Clinton Legacy Watch # 12: Will Jorge Mas Canosa’s Memory Be Defiled By A New Push For Normalization With Cuba?

(Washington, D.C.): Predictably, those who tried unsuccessfully to thwart Jorge Mas Canosa —
Cuba’s leading freedom-fighter-in-exile — during a lifetime of achievement now seek to undo
them with his untimely passing on Sunday. For example, today’s New York Times editorializes:

“In practice, [the 1996 Libertad legislation] has done more harm to the United States
than to [Fidel] Castro, and warrants an early re-examination by the Clinton
Administration and Congress. Mr. Mas would have fiercely resisted any rethinking of
the embargo. But it does his memory no dishonor to look for better ways to promote
Cuban freedom.” (Emphasis added.)

Yet Another Venue for ‘Constructive Engagement’?

Interestingly, even before Mr. Mas’ death, President Clinton was making clear his
unrequited ambition to go even further with Fidel Castro’s Cuba. In a 9 November
interview on “Meet the Press,” the President introduced the issue of the U.S.-Cuban relationship
into a discussion of his odious “constructive engagement” with the world’s largest Communist
country: “[At their recent summit, Jiang Zemin and Mr. Clinton said] we’re going to try to work
together and establish cooperation, not conflict, [as] the model for U.S.-China relations in the 21^st
century….So we’ve got this ongoing relationship….That’s what I wanted to do with Cuba,” said
Clinton.

Mr. Clinton followed upon this admission of his long-suspected desire to “open up with Cuba, to
have a gradually evolving relationship,” with an expression of frustration — and abiding aspiration:

“…We’re at an impasse now [as a result of Castro’s cold-blooded murder in 1995 of
four American citizens flying near Cuba]. I still want that kind of relationship with
Cuba, but we have to have some kind of indication that there will be an opening up, a
movement toward democracy and openness and freedom if we’re going to do that.
And I don’t have that indication today.”

Jorge’s Revenge

Fortunately, thanks in no small measure to Jorge Mas, President Clinton does not have the
authority to “open up” with Castro on the basis of nothing more than “some kind of
indication that there will be…a movement toward democracy and openness and freedom”
in Cuba. Mr. Mas’ Cuban American National Foundation was instrumental in the enactment
of the Libertad Act — better known for its principal Senate and House sponsors, Sen. Jesse
Helms and Rep. Dan Burton, respectively. Helms-Burton made the U.S. embargo on Cuba a
matter of statute. Consequently, it will take a new Act of Congress to revoke it.

As a result, Mr. Mas’ legacy of active resistance to Communist oppression will surely outlive him.
It can only be hoped that President Clinton — who signed the Helms-Burton legislation as an act
of political expediency in the midst of the 1996 campaign — will refrain from defiling the memory
of a man whose support he once relied upon by taking steps that would postpone through
expanded ties with Castro’s regime the day Jorge Mas Canosa worked so hard to bring about —
the day when Cuba will be liberated from Communist totalitarianism.

Unfinished Business

The new leadership of the Cuban American National Foundation — and all those who share its
commitment to freedom for Cuba — must now turn to two of the priority jobs left incomplete by
Jorge Mas’ tragic, early passing:

• Bring an immediate and permanent termination to the Russian-sponsored construction
  of two irretrievably-flawed Soviet-designed VVER-440 nuclear reactors in Juragua,
  Cuba. These reactors are dangerous in nearly every regard⁽¹⁾;
  in the event of a catastrophic
  accident — deemed highly probable by defectors from the Cuban nuclear program and other
  experts — the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicts that the resulting
  radioactive plume could expose much of the U.S. eastern seaboard or southern United States
  (depending on prevailing winds and seasonal considerations) to dangerous levels of radiation.
  In addition to sparing the American mainland and people such a disaster, shutting down the
  Juragua program would almost surely undercut Canadian, European and Russian enterprises
  (particularly in the mining and tourism sectors) which seemingly remain determined to provide
  life-support for Fidel’s repressive regime.
• Shut-down forthwith the immense Soviet/Russian signals intelligence-collection facilities
  near Lourdes, Cuba. This recently upgraded complex, underwritten by some $200 million
  per year in Russian hard currency contributions, presently is engaged in the interception of
  sensitive government and private sector communications along the United States’ entire
  Eastern seaboard and into the Midwestern states. With the degradation of the Kremlin’s
  space-based intelligence assets, the Lourdes complex has taken on immense importance to
  those like old KGB hand Yevgeny Primakov (and his friend, Saddam Hussein), bent on policies
  hostile to the United States. For example, these facilities are no doubt working overtime to
  collect privileged information on the disposition of U.S. forces now being assembled in the
  Persian Gulf, not to mention intelligence about the Clinton Administration’s intentions for their
  use.

The Bottom Line

Contrary to the insouciant assurances of Castro’s apologists — both those inside and outside of
the U.S. government, Cuba has not ceased to be a threat either to its own people or to the
national security of the United States. It will take all the perseverance, vision and courage that
Jorge Mas Canosa personified throughout his extraordinary career of service to the Cuban and
American peoples to end that threat, once and for all. We owe him, and our national interests, no
less.

An excellent tribute to Jorge Mas Canosa published in today’s Washington Times by a man who
worked closely with him throughout the Reagan Administration and who currently serves on the
Center for Security Policy’s Board of Advisors, former Assistant Secretary of State Elliot
Abrams, is attached.

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1. See the Perspective by the Casey Institute
of the Center for Security Policy entitled Will Moscow Be Allowed To Recreate In Cuba
The Nuclear Nightmare It Has Bequeathed to Bulgaria (No. 97-C 91, 2 July 1997) and the
Center’s Decision Brief entitled How to Respond to the Cuban K.A.L. 007: Shut Down the
Cuban Chernobyl (No.96-D 19, 26 February 1996).