[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 55 (Friday, March 24, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Page S4599]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                     CUBA: TIME TO CHANGE DIRECTION

 Mr. SIMON. Mr. President, my colleagues in the Senate know 
that I think that the policy of the United States toward Cuba does not 
make any sense at all.
  I have introduced a bill which would permit Americans to travel to 
Cuba. To deny travel to any place, other than for security reasons, is 
an infringement of basic free speech.
  We have to be able to learn as much as we can everywhere. To restrict 
travel is to restrict the thought and learning process.
  The New York Times recently had an editorial titled ``Cuba: Time to 
Change Direction.''
  It points out the ridiculousness of our present Cuban policy.
  I ask that the New York Times editorial be printed in the Record.
  The editorial follows:

                [From the New York Times, Mar. 19, 1995]

                     Cuba: Time to Change Direction

       The sight of Fidel Castro in a business suit being escorted 
     about Paris this week as an honored guest deserves some 
     consideration in Washington. With the Soviet Union gone and 
     the cold war over, the only threat that the Cuban Communist 
     poses to the United States lies in the imagination of 
     ideological warriors like Senator Jesse Helms. While the time 
     has not yet come to welcome Mr. Castro to Washington, a re-
     examination of Cuba policy is long overdue. The embargo of 
     Cuba, begun when John Kennedy occupied the White House and 
     Nikita Khrushchev was Soviet leader, has outlived its 
     usefulness.
       Conservatives still cling to the notion that isolating Cuba 
     and creating misery for its people will eventually cause an 
     uprising and sweep Mr. Castro from power. Now that he is 
     without Soviet support and his economy is in tatters, they 
     reason, sanctions should be tightened.
       This scenario is unwise and inhumane. Cuba will survive 
     because other nations are investing there and are not 
     participating in the embargo. Last year when a resolution 
     against the embargo came up at the U.N., it passed by 101 
     votes to 2. The kind of outright rebellion envisioned by 
     Senator Helms and some Cuban-Americans, if it did occur, 
     would bring bloodshed and more misery for many Cubans. At a 
     time when Washington is trying hard to encourage peaceful 
     transitions elsewhere in the region and world, it makes 
     little sense to encourage bloodshed in Cuba.
       An increasing number of younger, more moderate Cuban-
     Americans are fed up with the revenge fantasies of their 
     elders, and would like to see more dialogue and commerce with 
     Mr. Castro's regime. They feel that his repressive policies 
     could not continue for long if the barriers were lifted and 
     ordinary Cubans could have a taste of material success and a 
     whiff of personal freedom from the north. Washington's 
     anachronistic policy may even help Mr. Castro, by giving him 
     a convenient scapegoat for all his failure at home.
       Without the embargo, the excuses would be gone. Open 
     communication with the United States, freedom for Cuban-
     Americans to invest in businesses back home, and access to 
     North American goods could be first steps. More favorable 
     trade conditions could be held out as incentives to further 
     reforms. Mr. Castro's Paris visit illustrated the power of 
     the friendly gesture. After his warm reception by President 
     Mitterrand, Mr. Castro agreed to allow a French human rights 
     group to visit.
       There should be gradations in American policy toward 
     repressive governments. When American national security is 
     potentially threatened, as with Iran and its efforts to 
     develop nuclear weapons, Washington is justified in banning 
     commerce. In cases like China and Cuba, where internal 
     policies are anathema to Americans but American security is 
     not at risk, commerce can be encouraged but trade privileges 
     should be withheld.
       Scuttling the embargo would take some political courage. 
     All the White House had to do last week to inspire Mr. 
     Helms's wrath was to hint that it might consider lifting some 
     additional sanctions imposed last year during the immigration 
     crisis. But the political clout of the Cuban exile community 
     has diminished in recent years as more Cuban-Americans have 
     abandoned the traditional confrontational stance.
       Long gone are the days when Soviet troops and bases in Cuba 
     represented a real threat to the United States and Mr. Castro 
     was exporting arms and revolution in the hemisphere. Cuba, 
     absent the ghosts of the cold war, is an impoverished 
     neighbor of the United States led by a dictator overtaken by 
     history. American policy should reflect that reality rather 
     than a world that no longer exists.
     

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