Talk about insider trading, huh? JFK got his before he slammed the door shut with the Cuba embargo…
President John F Kennedy ordered an aide to buy him as many Cuban cigars as he could just hours before he authorised the U.S. trade embargo – which subsequently made them illegal.
Kennedy asked his head of press and fellow cigar smoker Pierre Salinger to obtain ‘1,000 Petit Upmanns’ on February 6, 1962, so he could have them in his hands before they were deemed contraband.
Then, seconds after he was told the next morning that 1,200 of Cuba’s finest export had been bought for him, he signed the decree to ban all of the communist state’s products from the U.S.
The re-surfacing of the story, initially recounted by Salinger to Cigar Aficionado magazine in 1992, comes with the passing of the 50th anniversary of the embargo yesterday.
JFK, he said, called him into his office and said he needed ‘some help’ to find ‘a lot of cigars’. He wanted ‘1,000 Petit Upmanns’ and needed them by ‘tomorrow morning’.
Salinger added: ‘I walked out of the office wondering if I would succeed. But since I was a solid Cuban cigar smoker, I knew a lot of stores. I worked on the problem into the evening.‘The next morning, I walked into my White House office at about 8am, and the direct line from the President’s office was already ringing. He asked me to come in immediately.
‘How did you do Pierre?’ he asked, as I walked through the door. ‘Very well,’ I answered. In fact, I’d gotten 1,200 cigars. Kennedy smiled, and opened up his desk.
‘He took out a long paper which he immediately signed. It was the decree banning all Cuban products from the United States. Cuban cigars were now illegal in our country.’
I guess Jack wanted to make certain to have plenty on hand with a lovely 19 year old intern around the Oval Office.
Oh, how cute! How adorable! And Salinger was such a good little flunky, too! I suppose those Petit Upmanns were the cigar of choice for the Rat Pack, also (you know, the cool cats). Anyhow, it’s such a comfort to know JFK had his priorities in order. Apparently, he cared rather more about Cuban cigars than about Cubans. But you know how it goes: Cubans are just “those people,” but a good cigar is a smoke.
Almost forgot about this. Just popped back into my memory:
JFK Humidor Buyer Puffed With Pride (April 25, 1996)
http://articles.nydailynews.com/1996-04-25/news/18007075_1_cigar-aficionado-humidor-milton-berle
No surprise considering the company he kept. I’ll never forget JFK campaign advisor referring to el Exilio as those truly repellant Cubans.
Nice. It only took the “enlightened and respectable” half a century to catch on to JFK’s swinishness.
Us gusanos (almost en-masse) had JFK’s Number 50 ‘freakin years ago! (and were roundly villified for it)…come to think of it?–We STILL ARE!
Unreal