[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 142 (Monday, October 5, 2009)]
[Senate]
[Pages S10088-S10090]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           FREEDOM TO TRAVEL

  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, last Friday the New York Times had an 
article which caught my eye, and the headline was the following: 
``October New York Philharmonic Trip to Cuba is Off.'' I want to talk 
for a moment about this. I was extraordinarily disappointed to read 
this because this is an issue of the freedom to travel by the American 
people, specifically, the freedom to travel to Cuba.
  This country has had an embargo against the country of Cuba for a 
long while. Cuba is a Communist country. Fidel Castro has poked his 
finger in the eye of America for a long time, so we have had an embargo 
for a long time. Part of the way to injure the Castro regime, 
presumably, as a part of this embargo is to prevent the American people 
from traveling to Cuba. The American people can travel to Communist 
China, to Communist Vietnam, to North Korea, but the American people 
are considered taking a criminal act if they travel to Cuba. There are 
some exceptions; the U.S. Treasury Department gives licenses to travel 
for certain kinds of educational and cultural things, and for trade.
  So the New York Philharmonic orchestra was going to Cuba, but had to 
cancel the trip. Daniel Wakin wrote about it in the New York Times last 
Friday October 1, 2009. The reason I wanted to mention this is because 
it is almost unbelievable what we are still doing with respect to our 
travel policy with Cuba.
  Senator Enzi and I have a piece of legislation that removes all 
travel restrictions with respect to travel to Cuba. We have over 30 
Senators who are cosponsors of that legislation, but while we are 
waiting to pass our legislation, we are going through this nonsense of 
having the Federal Government and the Treasury Department tell us who 
can and who cannot travel, restricting the liberty and the freedom of 
the American people. It is outrageous, in my judgment.
  Trips like the one the New York Philharmonic planned to Havana are 
not unusual. These kinds of trips happen all of the time. In 1959, at 
the height of the Cold War with the Soviet Union, the New York 
Philharmonic played in Moscow. It is a reasonably good thing, in my 
judgment, to be able to extend our culture and the hand of friendship 
through music.
  One of the reasons I was especially interested in this is that the 
New York Philharmonic visited North Korea last year, and I asked 
conductor Loren Maazel and Zarin Mehta, President of the Philharmonic's 
board, to come and speak to our caucus. They described to us their 
performances in North Korea. They said the applause went on and on, 
even after they left the stage. What a great way to exchange with 
another country, to extend cultural enlightenment and to share with 
other countries. Again, the New York Philharmonic orchestra played in 
North Korea last year, but cannot play in Cuba without a special 
license.
  The New York Philharmonic is going to Communist Vietnam this month.

[[Page S10089]]

Yes, it is a Communist country. So, too, is North Korea, as is China, 
as is Russia. But the New York Philharmonic orchestra has no difficulty 
being able to play music in those countries because there are no travel 
restrictions with respect to those countries.
  Let me describe, if I might, the absurdity of all of this. The Office 
of Foreign Assets Control is a little agency in the Treasury Department 
that is in charge of granting licenses that, under certain conditions, 
will allow you to travel to Cuba. The license they decided to allow the 
New York Philharmonic to go to Cuba and play their music did not 
include allowing the benefactors of the Philharmonic to travel with 
them and the Philharmonic decided that was unacceptable. Frankly, I 
understand why it is unacceptable for them. That doesn't make any sense 
to me.
  The OFAC regulations says

       Unless otherwise authorized, any person subject to U.S. 
     jurisdiction who engages in any travel-related transaction in 
     Cuba violates the regulations.

  That is unbelievable to me. That has been around, I think, for 40 
years, 50 years.
  Let me give examples of some people who have traveled to Cuba who our 
Federal Government has chased and harassed. By the way, this little 
agency called OFAC, somewhere in the bowels of the U.S. Treasury 
Department, the Office of Foreign Assets Control, is supposed to be 
tracking terrorist money, protecting us from terrorists. Instead they 
have been busy chasing people who go to Cuba. In the previous 
administration, up to a quarter of their time was spent trying to track 
Americans who were under suspicion of taking a vacation in Cuba. It is 
pretty absurd, it seems to me.
  This is Joan Slote. She was a senior citizen and bicyclist who was 
fined $7,630. Do you know why? Because she joined a Canadian bicycling 
group that took a bicycle tour of Cuba and, as a result of that, her 
government--under the previous administration--tracked her down, 
threatened to attach her Social Security checks, and fined her $7,630 
for riding a bicycle in Cuba.
  Here is a picture of a woman I have met named Joni Scott. Joni 
Scott's transgression? She is a very religious woman, a devout 
Christian. She went to Cuba to hand out free Bibles on the streets of 
Cuba and her government tried to track her down and fine her $10,000 
for handing out free Bibles on the streets of Cuba because she violated 
the travel ban. The travel ban, that means restricting the liberty of 
the American people. We do not ban travel to other countries. We do not 
do it for communist China, for communist Russia, communist Vietnam--
just for Cuba.
  This is SGT Carlos Lazo. A number of years ago, Carlos Lazo went and 
fought in the country of Iraq, wearing America's uniform. He is a 
Cuban-American. He was in Iraq as a fighting soldier for this country. 
He won the Bronze Star for gallantry. He had two children in Cuba, one 
of whom was sick, and his government that he fought for and won the 
Bronze Star for, told him he was not able to travel to Cuba to see his 
own sick child. Hat shows how unbelievably wrong this policy is.
  Let me describe what the policy is about traveling to other 
countries. The rules say:

       All transactions ordinarily incident to travel to or from 
     Iran . . . are permitted.

  If you want to go to Iran, no problem; that is not an issue. You are 
welcome to go to Iran.
  If you want to see Kim Jong-il in North Korea, it is not a problem. 
The rules say:

       U.S. passports are valid for travel in North Korea and 
     individuals do not need U.S. Government permission to travel 
     there.

  Here are the 10 Presidents we have had since we decided to punish the 
American people with a travel ban to Cuba--10 Presidents. You talk 
about failure--it is one thing just to fail; it is another thing to 
insist that failure is a good thing for 50 years. This Government of 
Cuba has lasted through 10 Presidents. What we have decided to do is, 
over all these years, to ban travel to Cuba by the American people.
  You can go to Cuba in certain capacities. You can go in certain 
educational capacities, or cultural capacities, provided you get a 
license. I have been to Cuba. I have been to Havana. I have visited 
with government officials, I visited with all the dissidents in Cuba. 
Many of my colleagues here in Congress have undoubtedly traveled to 
Cuba. But we have a licensing requirement with respect to travel to 
Cuba.
  We also had this trade embargo for all of these years. I was one who, 
some years ago, lifted that embargo slightly to be able to sell food 
and medicine into Cuba. I think it is fundamentally immoral to use food 
as a weapon. We had an embargo against selling food to Cuba. The 
Europeans were selling into Cuba, the Canadians were selling into Cuba; 
the American farmers were told you can't sell food into Cuba. As a 
result of my amendment, the amendment I offered with then Senator 
Ashcroft, that amendment opened just a bit the sale of food into Cuba 
and allowed medicine to go into Cuba as well, but that is the only 
thing that has happened in all of these years.
  Senator Enzi and I have offered a bipartisan piece of legislation 
that would allow travel, allow the American people the freedom to 
travel in Cuba.
  My colleagues in this Chamber talk a lot about freedom. What about 
the freedom of the American people to travel? Why is it we have decided 
to punish the Cuban regime by restricting Americans' freedoms?
  I come back to the basic proposition. That is, one of the great music 
groups in the world, the New York Philharmonic, which has played in 
North Korea, in Russia, and is about to play in Vietnam, is told: Here 
are the circumstances and conditions in which you can play in Cuba. By 
the way, they are onerous. The New York Philharmonic found those 
circumstances and conditions unacceptable and I understand why.
  I am writing to the Office of Assets Control to see if we could not 
get them to think straight a bit. It makes no sense at all to decide 
that this kind of exchange is unworthy. Does anybody really think that 
having the New York Philharmonic play beautiful music in the city of 
Havana, in the country of Cuba, is in any way going to threaten 
anybody? Wouldn't it perhaps do at least what it did for those who were 
able to experience that wonderful music in North Korea? I saw the 
photographs, I saw the video. I believe ``60 Minutes'' did a piece on 
it, that showed how unbelievably they were responded to by the North 
Korean people who heard them, who listened to the New York 
Philharmonic. Wouldn't that be the same with respect to Cuba?
  Why on Earth should our government be interpreting this travel 
restriction in the way that is designed to try to restrict rather than 
expand these opportunities? I have seen how OFAC, over these years, 
tries to find ways to tighten, find ways to create opportunity to 
restrict travel. That makes no sense to me at all.
  When I read this, this weekend, I thought what on Earth could they be 
thinking of? Where is the deep reservoir of common sense that you 
should expect from people who are confronted with this issue? When 
confronted with the issue of granting a license to the New York 
Philharmonic Orchestra to represent our country in doing concerts in 
Havana, why should OFAC be trying to find ways to make that too 
restrictive for the Philharmonic and its benefactors to travel to Cuba 
and do what they had intended to do?
  This kind of opportunity to connect with other countries has a long 
history. I showed a picture of the New York Philharmonic, conducted by 
Leonard Bernstein, performing in the Great Hall in the Moscow 
Conservatory. Let me show that again. It raises the question about 
common sense. If we are able, in 1959, with all of the tensions with 
Moscow and the Soviet Union at that point, and we sent our New York 
Philharmonic Orchestra in an exchange and Leonard Bernstein conducted, 
and they, too, were greeted with long, sustained applause because 
people were so appreciative of them being in Moscow; if that has been 
the case--and it has been in every circumstance and last year 
especially it was with respect to the appearance in North Korea--if 
that is the case, why on Earth would our Government do anything other 
than encourage the New York Philharmonic to do the concert in Havana, 
instead of discourage it, instead of finding ways to tighten

[[Page S10090]]

this down so the New York Philharmonic and their benefactors had 
decided they simply couldn't go under those conditions?
  Common sense ought to apply on this issue of the liberty and the 
freedom of the American people to travel. There ought not be travel 
restrictions to Cuba at all. They ought to be gone and we ought to pass 
the Dorgan-Enzi bill that strikes the travel restrictions with respect 
to Cuba. We have not yet found a way to get it to the floor. When 
we do, I guarantee we will have sufficient votes on the floor of the 
Senate to offer the American people the freedom they should have had in 
the last 50 or 60 years, and that is freedom to travel. In this case 
that freedom has been taken from them and it is outrageous.

  I mentioned Joan Slote. When I became involved in this issue of what 
this embargo costs our country, I was furious to find an elderly woman 
riding a bicycle in Cuba and then fined $7,300 by her government.
  By the way, when she came back, her son had brain cancer so she 
wasn't home, she was attending to her son who had brain cancer down in 
California, and she didn't get the mailing to her house and then they 
threatened to take her Social Security away. Why? Because she was 
suspected of vacationing in Cuba, riding a bicycle with a Canadian 
bicycle group.
  All of this I think is nuts and I hope at some point the New York 
Philharmonic will be given the license, with their benefactors, to go 
down and do the concert in Havana, Cuba; do the concert there. In the 
meantime, I hope the Office of Foreign Asset Control will take a look 
at this and make a new decision. They have the right to make a better 
decision. In my judgment they didn't make the right decision here. I 
hope they overturn that decision. I have written them a letter today 
asking them to do that. Let's use a little common sense here.
  Following that, I hope Senator Enzi and I will get our legislation on 
the floor of the Senate and remove the travel restrictions that now 
impede the freedom of the American people to travel to Cuba.
  The country of Cuba has been a thorn in our side for a long time; I 
understand that. But attempting to punish the leaders of Cuba by 
punishing the American people makes no sense at all. That is exactly 
what has happened since the early 1960s. My hope is that some day, 
despite the news last Friday that the New York Philharmonic has 
canceled this trip--my hope is some day very soon we will have a policy 
that doesn't have anybody canceling trips because they didn't get their 
license to travel. My hope is anybody can travel anywhere, representing 
the best of this country.
  The New York Philharmonic is a wonderful cultural ambassador--to the 
Soviet Union, and North Korea, and Vietnam, all communist countries--
and it can also be with Cuba. I hope that will happen soon.
  I yield the floor and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Franken). The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in 
morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

                          ____________________