[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 91 (Thursday, June 24, 1999)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7585-S7587]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                  CUBA

  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, during the Memorial Day recess, I spent 
two days in Havana, Cuba, from June 1 to 3. I met with numerous Cuban 
officials, including a marathon six-and-a-half hour session with 
President Fidel Castro, with Cuban human rights dissidents, with 
religious leaders, with several foreign ambassadors and with our U.S. 
team. I am convinced there are a number of steps we can take, pursuant 
to our existing U.S. policy, to create closer people-to-people 
relations with Cuba. Sharing medical research, especially on 
immunizations, would be appropriate, between the National Institutes of 
Health and the Cuban Ministry of Health. Former Gen. Barry McCaffrey, 
head of U.S. drug policy, had suggested to me that we should work 
closer with the Cuban government on drug interdiction, and I think he 
is right.
  Relations between our two countries, only 90 miles apart, are almost 
non-existent. We have an embargo and a boycott. We have no exchange of 
ambassadors, and the limited coordination between our governments does 
not extend beyond very limited cooperation on drug interdiction.
  I believe it is worthwhile to share with my colleagues some of my 
findings and impressions from my trip. The issue of the embargo is 
complex, and I am not yet ready to advocate a position. But there are 
other issues, such as the benefits of increasing contact and 
cooperation, which merit comment at this time.
  Upon arrival in Havana about 2 pm June 1, we were met by Jorge 
Lexcano Perez, President of the Commission on International Relation, 
and Jose Manuel Barrios, Director of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' 
U.S. Department. Primarily, all parties agreed that both nations would 
profit from better relations between the two.
  I met next for more than an hour with our country team at the U.S. 
Embassy. We discussed the steps needed to normalize relations between 
our two nations and the dynamics of Cuba's government and economy, 
including the booming black market. We discussed the social climate, 
including religious freedom and human rights concerns.
  I met next with Dr. Jose Miller, President of Casa de la Comunidad 
Hebrea de Cuba (The Jewish Community House of Cuba) and leader of 
Cuba's Jewish community, and with Adela Dworin, Dr. Miller's Vice 
President. Dr. Miller maintained that freedom of religion has been ``no 
problem'' in Cuba for both Jews and Christians since the fall of the 
Berlin Wall eight years ago. Cardinal Jaime Ortega, in a later meeting, 
also stressed that Cuba has seen an improvement in religious freedom 
during the past decade. Both said the greater openness came from a 
recognition on President Castro's part that a religious reconciliation 
was necessary. President Castro, Dr. Miller noted, has attended 
Hanukkah services at his synagogue. Dr. Miller and Ms. Dworin estimated 
that Cuba's Jewish population has shrunk to 1,500 from about 15,000 in 
1959, and that they must bring in a rabbi to hold high holiday 
services.
  We held our final meeting June 1 with Dr. Pedro Lopez Saura at The 
Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, an impressive biotech

[[Page S7586]]

facility that has apparently pioneered a vaccination for Meningitis B. 
Meningitis B, which also plagues the United States, is a severe 
infectious disease that may lead to permanent neurological damage and 
even to death in acute cases. Meningitis strikes about 2,600 people 
annually, more than half under five years old. Meningitis B accounts 
for 50-55 percent of all U.S. cases. While NIH, our federal medical 
research arm, has a budget 1,000 times the size of The Cuban center's, 
the Cuban facility has apparently outstripped American efforts in a 
couple of narrow areas, including Meningitis B vaccine and interferon 
work. I found Dr. Lopez, who has trained in Cuba, Belgium, East Germany 
and Finland, very impressive. I suggested that Dr. Lopez visit NIH 
Director Dr. Harold Varmus, who has already visited the Cuban facility, 
for an exchange that could benefit both nations.
  We began our meetings the next morning, June 2, with the Cuban 
Minister of Health, Dr. Carlos Dotres Martinez, at one of Cuba's 
largest medical teaching facilities on the outskirts of Havana. Dr. 
Martinez touted the Cuban health system and presented charts and 
statistics to suggest that Cuba's aggressive research and vaccination 
program has eradicated polio, diphtheria and other pestilences and 
improved its citizens' health and longevity. In a common Cuban refrain, 
Dr. Martinez argued that the U.S. blockade has forced Cubans to spend 
more for medical imports from Europe and China. He estimated Cuba has 
spent an estimated $20 million more for freight and other incidental 
costs on top of the fixed costs of $50 million to $100 million.
  I suggested that Dr. Martinez meet with HHS Secretary Donna Shalala.
  We met next with Concepcion de la Campa, President and General 
Director of the Finlay Institute, which manufactures vaccines, 
including the Meningitis B vaccine pioneered by the Cuban research 
labs. I had a particular interest in this biotechnology effort because 
a company with a substantial base in my state of Pennsylvania is 
negotiating a license to work with Cubans to produce the Meningitis B 
vaccine. Under their proposed arrangement, the Pennsylvania company 
would produce the vaccine in quantity for distribution in the United 
States and elsewhere in the First World and the Cubans would 
manufacture the vaccine for the rest of the world.
  Mrs. Campa, like her Cuban medical colleagues, agreed that medical 
research would be boosted by closer relations between the United States 
and Cuba, and by such joint ventures.
  We met next at the U.S. Ambassador's Residence with ambassadors from 
several nations: Charge Josef Marsicek of the Czech Republic, 
Ambassador Reinhold Huber of Germany, Ambassador Eduardo Junco Bonet of 
Spain, Ambassador David Ridgway of Britain, and Ambassador Keith 
Christie of Canada. The ambassadors gave me a frank assessment of 
President Castro and the Cuban realities. Like the US team, the 
European diplomats also saw a thawing in the Castro regime's stridency, 
as demonstrated by Cuban overtures for dialog.

  After my talk with the ambassadors, I met at the US residence with 
five Cuban dissidents and human rights activists: A member of the 
Christian Liberation Movement; a former Batista-era soldier, an 
environmental and peace activist; a medical doctor removed from his 
post for criticizing the Cuban medical establishment; and a member of 
the Pro-Human Rights Party. We discussed human rights and repression 
generally and specifically, with a focus on ``The Four,'' four jailed 
Cuban dissidents whose plight has stirred international human rights 
complaints. I have omitted their names and limited comments on their 
statements to protect their identities.
  The dissidents told us passionately of the Cuban government's 
intolerance for any dissent, demonstrated by frequent jailings and loss 
of jobs and travel opportunities for those who speak out. The 
dissidents disagreed on remedies for accomplishing change, differing, 
for example, on whether the United States should lift its embargo.
  At 8 pm Wednesday evening, we arrived at the President's complex for 
a dinner meeting with President Castro. The President arrived 10 
minutes later, apologized for his tardiness, and proceeded to host us 
for a six hour and 37 minute session, ending at nearly 3 am. We had 
been advised that President Castro enjoyed lengthy talks. We knew we 
were in for a long night when President Castro said he had worked until 
5:45 am the night before and then slept eight hours, waking at 2 pm--
just six hours before our meeting. We did not even move from the 
President's conference room to his dining room until midnight.
  I found President Castro, at 73, robust and engaging. Always cordial, 
he was at times jocular and at other times guarded. He wore his 
trademark green military uniform with modest insignia and took notes 
throughout much of our meeting. During our talk, we covered the gamut 
of subjects.
  I asked about the possibility of parole for the four celebrated 
dissidents. President Castro told me, ``I think they should fulfill 
their sentences because they have done great damage to this country,'' 
He insisted that charges against Cuba of human rights abuses ``were 
totally unfair,'' arguing that Cuba did not torture prisoners, employ 
death squads or practice assassination.
  On the issue of drug trafficking, President Castro said his country 
has been cracking down, including establishing the death penalty for 
international drug trafficking. ``We are willing to cooperate'' with 
the United States, he said. ``We don't ask the Americans for anything 
in return. We do it as a matter of ethics.'' He noted that Cuba would 
not, however, allow the United States to violate its territorial waters 
or air space.
  I asked President Castro about the assassination of President 
Kennedy, an area of particular interest for me because of my work as a 
lawyer on the Warren commission. President Castro maintained that the 
Cuban government played no role in the assassination, and that it would 
have been insane for it to have become involved, given that the United 
States, by his reckoning, was looking for provocation or pretense to 
invade Cuba. Castro said Lee Harvey Oswald, Kennedy's assassin, wanted 
to go to Cuba--a request the Cubans denied--simply to transit to the 
Soviet Union. President Castro said he was relieved that the Warren 
Commission concluded that Cuba was not involved with Oswald.
  I asked President Castro if he was concerned that people might think 
Cuba had been involved with Oswald. He said, ``Yes, we were 
concerned.''
  President Castro gave an elaborate description of the Cuban Missile 
Crisis. He described how Cuba initially bought its weapons from 
Belgium, a NATO country, to avoid inciting the United States. But the 
second Belgian shipment was sabotaged and blown up on Havana's docks, 
Castro said, and he eventually arranged to buy Soviet arms. President 
Castro said former Soviet leader Nikita Kruschev made a mistake in not 
describing the missiles as defensive weapons and in ``getting into a 
game of definitions'' instead of simply maintaining his right to 
install weapons without question. President Castro noted the United 
States had weapons at the time in Turkey and Italy. He described his 
hunting trip in Russia with Kruschev, and how Kruschev had pulled out 
and read from a letter to Kennedy. When Kruschev read a passage about 
Kennedy promising to pull U.S. missiles out of Turkey and Italy, 
President Castro said, Kruschev realized he had made a mistake in 
revealing that Kruschev was going to breach his deal with Castro and 
remove the Cuban missiles. That would leave Cuba vulnerable to U.S. 
invasion, in President Castro's view.
  In the end, President Castro said, the Russian withdrawal also served 
Cuba's purpose. ``We preferred the risk of invasion to the presence of 
Soviet troops, because it would have established an image [of Cuba] as 
a Soviet base.''
  President Castro told us about various assassination attempts against 
him by the United States since 1959, some documented by the U.S. 
Senate's Church Committee. Plans were launched to poison President 
Castro's milk shake, to plant an exploding cigar and to blow him up. 
``Some of them were childish,'' he said. President Castro said he had 
survived largely ``as a matter of luck.''
  I asked him how he felt about being the target of so many 
assassination attempts.

[[Page S7587]]

  President Castro replied, ``Do you play any sports?''
  I said, ``I play squash every day.''
  He said, ``That is my sport.''
  Throughout the evening, the Cuban President frequently dispatched an 
aide or minister in the wee hours to produce a document or find an 
official's name. The aides performed their research in short order. In 
one case, President Castro wanted the name of a U.S. Senator who had 
visited Cuba in 1977, which turned out to be former Sen. Lowell Weicker 
of Connecticut.
  The next morning--or, more accurately, later Thursday morning--we met 
with Cardinal Ortega. Like Dr. Miller of the Havana synagogue, Cardinal 
Ortega also said the Cuban regime had adopted a more open attitude 
toward religion, from the previous ``climate of fear.'' He attributed 
the thaw in the government's position to a recognition that it was not 
easy to erase religious faith. He noted there have always been 
diplomatic relations between Havana and the Vatican.
  As for living conditions in Cuba under Castro, the Cardinal said the 
obvious in noting widespread poverty. On human rights, he said the 
Castro regime always equates human rights as the right to health, study 
and education, a low threshold.
  Our visit was facilitated by the assistance and cooperation of the 
U.S. team and the Cuban government.

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