: that they felt that their sugar holdings would protect them
Speaker 6: rather than make them a target.
Speaker 1: Somehow, Marie says, Alfie believed he would be able to
Speaker 1: retain his land, even though he knew his life was
Speaker 1: on the line.
Speaker 6: His life was in danger and he had to literally
Speaker 6: go from house to house because he would be shot at.
Speaker 1: Alfi spent the year of nineteen fifty nine in hiding.
Speaker 1: Then came the evening that would be a cataclysm. Castro's
Speaker 1: rebels enter the family headquarters on the Avenida di Gomesmina,
Speaker 1: the street in Havana named after Alfie's grandfather.
Speaker 6: When they broke into a boardroom.
Speaker 1: The rebels slammed their guns on the conference table.
Speaker 6: And the room, as he described it, was decorated with
Speaker 6: these astonishing maps of their one hundred and fifty thousand
Speaker 6: acres and the ten sugar mills, and Alfie said that
Speaker 6: they were trying to explain to us the process of
Speaker 6: what they were going to do and how they were
Speaker 6: going to take all of our property away. They circled
Speaker 6: a wall map and said this will be ours, all
Speaker 6: of it.
Speaker 1: This experience with the rebels has become part of the
Speaker 1: Funhole's romantic origin story, a story that Alfie has told
Speaker 1: and retold many times. Here he and his brother Pepe
Speaker 1: are talking about it in that over the top video
Speaker 1: and again sorry.
Speaker 4: After Castrocamen I was there when basically they told us
Speaker 4: that I want to take our properties away, and it
Speaker 4: was a really pround plus and experience.
Speaker 5: When we think it was traumatic for us, it was,
Speaker 5: But I think how brave my grandparents were and parents
Speaker 5: were and what a what a must have been for
Speaker 5: them have been devastated.
Speaker 1: Their mills were seized, the historic family mansion we talked
Speaker 1: about was taken. In fact today it's now the country's
Speaker 1: decorative arts museum. It was because I mean increasingly clear
Speaker 1: that Alfi von Hul had to leave Cuba.
Speaker 6: Literally he ran for his life. He went to his house.
Speaker 6: They had ten thousand dollars in a safe. He made
Speaker 6: the decision to leave the money there because he was
Speaker 6: terrified what would happen to him if he was caught
Speaker 6: taking that much cash out of Havana.
Speaker 1: His brother Pepe raced out of Cuba two.
Speaker 6: And he got on a plane and on the plane
Speaker 6: was Errol Flynn fleeing Havana to a detail which I
Speaker 6: just loved.
Speaker 1: When the Tropicana was nationalized, Domatila also fled the country
Speaker 1: by plane.
Speaker 2: I left using a fake passport.
Speaker 1: And John Paul's mother slipped out around this time.
Speaker 7: My mother's family, like many Cubans who had businesses, then
Speaker 7: left the island. There was no livelihood for them to pursue.
Speaker 1: In nineteen fifty nine, twenty three year old Alfie touchdown
Speaker 1: in Miami.
Speaker 6: His life as a young man in his twenties was
Speaker 6: a reversal of fortune, coming into a country that he knew,
Speaker 6: of course, because he'd gone to college here. And yes,
Speaker 6: they were very lucky because they had a lot more
Speaker 6: money in America than a lot of other Cuban refugees did.
Speaker 6: But still the mansions were gone, the assets were gone.
Speaker 1: So Alfi has just arrived in Florida. He's been able
Speaker 1: to get some of their money out of Cuba, and
Speaker 1: along with his newly exiled status, Alfie receives a directive
Speaker 1: from the family patriarch. Didn't his grandfather explicitly tell him
Speaker 1: that he had a responsibility to build it back up.
Speaker 6: Yes, he was told this money is not going to
Speaker 6: last past your generation. And if you want to have
Speaker 6: money for your heirs, you're going to have to build
Speaker 6: up everything again.
Speaker 1: The fan Holes set their sights on one thing.
Speaker 6: They had to make their fortune.
Speaker 1: But how how did the fun Holes become some of
Speaker 1: the wealthiest sugar growers in the United States? And how
Speaker 1: have you, even if you don't eat sugar, helped them
Speaker 1: to become billionaires. Next time, I pay the fun Hools
Speaker 1: a house visit. Yeah, so we're looking at Alfie's house
Speaker 1: and it's huge. I mean, it looks like a hotel.
Speaker 1: And get to the bottom of how they ended up
Speaker 1: as the most infamous sugar barons in America.
Speaker 7: They live in Palm Beach.
Speaker 4: They lived the lives of multi millionaires, and that is
Speaker 4: strictly due to the onwitting generosity of federal taxpayers.
Speaker 6: And they begin to bring in Jamaicans, thousands and thousands
Speaker 6: of Jamaicans to cut the cane.
Speaker 10: It's good for them, it's not good for cause we
Speaker 10: would have wanted to fucking bottom. We would have wanted
Speaker 10: this struggling to keep their parks.
Speaker 1: Say that's next time on Big Sugar. Big Sugar is
Speaker 1: produced by Imagine Audio Weekday fund Productions and novel for iHeartMedia.
Speaker 1: The series is hosted by me Celeste Hedley. Big Sugar
Speaker 1: is produced by Jeff Eisenman at Weekday Fund Productions. It's
Speaker 1: executive produced by Kara Welker, Nathan Kloke, and Marie Brenner.
Speaker 1: Story editor and executive producer is Joe Wheeler. The researcher
Speaker 1: is Nadia Metti. Production management from Scherie Houston, Frankie Taylor
Speaker 1: and Charlotte Wolf. Our fact checker is Sona Avakian. Field
Speaker 1: reporting by Amber Amortgi. Sound design and mixing by Eli Block,
Speaker 1: Naomi Clark and Daniel Kempsen. Original music composed by Troy
Speaker 1: McCubbin at Alloy Tracks. Additional music by Nicholas Alexander. Special
Speaker 1: thanks to Alec Wilkinson, author of the book Big Sugar,
Speaker 1: and Stephanie Black, director of the documentary H two Worker.
Speaker 1: Big Sugar is based on the Vanity Fair article in
Speaker 1: the Kingdom of Big Sugar by Marie Branner