Recently remodeled, the Hotel Lincoln was in its heyday a pinnacle of the apparent prosperity Fulgencio Batista’s dictatorship had brought to Cuba. As part of his government’s campaign to convince the international public that this was true, Batista hosted the Grand Prix of Havana in 1957 and 1958. Perhaps the world’s greatest ever Formula One driver, Juan Manuel Fangio of Argentina won the 1957 Havana Grand Prix and returned in 1958. He never made it to the race, however, because he was kidnapped the night before by activists of the 26th of July Movement’s urban revolutionary underground. Conceived by its Secretary General, Manolo Ray, the daring feat began in the lobby bar of the Hotel Lincoln when armed men, pretending to be autograph-seekers, pulled guns and walked Fangio out to a waiting car. Moved from safe house to safe house, Fangio eventually spent the night at the home of a wealthy American man and his Cuban wife, both secret activists of the 26th of July. Upon his release, Fangio declared total solidarity with his hosts and brought unparalleled global attention to the views of the revolutionary opposition. Fangio eventually returned to Cuba in 1959 to celebrate alongside Manuel Ray, by then the revolutionary government’s first Secretary of Public Works, in the lobby bar of the Hotel Lincoln. Havana, July 2016.
