Administration Move To Normalize Relations with Castro’s Cuba Bucks Tide of History, Business

Will Gambit Be Next Source of Conflict Between Clinton and Gore?

(Washington, D.C.): The truth is finally out. An unnamed Clinton Administration official spilled
the beans yesterday to the New York Times, saying that “There is a conscious decision in this
Administration to do what needs to be done” to expand relations with Fidel Castro’s Cuba.
According to the Times, “American officials say they are now determined to go forward even
if Castro responds by cracking down on dissent….”

Not So ‘Modest’

While the front-page article tried to low-ball the sweep of this initiative (e.g., calling it a “modest
opening”), the anonymous official could not contain himself. He declared: “This is a policy that
has been held hostage to interest groups for way too long.” The clear implication is that Mr.
Clinton is determined to make part of his legacy normalized ties with (read, providing life
support to) not only the odious Communist governments of China, ¹ Vietnam ² and North
Korea ³ but also that of Cuba.

As the Times notes, the opening gambit of this new policy approach — which involves expanded
anti-narcotics cooperation, ⁴ travel opportunities and money transfers to Cuba — “recall the
largely secret White House effort in late 1995 and early 1996. Officials said that initiative which
focused more directly on the [Castro] Government, was approved by Mr. Clinton and managed
by Samuel R. Berger, deputy national security advisor at the time.” (Emphasis added.)

(A prime mover behind Mr. Berger’s efforts — which included according to the Times “a
choreographed…series of possible steps to ease American sanctions if Cuba continued to open up
its economy and to promote a more cooperative relationship with the Cuban Government” —
during this period was Morton Halperin, at the time a senior member of the NSC staff.
Halperin’s enthusiasm for Castro dates to his years as a radical left-wing activist associated with
the Institute for Policy Studies and related organizations. ⁵ Indubitably, Halperin is also actively
involved in the present initiative — if not the source of the New York Times leak — in his present
capacity as director of the State Department’s Policy Planning Staff. ⁶)

The earlier Berger-Halperin bid to help Castro came a cropper when the latter deliberately
murdered four American citizens flying in international airspace. Now, fearful that time is
running out on the Clinton Administration, its authors evidently intend to make a final
push to save Fidel by ending the U.S. campaign to isolate his regime — despite the fact that
the Cuban dictator is continuing to deny his longsuffering people fundamental human rights and
refuses to open up his economy. In fact, according to the Times, “American officials say they
are now determined to go forward even if Castro responds by cracking down on dissent….”

Even the Canadians Get It: Don’t Go There

This move to save Castro’s bacon is all the more troubling since it comes as evidence continues
to accumulate that the U.S. embargo is working, not only with respect to containing his external
aggression and subversion but in undermining his regime. In recent days, the Wall Street
Journal and Los Angeles Times have published reports documenting the fact that Canadian,
European and Latin American governments and companies that were convinced they could make
a killing investing in Cuba (with the Americans held at bay) have been sobered by hard
experience with the Cuban government.

As the Journal reported on 28 June, “‘[In 1993], there was an effervescent feeling that Cuba had
opened up a process of change,’ says Archibald Ritter, a prominent Cuba scholar at Carleton
University in Ottawa.” Now, however, in light of Fidel’s double-dealing (e.g., giving proprietary
information developed at one company’s expense and contracts based upon them to competitors),
capriciously instituted impediments to doing business (e.g., confiscation of portable copiers on
the grounds that they could be “subversive tools”) and determination to maintain control over
foreign investments, even the companies that seemed to delight in defying U.S. policy — like
Canada’s Sherritt International Corporation — have pulled back. The Journal reported that
Sherritt “had raised nearly $500 million three years ago to invest on the island. Now the mining
and energy company is looking elsewhere; it just bought a share of a nickel mine in Australia for
about $35 million. ‘There’s a limit to the rate you can invest in Cuba,’ Sherritt Chairman
Ian Delaney told reporters after the company’s annual meeting in May.”

In words that were intended to be prescriptive to other businessmen, a Canadian entrepreneur
who once was enthusiastic about investing in Cuba recently wrote in a financial newsletter
quoted by the Wall Street Journal that “The best way to see Cuba is on a holiday package to the
island’s beautiful beaches. Don’t waste time in the business district.” (Emphasis added.)

Guess What: Unilateral Economic Sanctions Can Work

Importantly, this advice is sound for one other reason: America’s policy is succeeding. As the
Journal observed: “Finding money for Cuban investment projects isn’t easy. The country has
defaulted on much of its $11 billion foreign debt, and the U.S. blocks its access to the
International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Helms-Burton has made most banks
skittish about lending to Cuba. ⁷

As the Los Angeles Times reported in a 29 June article on the first-ever European Union-Latin
America summit held in Rio de Janeiro, a Swedish government delegate to the summit declared
that “I’m sure European companies think about Helms-Burton more than once before trading
with Cuba.” What is more, the Cuban ambassador to Brazil was forced to admit that “The U.S.
embargo is the biggest reason Cuba has been able to attract only about $2 billion in foreign
investment during all the 1990s…Brazil, by comparison, currently averages that amount each
month.”

‘Trump Card’

As it happens, the case for preserving the U.S. embargo — and rejecting the craven Clinton-Berger-Halperin bid to normalize relations with Fidel’s regime — has rarely been more forcefully
and effectively made than was done on 27 June by Donald Trump, a man who readily
acknowledges he could “earn millions of dollars in Cuba” by forming an investment corporation
with European partners to skirt the U.S. embargo. In an op.ed. article in the 27 June editions of
El Nuevo Herald, the Spanish-language version of The Miami Herald, Mr. Trump made the
following observations:

I perfectly understand the arguments that are frequently used in favor of lifting the
embargo. The Cold War has ended. Castro has not much time left. Investing money
in the Cuban economy would benefit a people that has suffered for a long time. It
would be a way of exerting pressure so that Cuba “opens up”: it would help export
democracy and promote free enterprise. All those arguments are totally false.

The Cold War has certainly ended, but it would be timely to remember the
role that Fidel Castro had in that confrontation between — yes — good and
evil. Castro delivered the island to his Soviet masters. He showed himself ready
to use nuclear missiles and launch them from Cuban soil to destroy U.S. cities.
Castro exported his revolution to Central and South America. He supported
terrorism. He offered asylum to murderers. He sent armies to Africa.

Even more, he converted his nation into a maximum security prison. His
regime controls all aspects of human life. And Castro has not mellowed with
age. His secret police is arbitrary and implacable. Detentions and beatings
against peaceful citizens are still instruments of population control. As is the
case with eliminating freedom of expression, Castro’s merciless domination of
the Cuban people has not subsided despite the erosion of his regime.

The real cause of the Cuban people’s misery is Castro’s economic system,
not the American embargo. Castro’s Cuba is a brutal police state. Castro rules
through intimidation and savagery…

Yes, the embargo is costly for U.S. capitalists. If I formed an investment
corporation with European partners, I could earn millions of dollars in Cuba. But
I prefer to lose those millions than to lose my self-respect. I prefer to
dispense with that type of profit than to become a financial supporter of one
of the most brutal dictators in the world, a man who once was willing to
collaborate in the destruction of my country. For me, there are no doubts
regarding the embargo. Of course we must keep the embargo. We must keep
it until Castro goes. (Emphasis added throughout)

Clinton vs. Gore?

Not only is President Clinton’s new effort to normalize relations with Castro morally repugnant
and unjustifiable on the basis of economic considerations, it may also further exacerbate Vice
President Al Gore’s political difficulties. On the one hand, as the New York Times put it,
“Administration officials say they see the strength of conservative Cuban-American groups
waning, while opposition to the embargo continues to grow among business people farmers,
religious groups and younger Cuban-Americans.” Therefore, Mr. Clinton feels he can afford to
disregard the powerful, principled opposition to the Castro regime of organizations like the
Cuban American National Foundation. With much more on the line, however, Mr. Gore is
described by the Times as “highly aware of the considerable influence that Cuban-American
voters may have in two pivotal states, Florida and New Jersey.” ⁸

The President has made no secret of his fury at the Veep’s recent efforts to disassociate himself
from Mr. Clinton’s reprehensible personal misconduct. Perhaps his decision to proceed with the
latest Berger-Halperin effort to upgrade ties with Fidel’s government without regard for the
potentially large costs it might entail for his chosen successor’s electoral prospects is partially
motivated by the desire to punish Mr. Gore for his (very belated) apostasy. Alternatively, it may
simply reflect the true ideological bent of an Administration whose senior ranks are heavily
populated by those who cut their policy teeth in the counter-culture admiring Fidelissimo and his
lieutenant, Che Guevara.

The Bottom Line

Whatever the motivation, the latest Clinton Administration bid to prop up Fidel Castro is
inconsistent with long-term U.S. national security and other interests. ⁹ If loyalty to Al Gore is
not sufficient cause for the President to forego this odious initiative, that consideration should be
determinative.

¹ See Center’s Decision Brief entitled Clinton Legacy Watch # 28: ‘Peace In Our Time’ With
China (No. 98-D 122, 6 July 1998).

² See the ‘The Truth Will Out’: As Clinton Lifts Vietnam Embargo, American Spectator
Reveals New Clinton Scandal — On POW’s (No. 94-P 15, 3 February 1994) and Putting
Clinton’s Vietnam Policy on the Spot: ‘Cold Spot’ Files Cry Out for Inquiry on POW Cover-up (No. 94-D 07, 25 January 1994).

³ See the Center’s National Security Alert (No. 99-A 8, March 15, 1999).

⁴ The latest example of the Clinton Administration’s politicization of the intelligence
community is the IC’s directed conclusion that, as the New York Times reported yesterday,
“Although [drug] traffickers in the Caribbean might have bought the complicity of low-level
Cuban officials, there was no evidence of high-level drug corruption.” (Emphasis added.)
This is preposterous on the face, given direct proof from defectors of the complicity of Castro
and his clique in drug-running operations mounted against the United States. See Life Support
for Castro: New Commission on Cuba, Paris Club ‘Rescheduling’ of Havana’s Defaulted
Debt (No. 98-C 187, 18 November 1998).

⁵ See The Case Against the Halperin Nomination: Selected Readings From Morton Halperin’s
Collected Works (2 August 1993).

⁶ Secretary of State Madeleine Albright showed her true ideological colors in appointing
Halperin to this sensitive post after concerns about his judgment prevented his Senate
confirmation as an Assistant Secretary of Defense. She has described that appointment as “the
most satisfying” of her career.

⁷ For more on this important piece of legislation, see The Price of Compromise on Helms-Burton must Be Nothing Less than an End to European Help For the Coming Cuban
‘Chernobyl’ (No. 96-C 69, 17 July 1996).

⁸A vote last week in Congress offers further evidence that the Burger-Halperin contention about
a changed correlation of political forces regarding relations with Havana is, at the very least,
premature. On 30 June, the Senate defeated an amendment offered by Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT)
seeking to end prohibitions and restrictions on travel to Cuba by a vote of 55-43.

⁹See Secretary Cohen, Casey Institute Symposia Agree: Castro’s Cuba Remains an
Asymmetric Threat (No. 98-R 80, 7 May 1998).