Hemingway Family Upset Over Cuba Fishing Tourney

ERNEST HEMINGWAY'S son says Cuba is responsible for his father's suicide and shouldn't be using his name and image, especially without permission. But Cubans say they loved Hemingway, and he loved them - and they have a photograph of the writer with Fidel Castro at a tournament as proof.

HAVANA, Cuba - It began as a simple contest. Catch the biggest fish and you win.

Nearly half a century later, an annual fishing tournament named for Ernest Hemingway rouses fiery passions about Fidel Castro, the U.S. ban on trade with Cuba and, of course, those elusive critters known as fish.

Cubans call the 47th Ernest Hemingway International Billfish Fishing Tournament a "once-in-a-lifetime opportunity."

"Fish the same waters as Ernest Hemingway," says Juan de la Nuez, a spokesman for the Marina Hemingway, headquarters for the event, to be held next week.

Not so fast, some members of the Hemingway clan say: The Cubans are using the author's name and image without permission.

The writer's son, Pat Hemingway, also contends the Castro regime shares the blame for Ernest Hemingway's 1961 suicide.

He said his father sank deeper into depression after Castro seized control of Cuba in 1959.

Pat Hemingway, 68, who lives in Montana, said his father felt obliged to leave Cuba and give up his home after Castro seized the island.

"He was very much affected by the loss of his home in Cuba. It certainly contributed to his depression," Pat Hemingway said.

`Hemingway loved Cuba'

Castro supporters say they can be blamed for a lot of things - but not Hemingway's death.

"Hemingway loved Cuba and Cubans loved Hemingway," de la Nuez said. "After Hemingway died, poor fishermen in the town of Cojimar took the bronze propellers off their boats, melted them down and made a bust of Hemingway. Cubans have great respect for Hemingway."

The dispute over the fishing tournament reflects the lingering bitterness that some feel toward the Castro government nearly four decades after the Cuban revolution.

But a growing number of Americans are visiting Cuba, and some say they want the United States to renew diplomatic and trade relations with the island.

"It's OK to go to China and do business with companies that may be using child labor. Why can't Americans visit Cuba?" said Medea Benjamin, president of Global Exchange, a San Francisco group that promotes travel to developing countries.

Her organization sponsored seven illegal trips to Cuba from 1993 to 1995, openly challenging the U.S. travel ban. Some travelers were asked to pay fines, but they ignored the requests and haven't been prosecuted, she said.

"It's a great example of civil disobedience," she said.

As for the Hemingway tournament, she tells prospective participants one thing: "Go fish."

Think twice before going

Others advise thinking twice before packing.

Returning from the Hemingway tournament a few years ago, Dean Travis Clarke said he had a terrible experience.

"Customs and immigration agents met us at the dock at Key West, Fla. A Treasury Department agent came aboard and wanted to see receipts for everything we had bought in Cuba.

"They took our trophies from the fishing tournament, T-shirts, a half-dozen Cuban cigars," said Clarke, executive editor of "Sport Fishing," a leading saltwater fishing magazine.

"They treated us like criminals."

The Hemingway tournament usually draws about a dozen Americans, organizers say, but some fishing aficionados ask why they should risk going to Cuba when the fishing is as good or better in U.S. waters.

"There are clearly better choices in the U.S.," said Kim Bennett, director of North Carolina's Big Rock Blue Marlin Tournament, one of the biggest on the East Coast. Cash prizes in this year's contest, to be held in June, total nearly $1 million.

The Hemingway tournament offers artwork, not cash, as prizes.

U.S. officials warn against going to Cuba. By law, only charity workers, journalists, academics, Cuban-Americans and a few others can legally visit the island.

In the past three years, the U.S. Treasury Department has filed 159 civil cases against people who have visited Cuba or done business with its government.

The number of illegal visitors is rising - from 12,000 in 1995 to 15,000 last year, according to the New York-based U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council.

Among the visitors this year are Barbara Sedgwick and her husband, Al. "Cuba is great, especially the people," she said. "We have not felt one ounce of animosity."

The people - and the fishing - lured Ernest Hemingway to Cuba.

His former boat captain, Gregorio Fuentes, 99, said he met Hemingway off the shores of Cuba in the late 1920s.

Worked on new yacht

Years later, Hemingway went back to Cuba, found Fuentes and hired him to work aboard the novelist's new yacht.

"I was his sailor, captain, cook and mechanic," Fuentes said. "Hemingway paid me $250 a month. That was good money then."

The Cuban economy has suffered terribly since the breakup of the Soviet Union. Fuentes said he blames the U.S. economic blockade of Cuba for the island's troubles. He receives a retirement pension of 140 Cuban pesos per month - about $7.

Around midday, he often can be found at Cojimar's La Terraza, a restaurant filled with black-and-white photographs of Hemingway.

"Here I eat for free," said Fuentes, clutching a cigar. "And the whiskey is on the house."

Not far away is Hemingway's old home, Finca Vigia (Lookout Ranch), which he bought in 1940. He got rid of the previous owner's ferocious dogs so poor neighborhood boys could venture onto the property to pick mangos.

"Senor Hemingway had a heart for children," Fuentes said. "I've never seen a man in the world like him."

An annual event

The first Hemingway fishing tournament was held in 1950, and the contest took place every year after that, except for 1959 - the year of the Cuban revolution - and 1961, the year of the U.S.-led Bay of Pigs invasion.

In 1960, Castro participated in the tournament and won. Hemingway gave Castro a trophy in their first and only encounter. Cubans say photos of the pair together are evidence of Hemingway's support for the revolution.

Pat Hemingway says his father never backed Castro.

"He was in a terrible position. He really wanted to be friends with both sides, but he had to choose," he said.

After leaving the island, the writer chose the United States. He settled in Ketchum, Idaho, where he was hospitalized for high blood pressure, liver disease, diabetes and depression. Then on July 2, 1961, the Nobel Prize-winning author killed himself with a shotgun.