The Man Who Lived to Save Cuba

By Elliott Abrams
Washington Times, 25 November 1997

How could Jorge Mas Canosa have been only 58 when he died this past Sunday? A teenager in Cuba, a refugee from Communism, part of the Bay of Pigs brigade organized by the CIA, years spent amassing a fortune in business, and two decades as the leader of the Cuban-American community all in only 58 years? Despite his trim and athletic appearance, I had figured Jorge to be in his late sixties simply because anything less just wasn’t enough time to achieve all that he did.

Churchill once described the leader of a rival party as “the bland leading the bland.” Jorge’s leadership of the Cuban-American community was the polar opposite: filled with controversy, opposition, criticism, as well as too many honors to list, plus huge successes and one great failure — to oust Castro.

The usual line of attack against Jorge was to say he was “just like Fidel,” meaning that he would have been a dictator if he could, in a post-Castro Cuba. The calumny didn’t bother Jorge much, for he saw it as a tribute to his energy and determination that his enemies took him so seriously. In fact it was laughable to compare a bloody dictator with a man who loved, and excelled at, the give and take of politics in this most open of all political systems.

The drive that brought Jorge Mas to our shores and created a personal fortune far in excess of $100 million also created a fiercely competitive and successful political organization, the Cuban-American National Foundation. This was the engine Jorge designed and steered to increase Cuban-American influence in electoral politics. Modeled deliberately on the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the main pro-Israel lobbying group, the CANF changed American policy toward Cuba.

Jorge learned how to play American politics like a master, lining up allies, rewarding friends, raising money and pushing ceaselessly to have the United States hold steady to a pro-democracy policy toward Cuba. He was the father of Radio and TV Marti, a patron saint of the Helms-Burton bill enacting the Cuba embargo into law, and a determined opponent of any slackening in the anti-Castro line. Critics called him a fanatic, but those who worked with him – as I did during eight years in the Reagan State Department — knew he was a savvy judge of political opportunity who did not like to waste ammunition. The liberation of Cuba was too important, and for that cause he gained and lost friends, crossed party lines, and spent endless hours and dollars.

The Cuban-American community is fractious, and Jorge achieved his leadership through tireless effort sustained over four decades. Not everyone agreed with his hard line, but it is obvious that the vast majority of Cuban-Americans did and do. Jorge’s leadership was both cause and effect of this fact: effect, in that no one with a weak and wobbly view of how to fight communism in Cuba could have achieved pre-eminence in the community; and cause, in that Jorge’s presence and his voice diminished the role of the those who sought compromise with Fidel.

If you think concessions to Fidel will bring democracy closer in Cuba, you have always bemoaned Jorge Mas Canosa’s power. But if you think democracy can come only after Fidel is gone, if you think Fidel would be greatly strengthened by any sign of American weakness, Jorge was your man. He was a one-man roadblock to giving Fidel a free pass.

Jorge was a very rich man and it was sometimes said that the CANF was a millionaires’ club. Well, yes and no. It is true that Jorge salted the leadership with other self-made Cuban success stories, in part because he admired their achievements and in part because he wanted their contributions. (Is this really any different from Jewish, or Greek, or Turkish American organizations?) But it is also true that he never forgot the poor Cubans who sought to escape as he once did.

When U.S. law required that someone take responsibility for new Cuban emigrants and guarantee that they would not end up on welfare, Jorge decided the CANF itself would do so. He had no doubt that a free Cuba would be a success story, for he had the highest regard for the ability and the drive of Cubans, whether in Miami or in Havana. He saw Cuba as a island walled off from its future by an iron curtain maintained first with Soviet help, now by the secret police of a vicious dictator. He had no doubts that when that dictator fell, Cubans at home and their cousins in the diaspora would use their natural talents to make Cuba a prosperous and decent society.

He was preparing for that day. He had the CANF working on economic transition plans in conjunction with many American companies, and he thought the emigre community could provide vital capital and know-how.

At 58 he was a decade younger than Fidel, and had a reasonable hope to outlast the dictator. It is painful indeed to contemplate the fine week Fidel is having, knowing that he outlasted his implacable enemy, Jorge Mas. But he who laughs last laughs best. When Castro’s name is reviled in his homeland like those of Ceaucescu, Ulbricht, and Stalin in theirs, schoolchildren in Cuba will be learning about their country’s long fight for democracy and about the role of a man named Jorge Mas.

Elliott Abrams is president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center. He served as assistant secretary of state for Latin America during the Reagan administration.