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The Sugar King of Havana: The Rise and Fall of Julio Lobo, Cuba's Last Tycoon

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One point of the history of the western hemisphere that is rarely pressed to any depth is the relationship the United States has had with the countries of the hemisphere south of its' borders. These relationships are very complicated and probably the most complicated of all has been that with the island nation of Cuba. When the island is mentioned, it is generally in relation to the communist government of Fidel Castro and how the collective opinion of the Cuban exile community will affect an American election.
This book is a history of the island as it relates to one of the richest Cubans, how he made, spent and eventually lost his fortune. Before the Communists gained power in Cuba, the production of sugar was the main industry and Julio Lobo was one of the titans of that industry. He was so powerful that he was even able to stand up and overcome the powerful American corporate interests, cornering the sugar market to his and Cuba's benefit.
While he was extremely wealthy, Lobo was a modest man; he was one of the few sugar tycoons that took a deep interest in his workers. Unlike most other owners he visited his plantations and mills and personally spoke to many of the workers. When Cubans opposed to his interests were criticizing Lobo, the labor union representing his workers issued a strong message of support for him.
However, the real interesting aspect of this book is the downward spiral that the Cuban society was seemingly locked into. The succession of dictatorships was each worse than the previous and semi-open warfare between several factions was taking place. Government corruption increased dramatically so there was a power vacuum when Batiste suddenly fled unannounced from his position as president.
Lobo was caught in that tide of change, all of the good works that he had done for Cuba counted for nothing when he had a late-night meeting with Che Guevara where he was told that his properties were being confiscated by the state. Although Lobo was "asked" to continue to manage some of his sugar holdings, he understood quite clearly that all could be taken at any time. Therefore, he fled the island for the United States with only his clothing, a small suitcase and what he had in his pockets. His "forced" departure from the island may have been the greatest blow to the Cuban economy that Fidel Castro could possibly have dealt.
This is a book about the Cuban society, how it evolved from the time of independence, economically fluctuated according to the price of sugar and ultimately went Communist. It is fascinating to get a glimpse into the life of a man that was one of the most significant people in Cuban society, generally a good man but one that is almost never mentioned in the history books. With that glimpse, you also peer deeply into what Cuba was like from approximately 1910 until Castro imposed his Communist dictatorship.

John Paul Rathbone in "The Sugar King of Havana" has written four different books and woven them into one seamless romantic narrative of great sweep and import which manages in less than three hundred pages, to move as well as to impart much valuable insight about Cuba and its society in the last century. This is an indispensible book for anyone interested in Cuba, Sugar and, of course, Julio Lobo. Throughout, Mr. Rathbone's writing flows easily and lucidly and brings matters into perspective with elements of universal culture that, as in a medieval illuminated manuscript, decorate as well as underline the importance of a given text.

At no time is one strand divorced from the other: Mr. Rathbone, of Cuban maternal descent, gives us a précis of Cuban history with the objectivity yet sentimental attachment of someone born after the time of events which fill out the narrative. His take on the development of Cuba as a political and economic entity are knowledgeable and correspond to the traditional analysis that measures the history of Cuba as falling between one significant fault line: the nefarious coup-d'etat of 04 September 1933. At that time, notwithstanding difficulties, there was institutional and economic development that were propelling Cuba out of its colonial past, whether under Spanish or U.S. hegemony. After the Batista sergeant's revolt in unholy alliance with radical student groups and initially, Communists, the institutional framework of the barely thirty year old republic crumbled, any hope for reform was rapidly betrayed, and Cuba lapsed into a period of corruption, violence, and decadence which, except for a brief period in the 1940's, eventually led to the total failure and collapse of the republic and the onset of communism. Castro's victory in 1959 is less a revolutionary development than the filling of a political vacuum in the making, indeed, magnifying, since 1933.

Within this framework, Mr. Rathbone tells us the story of the great Julio Lobo. An incongruously privately austere man who nonetheless could decorate his life with flamboyant gestures, love affairs, collector of Napoleonica, he was primarily a sugar trader and businessman, who eventually owned mills, but whose feet were always firmly rooted in trade, and drove his firm, Galbán-Lobo, to the most commanding position in the world sugar market. He loved both Cuba and sugar. Though the trader was never absent from his brain, anchored in Havana and Wall Street, his heart seemed to be in Tinguaro, the mill and hacienda he eventually acquired and which became as spiritual a home as he would ever find. His business passion and private delights as well as keen insight into Cuban political reality, developed in him a natural reflex against becoming involved in Cuban political activity. He was not alone in this. In general, the Cuban managerial and professional classes, whether at the magnate or less exalted levels, came to regard Cuban politics with disdain. The hypothetical American academic view of a monolithic business right allied at the end with the corruption ridden, Mafia- influenced Batista dictatorship creating oppressive conditions which eventually led to Castro, was simply not true, and led to much error in American public thinking in the early days of the revolution (I, myself a graduate student at the U. of Wisconsin in the 1960's, had to argue repeatedly the case for the basically politically removed, if negligent, Cuban bourgeosie in many panels against the rhetorical flourishes and self-serving constructs of progressive "true-believers.") More accurate was the attitude reflected by Lobo's statement in the 1950's when some approached him with fears about Castro's political stripes: "Anybody but Batista." Many years later Susan Sontag, with great intellectual honesty and to her everlasting credit, at a conference in New York, publicly apologized for the cuddling American liberals and progressives had given Castro and the ignorance and injustice with which at times she and her colleagues had regarded the diversity of players who were simultaneously anti-Batista dictatorship and anti-Communist during that stretch of Cuban history. By turning his back on politics Lobo presided over the greatest growth of Cuban sugar production and expansion of native control of mill ownership in the history of the republic. His personal role was commanding. As Cuban private investment in the industry grew (earlier in the 20th century, most mills were U.S. owned), so did the controversy as to how to control the instability in sugar prices after World War I, a controversy that was never truly resolved. Lobo was, probably rightly, in favor of increased production even if prices might fall in the short run, so that Cuba would eventually control the sugar market thereby setting the price for the product. Others, particularly in the Cuban and U.S. governments, viewed the issue as sustaining prices by limiting production by all producing countries (beet and cane). For many years, even into the 1950's, Cuba followed this policy, even if other producing countries did not follow. Cuba would try to hedge its position by securing large stakes in the U.S. sugar import quota at subsidized prices. Much to Lobo's displeasure, the Cuban sugar industry became hostage to U.S. sugar purchasing and quota policy, whereas his view of the future had been one in which Cuban comparative advantage in production would have determined not only sales to the U.S., but in the world market. So many years later, in the era of globalization, Lobo's view seems the most prescient and correct. Alas, it is too late.

The third book woven in Mr. Rathbone's rich tapestry is an illuminating but nonetheless personal and perhaps sentimental one, the story of his Cuban family. It is Cuban far older than the Lobo's, whose Cuban roots belong squarely in the twentieth century. By examining, if summarily, but throughout the text as appropriate, the role of his great-great-grandfather, Bernabé Sánchez a sugar planter and mill owner the province of Camaguey, Mr. Rathbone gives us glimpses of life in colonial Cuba and the thinking behind the development of the sugar industry in Spanish times, as well as the development of Cuba itself as a political entity. Initially, Bernabé Sánchez was a committed "independentista", freedom from retrograde Spain as the only means of securing growth and development. Gradually his position shifted, not due in small degree, to fears about U.S. covetousness towards Cuba. Indeed, going back to Jefferson, and at times for varying reasons, there were powerful interests in the U.S. seeking to annex Cuba. Bernabé Sánchez had become skeptical ( like later, arch-imperialist Winston Churchill) of Cubans' ability to manage independence. The only viable alternative he saw was to seek autonomy from Spain, a sort of Commonwealth status like Churchill much later still was forced to accept as the British Empire fell apart. The "tendencia autonomista" gained some currency, but never enough traction. But it is important to establish a more classic, traditionalist point of view in this telling of the Cuba story, with which Lobo's dynamism and innovative thinking is not always in accord. Lobo's uniqueness lies therein. It is telling, given Cuba's sugar production, that prior to Galbán-Lobo's supremacy, the most important sugar trading company in the world was Czernikow-Rionda, based in New York and established by a Spaniard living in New Jersey. Julio Lobo was, until his final mistake, a magnificent businessman. But in a larger sense, as Rathbone concludes: "Lobo made Cuba not only wealthy, but more Cuban.

The fourth book, streaming in and out throughout this magnificent volume, is Mr. Rathbone's own interaction with his Cuban past. After all, Mr. Rathbone is English, his father at one time a Tory MP, his grandmother a militant English Quaker all of whom might make an interesting story on their own. He was born in Britain, after all the main events in this narrative had taken place. His Cuba was the Cuba of the mind, that instilled by his mother's homesickness and romantic memories. She was friends with the Lobo daughters, she remembered her family's Havana department store, Sánchez-Mola, she remembered not only the parties at the Country Club but the tales of Bernabé Sánchez, los Loret-de-Mola, Ignacio Agramonte, the indomitable Camagueyanos, and she passed these stories to her son. One day when the author and his siblings were young they were riding a car with their mother in normally overcast London, when the sun broke through the clouds and shone rather brightly on them. The children complained about the brightness and the heat. Their mother became furious: "don't you ever, in front of me, complain about the sun." Indeed, for a Cuban in London, the sun indeed must sorely be missed. So this book is also an offering of love by Mr. Rathbone to his mother. He is handing back informed, clarified, verified, stripped clean by truth as best he can find it, the precious tales of his mother's youth, no less relevant, romantic, or beautiful, now that the patina of affective memory has been removed.

I have always found it ironic that for me, one of the most revealing images of the traditional, who knows if eventually, perennial Cuban character and disposition is by an American poet who, though always affectionate about Cuba in his letters and work, never set foot on the island notwithstanding several invitations during his lifetime, Wallace Stevens, occurring in his poem "Academic Discourse in Havana." Wallace Stevens : Collected Poetry and Prose (Library of America) Rathbone, unlike Stevens, has visited Havana, and Tinguaro, and knows the island at first hand, albeit a very different place and society from what it was in his mother's day. It all seems to be part of himself, that he took his mother's admonition to heart, and that forever in his innermost being, a bit of a tropical sun will shine.

The book is annotated, indexed, has some illustrations and a bibliography. The text is romantic and sweeping, replete with information and insight. It is most exceptionally recommended.

As a descendant of Bernabe Sanchez, and son of a former Galban, Lobo & Co. associate,
I consider "The Sugar King of Havana" the most fascinating biography of Cuba's most peculiar and mesmerizing businessman.

Intertwined with the intriguing story of Julio Lobo's life, this well researched book offers the reader a most accurate and unbiased sequence of historical events that ultimately culminated in Cuba's deceptive revolution.

To readers interested in late nineteenth and twentieth century Cuba, "The Sugar King of Havana" is a must read.


Andrew J. Rodriguez
Award-winning author of "Adios, Havana," a Memoir.

I have always been fascinated with anything Cuban and couldn't wait to read this book. It did not disappoint, but it did have a few flaws.

John Paul Rathbone spent a lot of time researching this story. He had a personal interest in this book as his mother comes from well-to-do Cuban stock. She lived in the same era as Julio Lobo, the country's most wealthiest sugar speculator, capitalist and avid collector of anything Napoleonica.

The first half of this book is fascinating for anyone new to Cuban history. Rathbone goes into great deal about the people who helped build this island nation, from late in the 19th century and the Cuban revolution, to the overthrow of Cuba in 1959. Cuba was the Pearl of the Caribbean before Fidel took over, and many Americans traveled there in style. Sugar was the main crop and the main reason the US government intervened on the island in 1898: securing the sugarcane fields for the American sugar companies was imperative, but the Yanks needed a good excuse. Bring on the US Maine and concoct a story about Spanish terrorists blowing up the ship.

The intimate dealings between US businessmen, colonial Spanish aristocrats and the Cuban cane workers all helped bring on the chaos that was part of turbulent Cuba in its first half of the 20th century. Cuba's economy has always been so intimately connected to global demands for sugar and the market price for it. Both the US and Fidel's men are guilty of artificially keeping the price either too low or too high over the decades.

Julio Lobo and his father were two business who knew how to play the game with sugar production, sugar exports and sugar mill developments. For a quick overview of Cuba and its sugar cane on the global market, this book is recommended.

But somewhere in Part II, perhaps it was in Chapter 9, the book loses some focus. the story of how Lobo developed into a successful businessman is quite interesting, but when the books turns too far away from the business aspect of Lobo and concentrates on Lobo the family man readers quickly learn that despite his living habits, he was a rather dull character who brought on some of his own downfalls himself.

I really enjoyed the historical aspect of this story, but as the chapters moved on the personal story of Rathbone's mother's story becomes an increasing part of this story. Her story is worthwhile, too and should be told. She lived in the same era as Lobo, and just like Lobo she remained in love with Cuba despite never setting foot on the island once Fidel took over in late 1959. Rathbone says that there is a "revolution" in every ex-pat Cuban, and chapter 11, "Crepusculo" explains why: so many Cubans had to flee the country leaving everything behind. Fidel and his cronies took everything, from hidden art pieces to colonial mansions and bank accounts. This pain and sense of loss binds all Cubans of that era. However, sometimes even in the same chapter there is too much switching between the Lobo story and the Rathbone story. Tighter editing perhaps is in order.

Having said that, this is still a good read. Rathbone spent endless hours going over personal Lobo letters, Lobo family photographs, newspaper clippings Lobo kept, and diary entries. There are also 39 black and white photographs throughout this book that help the reader see the family members. (His legacy lives on in his two surviving daughters who now live in the US, and indeed legal troubles still haunt the daughters for rightful ownership of old sugar mills.) I would categorize this book as both a history book and a biography, but even anyone interested in business may find this book interesting.

This book comes at a good time as anyone who reads this book may envision a return to the Cuba of yore after the Castros are gone. We can only wish.

As a Cuban born person, and because my father was a schoolmate of Julio Lobo, I often heard many of the happenings mentioned in the book at our house. The book is well researched, and it is very unbiased. I enjoyed it immensely and have recommended it to all my friends, specially all those who lived in those years where Cuba turned from a buoyant capitalist country to a communist pauper state. So many people were misled into thinking Castro was going to be the country's saviour! Many of Cuba's wealthy class thought Castro was just another politician, only to find soon enough that he was after the WHOLE of Cuba, and he has certainly kept it for more than 50 years. I recommend this book, it is excellent.

The Sugar King of Havana by John Paul Rathbone is a must read for Cuban-Americans and everyone interested in Cuban history. I particularly enjoyed reading it because I worked for Mr. Lobo from March 1959 until January 1962 in Havana and in New York. He was a very complex man and at times difficult, but he was brilliant, took a real interest in the lives of those who worked for him, from the highest executive to the field laborers. The book is very well written and gives an accurate picture of the pre-Castro Cuba. Once you start reading it, you can not put it down. I always said that Cuba did not need a revolution, it only needed an honest government. But...apparently this was an unattainable dream. Perhaps, if we had had more Julio Lobo's at the time things would have been different.

Rita Honan Navarro

As other reviewers have pointed out, this is really several books in one: (1) a family history, (2) a history of Cuba before the revolution to now, and (3) a biography of Julio Lobo. The weakest link, in my view, is the last one, and that's my central problem with the book. Its title, after all, is "The Sugar King of Havana: The Rise and Fall of Julio Lobo, Cuba's Last Tycoon." I think the reader is entitled to expect some insight into Lobo, but I got none. Rather, I got facts that never really added up to a real portrait of a man. It's clear that the author admires Lobo and believes that he was an entirely upright businessman, but it's also clear that a lot of people didn't like him. Was that just resentment, or could Lobo perhaps not have been as appealing a figure as the author casts him? To me, the biography part of this book fell totally flat, and I never felt that I understood what made Lobo "tick." That being said, I don't regret buying and reading the book, because I thought it provided a good overview of Cuban history in the last century, and anchored the revolution in its historical context. So it's a fine read if you're interested in Cuban history, but don't buy it if you're looking for a riveting biography.

As a native of southern Florida my view of Cuba is a narrow and harshly colored one. The Cuba of my youth is a Cuba painted with the strokes of political violence in Miami from the strong words of fanatics. The Cuba of my young adulthood is receiving letters written on paper made from banana pulp, or trying to find the intended recipient from an address long invalid, or the unrecognizable world my state became during Elian's custody hearings. Today, if asked about Cuba, my impression is of a nation hopelessly poor whose people are clinging to an unrecoverable past and whose inability to let go of that dream continues the cycle of political violence today. Then I read The Sugar King of Havana.

It was startling to read a book which did not begin with the premise that everything connected to Castro was evil. It was eye-opening how shocking having someone speak casually about traveling to Cuba was. John Paul Rathbone had the benefit of being raised largely free of the intensity of emotion that colored my view and the views of those I've previously read. His Cuba is a more realistic one. Through the story of one powerful man, Julio Lobo, Rathbone illustrates a Cuba unknown to me and in so doing illustrates why I view Cuba the way I do. With a few hundred pages of history I have more insight into what drives the Cuban exile community of Miami. He makes the inexplicable seem inevitable.

Julio Lobo was born in Venezula. His prospering family was forced by the tides of political change to flee for the more welcoming nation of Cuba. In Cuba, they began again. Lobo rose to dominate his chosen field, sugar, in the same way that Milton Hershey came to dominate American chocolate. Like Hershey, Lobo had a strong patriotism that led to improved conditions for his work force and respect across his nation. Unlike Hershey, Lobo lived in Cuba where revolution was never far from the surface. Julio Lobo's belief in his nation led to his belief in Castro, which led to his own financial downfall. The Sugar King of Havana fully explains why Lobo thought backing Castro was good for Cuba, why all of the political choices were bad, and why Cuba seems caught in an endless cycle of revolution. More than that, it brings back a time when Cuba was a place of mystery, desire, stars and society that Americans could freely visit. More than a biography of an interesting man (Julio Lobo is a very interesting man indeed) The Sugar King of Havana reveals all the Cubas we face today. The Cuba of the past, the Cuba of the heart, the Cuba of today, and the dream of Cuba in the future. I wish this was required reading in Florida high schools.

I picked this book because I thought that it would be a break from my usual reading and may give me an introduction into relatively modern Cuban history along with a fairly interesting life story. My expectations were fulfilled.

Born in 1898, Julio Lobo, the Sugar King, lived from the days of the Spanish-American War and Cuban Independence through the hey-day of Cuban sugar to exile from Castro's Paradise. During his days he amassed a fortune by speculating on sugar. He used his wealth to invest in sugar mills and to take control of some of the major Cuban corporations. In so doing he made Cuba for the Cubans a reality more so than any of the politicians for whom Independencia! was a rallying cry. Lobo's business career contended with corrupt politicians, Yankee absentee owners and the ups and downs of the world sugar trade. Against all he succeeded to a dazzling extent. He was a third world millionaire who made it by beating first world traders at their own game rather than extracting it from peasant tenants.

The story of Julio Lobo is only one of three threads from which this book is woven. The other two are a general history of Twentieth Century Cuba and the story of the author's family. Author John Paul Rathbone's mother was born into the Cuban aristocracy and was a good friend of one of Lobo's daughters. The three threads create a tapestry of a country decorated with wealth, elegance, culture and a future. It tells of a country with resources that were, and could have been to a greater extent, developed into industries that could thrive in world markets. Though Cuban business leaders could conquer foreign competitors, they were unable to survive the Cuban political leaders.

Ultimately, this book is a tragedy, a tragedy of a county with some degree of success and future potential that has been driven to ruin by Castro's failed economic and political policies. It leaves the reader wondering what might have been and what could be, if there are any Julio Lobos left in Cuba.

The weakness to this book is in the writing style. As I mentioned, it consists of three stories which, unfortunately, are not woven as seamlessly as is seen in some books. Perhaps this book would be more enjoyable to a reader with a particular interest in Cuba. It gets better as the threads are tied together at the end. If you start it, stay the course to the end.

John P. Rathbone has managed to provide a thrilling read that is also a thorough summary of Cuban history, from colonial times to the present. Being Cuban, it particularly touched my heart to wander through the streets of Havana, which, besides Julio Lobo, is another protagonist of this masterpiece. I'm recommending it to everyone I know, especially younger Cuban-Americans who know little of their history.