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1000 Cubans in 24 Hours
A presidential request for a foreign delicacy
By: C. Todd Williamson, III
| It’s another Friday evening and there’s nothing like unwinding after a hard days work than in Washington DC ‘s Georgetown Tobacco, a cigar aficionado’s dream. As I walk in,I notice the smell inside is reminiscent of my grandfathers old den, heavily filled with the smell of pipe smoke and old beer slogans tagged on the wall. I head to the humidor where there is an array of different types of cigars, Padrones, Fuentes, Vegas, you name it, they have it. The thing is, they’re all Mexican. Nothing against the Mexican imported cigars, but none have the mystery, quality, aroma, or legendary aura as a classic Cuban cigar; or so I’ve heard. Banned in the |
U.S. 45 years ago amidst tension between the United States and Cuba, Cuba’s most famous export is still today a hot commodity amongst avid cigar smokers around the world. The demand for a Cuban is ever high here in the U.S., but ironically, the man who’s to blame for their illegal status was also one of the biggest cigar aficionado’s to ever serve in The White House.
Legend has it that President J ohn F. Kennedy sent his press secretary Pierre Salinger on a mission to round up as many cigars as possible |
Pierre Salinger © JFK Library |
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a month after, the ‘Bay of Pigs,’ the administration’s failed invasion of Cuba. Cigarenvy.com has acquired footage of an interview belonging to Jansen media of Salinger recounting his task. “The president called me into his office about 5:00 in the afternoon. He said, ‘I really need some help…I need some cigars.’ I said, ‘fine, how many do you need?’ He said, ‘A thousand!’ I said, ‘When do you need them?’ He said, ‘By tomorrow morning!’
Pierre later showed up 8 am the next morning with 1200! Kennedy’s response, “Fantastic!” and according to Salinger, the president pulled out the decree that set up the Cuban embargo at that very minute. A very clever move on Kennedy’s part for if those cigars were obtained after the decree was signed, they would be considered contraband.
Kennedy relaxing on his yacht, “The Honey Fitz” © JFK Library |
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As an example of how serious Kennedy took the situation, as much as Kennedy loved his favorites, Cuban Petit Upmann’s, he was not always happy with every circumstance in which they arrived into his presence. Salinger visited Moscow in 1962, a year later, and didn’t leave the Soviet Union empty handed. Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev was given a gift of cigars from Cuban dictator Fidel Castro on a visit to the island earlier in the year. Khrushchev, preferring Soviet cigarettes to the regal Cuban cigar, gave Salinger 250 cigars from his Castro stash. Talk about diplomacy!
Thinking nothing of it, Salinger brought the illegal imports to the Oval Office, much to |
the dismay of the president. Salinger figured he could sneak through customs as a member of the administration and as being designated as someone who was on a “special mission for the President of the United States.” Kennedy was as frantic as if he was on the playgrounds of his youth at The Choate School and a short pudgy friend had just informed him that he stole money from the principal’s office.
Kennedy was worried about the commotion it would cause if it were leaked to the press not only for the fact that they were given to Salinger from the Soviet premier, for in fact Khrushchev once gave the president’s daughter Caroline a dog as a gift. The fact that they were given to the Soviet leader by Castro and after the embargo had been handed down could send the administration straight into the toilet, the exact same place Kennedy wanted to see those cigars.
In turn, the president demanded that Salinger return the cigars to customs immediately and as a frequent cigar smoker himself, it hurt his heart to know that all 250 were going to be destroyed.
This was probably the toughest thing that Salinger had to do, his press secretary next to informing the nation the following October that President Kennedy was to address the nation on all 3, yes I said it, 3 television networks to discuss the presence of Soviet nuclear offensive weapons in Cuba, perhaps one of the most dangerous times in world history.
So every time I leave Georgetown Tobacco, I always dream of the day that I can walk into that humidor and look up and see a Cuban Petit Upmann starring back at me. I’ll run up to the counter with as much ridiculous enthusiasm as those German children in the original Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory film and ask the clerk to for a clean cut.
In order for such a day to happen, Fidel Castro will have to succumb to old age or wait till November 2008 in the hopes that this country will elect a Republican or Democrat that will be willing to do something that no president has done in over 40 years. No, not provide universal health care or an adequate tax cut for the middle class, but lift the trade embargo with Cuba. America may be “addicted to oil,” but we have a craving for stogies.
Some may ask why wait that long? Well, I don’t think President Bush is ready to pitch such a mission to Tony Snow just yet.
For video of Pierre Salinger’s interview, visit: www.cigarenvy.com/tag/pierre-salinger |
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