It was on this day (7/2/61) that Ernest Hemingway committed suicide in Ketchum, Idaho. He’d had trouble writing and had been working on a long novel called The Sea Book. The writing was difficult and he only published a section under the title The Old Man and the Sea (1952).

Despite the fact that the book was well reviewed and won the Pulitzer Prize, he was disappointed with himself for only being able to finish that short novella.

 LIFE.com presents pictures of Hemingway in Cuba in 1952 — and the unsettling, untold story behind Alfred Eisenstaedt’s photos.  (Alfred Eisenstaedt—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images)