Bacardi - Cuban Revolution

Cuban Revolution

Portuondo and other Bacardí family members initially supported the Cuban revolutionaries, including Fidel Castro and the broader M-26-7 movement: Bosch personally donated tens of thousands of dollars to the movement, and acted as an intermediary between the revolutionaries and the CIA to assuage the latter's concerns. Family members, employees, and facilities were put to use by the movement and the company supported the revolution publicly with advertisements and parties. But their support turned to opposition as the pro-Soviet Che Guevara wing of the movement began to dominate and as Castro turned against American interests.

The Bacardí family (and hence the company) maintained a fierce opposition to Fidel Castro's revolution in Cuba in the 1960s. In his book, 'Bacardi, The Hidden War', Hernando Calvo Ospina outlines the political element to the family's money. Ospina describes how the Bacardi family and Company left Cuba after the Castro regime confiscated the Company’s Cuban assets on 15 October 1960; in particular, in nationalizing and banning all private property on the island as well as all bank accounts. However, due to concerns over the previous Cuban leader Fulgencio Batista the company had started foreign branches a few years prior to the revolution; the Company moved the ownership of the Company's trademarks, assets and proprietary formulas out of the country to the Bahamas prior to the revolution as well as constructing plants in Puerto Rico and Mexico after the prohibition era to save in import taxes for rum being imported to the US. This helped the company survive after the communist government confiscated without compensation all Bacardi assets in the country.

Ospina also explains the close ties Bacardí family members had to the US political elite as well as organizations of state such as the CIA. The family funded various Cuban exile organizations such as CANF.

Embittered Bacardi helmsman José Pepín Bosch bought a surplus B-26 bomber with the hopes of bombing Cuban oil refineries (the bold plan was foiled when a picture of the bomber appeared on the front page of The New York Times). He was also allegedly involved in a CIA plot to assassinate Fidel Castro; documents uncovered during congressional investigations into John F Kennedy's death bring to light a message outlining how he had plans to assassinate Castro, his brother Raúl Castro, and Che Guevara. The RECE (Cuban Representation in Exile) also receives funding from Bacardi family members.

More recently, Bacardi lawyers were influential in the drafting of the 1996 Helms-Burton Act which sought to extend the scope of the United States embargo against Cuba. In 1999 Otto Reich, a lobbyist in Washington on behalf of Bacardi, drafted section 211 of the 1999 Omnibus appropriations act, a bill that became known as the Bacardi Act. Section 211 denied trademark protection to Cuban businesses products expropriated after the Cuban revolution, a provision keenly sought by Bacardi. The act was aimed primarily at Havana Club brand in the US, which was created by the José Arechebala company which was confiscated without compensation in the Cuban revolution. The Havana Club trademark had been registered by the Cuban government in the United States without permission of the rightful owners. Section 211 has been challenged unsuccessfully by the Cuban government and the European Union in US courts; however, the act has been ruled illegal by the WTO (August 2001). The US Congress has yet to re-examine the matter.