SAN LUIS POTOSÍ, Mexico.- Amadeo Barletta, a successful Italian businessmanis the protagonist of a controversial story, as controversial as his life was.
Barletta had worked in the tobacco business in the Dominican Republic, but he clashed with Dominican dictator Rafael Leonidas Trujillo, who held a monopoly with an American company.
He Italianborn in 1894 in Calabria, and appointed honorary consul of Italy in the Dominican Republic in 1933, pledged to support efforts against the dictatorship but in April 1935 he was arrested and on May 4 sentenced to four years in prison.
By then Trujillo had acquired the shares belonging to a German citizen, Richard Sollner, in the Compañía Anónima Tabacalera.
Following the intervention of Benito Mussolini, Barletta was released and moved to Cuba in 1939.
On the island, he became the first exclusive distributor of General Motors. In Havana he also took charge of Italian consular affairs, a post he assumed in October 1940.
However, on June 30, 1941, he decided to close the consulate and left for Argentina.
Several of his adversaries carried out various campaigns in which he was presented as a dangerous and fanatical fascist who constituted a threat to the United States due to the alleged existence of a mafia connection between Amadeo Barletta and the CIA.
However, the research carried out by the FBI cleared his name of all suspicion of espionage and he was never considered a war criminal.
On December 22, 1950, Felipe Pazos, President of the National Bank of Cuba, granted Amadeo Barletta the Barletta License No. 62, which authorized him to convert the International Bank of Havana into the Banco Atlántico S.A.
From then on, that institution would have its offices on the ninth floor, at 16 Menocal Avenue (formerly Infanta) and later on 23rd and P Street, in the heart of La Rampa, in Vedado, in the same building occupied by General Motors, of which Barletta was also general director.
He had cordial relations with Fulgencio Batista, as demonstrated by the presence of the ruler at the wedding of his daughter Nelia, with Miguel Morales Abreu, the Marquis of Valle Siciliana, on October 29, 1953, according to a text on the blog Freeby Demetrio Perez.
The Barlettas lived at 15014 21st Avenue, between 150 and 160, in the Country Club.
During the governments of Grau and Prío (1944-1952), the Barletta automobile company increased sales of Cadillacs to senior executives. It also offered Oldsmobiles for police patrols and trucks to the Army and other agencies.
With the arrival of the Castro forces to power, in January 1959, the rebel troops seized 50 cars from Ambar Motors.
By then, Barletta had built the Havana Bus Terminal and dozens of companies.
In 1960, he was stripped of several companies, including Ambar Motor, Ambar SA Parts and Accessories, Rabma Auto Corporation, Super Mechanics Workshop SA, Barash Real Estate Company, and Carlos Erba Laboratory of Cuba.
He sought asylum in the Italian embassy and went to the United States with his son Amadeo Jr.
In 1962, Barletta returned to Santo Domingo and reorganized his automobile business.
He died there on October 27, 1975, at the age of 81.
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