As I moved away from the buffet table, a security guard again appeared, this time to escort me to Fidel and his interpreter, who were standing alone on the far side of the room. Even if I yelled, the diplomats would be unable to hear me say something clever that might redeem my earlier blunder. The long buffet set up to fete the diplomats had become a buffer against eavesdroppers or even my colleagues attempting to rescue me.
Fidel, still handsome at sixty-five with a long face made even longer by his heavy gray-black beard, was talking rapidly in Spanish rapidly and passionately, throwing up his hands. The American bloqueo (blockade)—Castro’s name for the embargo—was cruel to Cuba’s children. They were suffering, and it was the fault of my uncaring government. How could we treat Cuba so unfairly? It was unprecedented that any government would impose a harsh and unilateral blockade against the purchase of food and medicines. When would we stop hurting the Cuban people?
The delegations on the other side of the room (mine included) were keenly watching this pantomime. They couldn’t hear Fidel, but they could see his passion. They must have been wondering whether he would humiliate me again. His calculating brown eyes scrutinized me, like a cat toying with a mouse. Would I meekly listen to his tirade, or would I stand up to him? With plate, fork, and napkin in hand, I felt at a distinct disadvantage. I felt trapped. I was on my own. I detected a fleeting smile cross Fidel’s lips as his security guards blocked Jeff’s attempt to join us. This moment would determine if I were up to the job.
Fidel pushed closer to me, forcing me to take a step back. “Your bloqueo is killing our children. Not one aspirin to stop their suffering. How can you be so cruel?” I took a deep breath. In fact, I disagreed with American policy on exactly this point. Our embargo hurt the Cuban people far more than its Communist leaders.
However, as much as I disliked the embargo, I wasn’t going to be Fidel’s patsy. It was my job to defend US policy, regardless of my personal feelings. I looked him squarely in the eyes. “That’s not true,” I almost shouted. “The embargo is not a blockade. Cuba can buy aspirin from any country it wishes, except the United States.” It had been almost thirty years since the Cuban Missile Crisis, when the United States and the Soviet Union came to the edge of a nuclear showdown over Soviet missiles located on Cuban soil. So, I added, “Despite the embargo, other countries can trade with you. And, if a child needs a medicine that is only made in the United States, we will sell it to you.”
Fidel scoffed. “You know it takes years to get permission.”
Castro turned to the issue that was bothering him, the survival of his island nation. Communism was under attack. The Berlin Wall had fallen two years earlier, and Russian president Mikhail Gorbachev had since introduced Perestroika reforms, with which the Cuban hierarchy disagreed. Soviet subsidies had been sharply reduced and would soon be terminated. Without aid, Castro’s vaunted revolution was in danger of collapsing. Fidel seemed to be trying to find out whether there would be any change in the Bush administration’s policies. He had lived up to the Tripartite Accords, and brought his troops home from Africa, removing a major irritant in US-Cuban relations. I knew that some diplomats thought we owed Cuba something, and perhaps had even promised better relations in return. Presumably, we had no reason to gratuitously further punish Cuba. But Castro and I both knew that the Cuban American lobby wanted to further tighten the embargo.
“When Cuba holds free and fair elections with international observation, we will lift the embargo,” I said. My statement was policy, and I believed in it. Fidel protested that Cuba did hold elections. He was elected as one of the representatives to the National Assembly from the eastern province of Oriente, where he, his siblings, and his Cuban mother, Lina, had lived with Angel, his Spanish father, on a prosperous farm in Birán. But Castro and I both knew that Cuban elections were unlikely to meet our criteria or that of international observers.
Castro moved closer; he was intense, and seemed to be searching for a sign of softening in my position. I stood my ground. “No, there is no change in US policy. Cuba must change, first.” Fidel fumed, “You will never give up the bloqueo; the gusanos won’t allow it.” Gusanos, meaning worms, was the spiteful image he used to describe Cuban exiles in America. Turning away, he stomped off, his interpreter in trail.
The encounter was over. As I walked back to the other side of the buffet table, chatter resumed among the diplomats. Our talk seemed to have lasted hours. Jim Smith, the Department of Defense representative, came over and much to my relief said, “You did well.” Alan reminded me that I’d better have a cable reporting on the conversation ready to send to the State Department first thing in the morning. If not, rumors would spread and Cuban Americans would be sure that they had been betrayed. Washington also would want to know that Castro was worried about the future. But I was sure that Castro’s concerns would only reinforce our expectation that the loss of his Soviet benefactor would be his undoing. I did not imagine that we would respond to Fidel’s overture, if indeed that was what it had been.
I looked over at Fidel as a waiter appeared with a tray on which was centered one dry martini with a green olive in a very large glass with a long crystal stem. Castro took it and quickly drained it; the conversation must have rattled his nerves as well. Jim pointed to Cuba’s finest old rum on the buffet table. I set down my still full plate and poured myself a glass. I had made my points and defended our policy. I had not succumbed to Fidel’s forceful personality; I had stood up to him and proven to myself and my delegation that I could handle my new position. I didn’t like the embargo, but I loved the job. Fidel was the most powerful and charismatic man I had ever met. It was no wonder he preferred female interlocutors; he undoubtedly thought that against a female adversary his formidable size and personality would work in his favor.
When I returned to Washington a few days later, everyone wanted a firsthand account. I happily told and retold my story. I credited Fidel with talking during two-thirds of our conversations, but pointed out that I had forcefully interrupted him to insert my one-third. My boss, Bob Gelbard, the principal adviser to the assistant secretary of state, asked, “What do you think it was all about?”
“Bob, I am not sure,” I replied, “but one thing is clear: Castro is worried about whether we will tighten the embargo just as Cuba loses its Soviet subsidies.” I explained that Havana was bleak, apartment houses along the Malecón were collapsing from lack of repair, and tall grass was pushing up through the cobblestones in the streets surrounding the principal square, the Plaza de Armas. It seemed as if the island’s infrastructure, from peeling paint to crumbling buildings, was in free fall. The picture that stayed in my mind was a stray, mangy, and hungry dog in the deserted Plaza de Catedral, where Cubans once gathered to meet and socialize.
Possibly believing he owed Castro for removing fifty thousand troops from Africa, President Bush so far had refrained from endorsing Representative Robert Torricelli’s Cuban Democracy Act. Torricelli, a small, pugnacious Democrat from New Jersey, was at the behest of CANF pushing legislation that would prevent American subsidiaries in foreign countries from selling their products to Cuba. If passed, it would cut off a large portion of Cuba’s food and medicines. I disliked the proposal; it seemed mean-spirited to further punish Cuba’s people.
CANF’s president and driving force, Jorge Mas Canosa, was absolutely determined to see the legislation enacted. He believed that victory was finally at hand. Once the Soviets removed their troops, personnel, and money from the island, Castro would be vulnerable. Fidel would fall, and Mas Canosa thought he himself might even become Cuba’s next president. All he had to do was convince President Bush to endorse Torricelli’s legislation, which would deliver the final blow. Mas Canosa was a man with a mission. He seemed an unlikely power broker: a rotund man of little political pedigree but great persuasion. He was a peddler of dreams who owed his success as the preeminent leader of the Cuban American community to his determined campaign to restore power,
position, and property to Cubans who had fled Castro’s island. He wielded power in Miami as completely as Castro did in Havana. He and CANF believed that Cubans made desperate by the loss of Soviet subsidies and an even stricter embargo would rise up and throw off Castro’s shackles.
Cuban Americans had voted overwhelmingly for Republican presidential candidates, in retaliation for President Kennedy’s refusal to provide US air power to save the exile invasion. In return, all Republican presidents have loyally supported the embargo, ensuring the favor of the influential Cuban American voting bloc in the key state of Florida. President Reagan set up Radio Martí, which broadcast news, information, and a variety of programs to Cuba. At the behest of President George H. W. Bush, Tony Navarro, a Cuban American political appointee, and I spent months putting TV Martí on the air, at considerable cost to US taxpayers. Now Mas Canosa wanted Bush to stop dragging his feet and endorse the Cuban Democracy Act. He wasn’t going to let Bush—even if he’d provided excellent support to CANF in the form of TV Martí and had been a good friend—stop him from getting what he wanted. He wanted Castro out so that he and the diaspora could return to Cuba. Now, 1991, was the time to ensure the revolution’s downfall. Mas Canosa and the diaspora absolutely believed that they would celebrate the coming Christmas in Havana—without the Castros.
When Bush didn’t act promptly, Mas Canosa betrayed him. He made a deal with Bill Clinton, the Democratic presidential candidate. Badly in need of campaign funds and suffering from the Gennifer Flowers sex scandal, Clinton agreed to a hard line on Cuba. In exchange, Mas Canosa told Cuban Americans that any fears that he might have had about Clinton’s attitude toward Fidel Castro “have dissipated.” Much to the consternation of Florida Republicans and the Bush family, Clinton endorsed the legislation and told cheering Cuban Americans at a dinner where he raised $125,000 that “I think the Administration has missed a big opportunity to put the hammer down on Fidel Castro and Cuba.” This was all political theater, but it forced Bush to endorse the legislation and allowed Clinton to make inroads into the Cuban American vote.
President Bush must have been appalled by Mas Canosa’s treason. His son Jeb Bush, who was close to Mas Canosa and the Cuban Americans, hadn’t even been informed. Still, Bush acted quickly to staunch the potential hemorrhage of Cuban American support. Deputy Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger received from the White House a copy of the Cuban Democracy Act with a note from the president in the margin: “What the hell is going on?”
My office on the third floor of the State Department had a map of the world that covered an entire wall. Somehow Cuba was right in the center of the map, reflecting the belief of many Cubans and Cuban Americans that their island was at the center of the world. At that time, of course, Cuba was the center of my world. President Bush had decided to endorse the bill, and Deputy Assistant Secretary Gelbard and I were told to negotiate with Mas Canosa. We eliminated some of the rhetoric and reduced the bill’s impact on the president’s authority to make foreign policy, but the key provisions that made it illegal for US subsidiaries and companies in foreign countries to sell products to Cuba remained.
The day that Bob informed the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee that the Bush administration supported Torricelli’s legislation, a jubilant Mas Canosa stopped me as I exited the hearing. “Vicki, I’ve got something I want you to see,” he exclaimed. Balancing his briefcase on his knee, he pressed open the locks and extracted an editorial cartoon. Uncle Sam, sitting at a table with Mexican president Carlos Salinas de Gortari and Fidel Castro, is passing bags of dollar bills to Salinas, who in turn is passing them under the table to Castro. The blurb over Castro’s head said, “I love NAFTA”—the North American Free Trade Agreement. Mas Canosa crowed, “Vicki, if Bob hadn’t come up here today and endorsed our bill, every major newspaper in the country would have carried this cartoon.” Had CANF escalated its opposition to the trade deal, the Senate might not have ratified NAFTA, which eliminated tariffs among Canada, Mexico, and the United States. Several months later, President Bush signed the Cuban Democracy Act into law.
For the first time, in the 1992 presidential race a Democrat made inroads into the once-monolithic Cuban American support for Republicans. Bush still won Florida, but Clinton won the presidency. His deal with Mas Canosa meant that he was tied to a hardline approach to Cuba, and when he later tried to improve relations, Castro wasn’t interested.
There was no Christmas in Havana without the Castros that the Cuban diaspora so much longed for—neither then nor at this writing twenty-six years later.
CHAPTER 2
THE LEGACY OF TERROR FOR CUBANS AND AMERICANS
A WEEK AFTER HURRICANE ANDREW STRUCK MIAMI, I BOARDED A small Cessna aircraft at the Kendall-Tamiami Airport about fifteen miles from the center of the city. My pilot José Basulto was the founder and manager of Brothers to the Rescue. Basulto, as most people referred to him, welcomed me with a warm abrazo (hug). He was delighted that I—the director of Cuban affairs in Washington, DC—had asked to join his search for Cubans lost at sea because it would validate his mission. His hands flew about his lanky frame as he described the rescue mission. We would fly over the Caribbean, where fleeing Cubans were likely to be found in leaky boats and inner tubes in which they had escaped the island. If we spotted anyone, he would contact the US Coast Guard, which would bring the migrants to safe harbor in Florida. This was August 1992, when no Cuban migrants were ever returned to Cuba; wherever found, they were paroled into the United States. The Cuban Adjustment Act would allow them to become a legal resident alien—a green card holder—after a year and a day.
Basulto spoke Cuban Spanish, swallowing vowels and spitting out words in a rapid staccato. When he detected that I was having trouble keeping up he would switch to halting English. A veteran of the failed CIA-backed exile invasion of the Bay of Pigs, he was passionately anti-Castro. Tall, pugnacious, and absolutely committed to the rescue mission, he was a man of action who was self-confident to a fault. His brown eyes flashing with indignation, he accused Castro of destroying his country by imposing a brutal dictatorship that drove Cubans to attempt to cross the ninety miles of the Caribbean Sea that lie between the Florida Keys and Cuba.
I knew that flying with Brothers to the Rescue was risky. Although they were engaged in a needed and valid humanitarian activity, I couldn’t be sure that Basulto wasn’t a member of one of the militant exile groups that operated in South Florida. These groups, like Alpha 66 and Comandos L, were tolerated by law enforcement because it was legal to train their members in military tactics. But it was illegal to conduct attacks against Cuba or Cubans, and some of their members had done so in the past and would do so in the future.
I had decided to take a chance and fly with the Brothers because it would be an adventure, and it would give me an opportunity to see firsthand whether they were carrying out a valid rescue mission. The Cuban government would not appreciate my flight with them, however; it would consider such a journey irresponsible because it would highlight our immigration policy, which the Cuban government believed tempted Cubans to leave the island. People of other nationalities who attempted to enter the United States without documents were deported. But in this, as in many things, Cubans were an exception. I knew life was difficult, and partially because of the embargo, but I agreed with the Cuban government that our policy of allowing all Cubans into the States encouraged them to risk their lives in flimsy boats or to pay smugglers to bring them here. But this policy, like the embargo, was what that the Cuban diaspora wanted; and what the diaspora wanted, the Cuban American National Foundation (CANF) often got given its political muscle.
Basulto was typical of exiles who remained focused on their former homeland rather than integrating into American life. I suspected that he, like other exiles who could not let go of their past, would return to Cuba if the Fidel and Raúl Castro ever lost power. He was passionate, even obsessive, about overturning the Castro regime. But rather than f
orming another militant exile group, he had founded Brothers to the Rescue, a humanitarian organization dedicated to saving lives. It also gave exiles a chance to do good by helping their compatriots rather than practicing commando skills in the Everglades. The Brothers was a popular organization that received in kind and financial donations from the Cuban diaspora. Volunteers manned the phones, looked for homes for newly arrived migrants, and dealt with logistics; all of this was a more productive use of their time and money than buying weapons and ammunition for an assault on their former homeland.
Strapped into my seat in the small gray Cessna, I nodded that I was ready, and we were off. Looking out the window as we headed toward the coastline I could see the destruction left behind when Hurricane Andrew had stormed through South Florida a week earlier. The skies were still gray and windy when our aircraft reached the coastline and headed out to sea. The usually green Caribbean was dark and choppy. It wasn’t a good day for Cuban migrants who might be attempting to survive on a flimsy craft. Days like this made the Brothers’ work particularly valuable. It was better to be flying above the choppy sea than cruising on it. Basulto had begun his lifesaving mission from his boat, but realized that an aircraft would be quicker, safer, and provide a far better vantage point—especially when, like today, visibility was limited by weather conditions.
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