Hare Quoted Discussing Eusebio Leal’s Passing
Ambassador Paul Hare, Senior Lecturer in International Relations at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University, was quoted in The Time‘s obituary of Eusebio Leal, a Cuban historian who led the restoration of Old Havana. Leal, born on September 11, 1942, died of spinal cancer on July 31, 2020, aged 77.
Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Cuba was left in an economic crisis. Leal worked to restore part of Havana in order to drum up money for the government. So, starting with $1 million from the government, he worked to rescue a small set of hotels, restaurants, and homes in ruins, and within two decades his operation had grown to 16 hotels, a tour company, restaurants and museums, bringing millions of dollars into the economy. It was effectively a capitalist tourism network embedded within the communist system.
In the obituary, Hare recounts his time working with Leal citing that he was an “useful point man” to facilitate British embassy gatherings and events.
An excerpt:
Paul Hare, the British ambassador to Havana from 2001 to 2004, told of how the embassy staged a two-month series of events to commemorate 100 years of diplomatic relations between the two countries. ‘Leal was our indispensable ally for venues, organisations, contacts and vision,’ Hare wrote. ‘At times the revolution’s agenda surfaced and he negotiated hard, but his heart was in the history of both our countries.’
The full article can be read here.
Ambassador Paul Hare was a British diplomat for 30 years and the British ambassador to Cuba from 2001-04. He now teaches classes at Boston University on Diplomatic Practice, Arms Control, Intercultural Communication, and on Cuba in Transition. His novel, “Moncada — A Cuban Story,” set in modern Cuba, was published in 2010. His book, “Making Diplomacy Work; Intelligent Innovation for the Modern World” was published in 2015. Learn more about him here.