Hotel Habana Libre
The hotel remained in operation as a Hilton while relations between the US and Cuba worsened, until June 11, 1960, when the Cuban government nationalized the property. On June 15, 1960, Castro announced in a speech to the Restaurant and Hotel Workers Federation that he was renaming the hotel the Hotel Habana Libre (Hotel Free Havana).[33] That year, Hilton Hotels International, Inc. wrote off $1,854,575 that had been invested in the Cuban subsidiary that operated the hotel.[34] The first Soviet embassy in Havana was soon temporarily established on two floors of the hotel.[22]
In March 1963, Castro is reputed to have survived another assassination attempt at the hotel, by the US Mafia and the CIA.[35] Cuban intelligence chief Fabian Escalante claimed that a poison pill was to have been slipped into one of the chocolate milkshakes Castro regularly ordered in the hotel's cafeteria, and that Castro was saved only because the pill became stuck to the hotel's kitchen freezer that it was hidden in, and that the pill broke open as the would-be assassin tried to remove it from the ice.[36] Escalante called it "the closest the CIA got to assassinating Fidel."[37]
In 1964, Soviet female cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman in space, gave a press conference at the hotel.[38] From January 3–12, 1966, the Habana Libre hosted the first Tricontinental Conference[39] of Asian, African and Latin-American peoples.[23] Fidel Castro stayed in the hotel's Castellana Suite, room 2224, during the conference, and made the suite his home thereafter for all major diplomatic events. The suite is now kept as a museum, with all the original furniture and artwork from 1958. From October 23 to November 20, 1966, the Habana Libre hosted the 17th Chess Olympiad, with guests including Bobby Fischer and Boris Spassky.[40] In 1967, the hotel hosted Marxist Chilean politician Salvador Allende.[41]
Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Cuban government focused on rebuilding the tourism industry. In 1993, they brought in the Spanish Guitart Hotels chain to manage the property as the Hotel Habana Libre Guitart.[42] Then, in 1996 the Spanish Sol Meliá chain assumed management of the hotel from Guitart. It was placed in their Tryp division of urban hotels and renamed Hotel Tryp Habana Libre. The hotel was extensively renovated between 1996 and 1997. Much of the interior was gutted and modernized. The guest rooms were remodeled, with the balconies all glassed in, except those of the historic Castellana Suite. The supper club on the second floor was converted to a buffet restaurant. Among the highlights of the work was the restoration of the huge Peláez mural on the exterior, which had spent decades hidden from public view. The hotel reopened on December 22, 1997,[23] with a speech by Eusebio Leal, who spearheaded the restoration and conservation of the historic district of Old Havana.
In January 1998, the hotel served as the international media headquarters for the Papal visit to Cuba by Pope John Paul II.[43] Journalists including Peter Jennings, Dan Rather, Ted Koppel, Tom Brokaw and Christiane Amanpour reported from and were housed at the hotel.[44] CNN's Ted Turner and his wife, actress Jane Fonda, also visited the hotel at the time.[45]
On February 4, 2013, French daredevil Alain Robert, known as The French Spider-Man, climbed the hotel without ropes or a safety net, as is his custom, watched by hundreds of onlookers.[46]
