Our Woman in Havana

by Vicki Huddleston

  Cuban Americans feared that American interests—and diplomats who didn’t understand their losses—would come to dominant relations with Cuba, undermining the diaspora’s control over US policy. Moreover, if non-Cuban Americans developed ties with the island, the opportunities for reestablishing Cuban American economic dominance would be diminished. Thus, the importance of maintaining the embargo. To this end, President of the Cuban American Foundation (CANF), Jorge Mas Canosa successfully convinced top American companies to refrain from pushing for the right to invest in Cuba after the Soviet Union and Eastern European bloc lost its sway over the Cuban economy in 1991. Mas Canosa, who some were calling el presidente (of the new Cuba) was the chairman of the Blue Ribbon Commission, which enlisted American companies in designing a free and open economy that would replace Cuba’s communist system. The side benefit was that the companies who participated in the commission agreed not to invest in Cuba until there was a new government—which Mas Canosa hoped he might lead.

  By February 2001 Mas Canosa’s son had lost the battle for Elián, and Cuba was recovering from the devastation of the Special Period in Time of Peace. It should have been evident that the revolution would endure no matter how punitive America policy. Still, the conservative diaspora had sufficient influence to convince President Bush to propose far-right Cuban American Otto Reich to manage US relations with the Western Hemisphere. He likely did so to repay Cuban American voters for their overwhelming support and to satisfy his brother, Jeb, who would be seeking reelection as Florida’s governor in 2002. But Reich was thwarted by Senators Richard Lugar (RIN) and Chris Dodd (D-CT), who controlled the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee. They refused to hold a hearing for him, claiming he was ill qualified for the job of assistant secretary of state for the Western Hemisphere. Reich, the son of an Austrian Jewish immigrant to Cuba and a Catholic mother, had left Cuba with his parents when he was fifteen. A formidable foe of the revolution, he was admired and supported by right-wing conservatives and militant exiles, while the Cuban government both feared and loathed him. The Granma newspaper and Cuban media blasted Reich, accusing him of assisting Orlando Bosch, the alleged co-conspirator in the downing of Cubana Airlines flight 445 in 1976, to escape justice by illegally seeking refuge in the United States.

  The Senate’s rejection of Reich and the president’s refusal to withdraw his candidate meant that there would be no change in Cuba policy in the short term—so long as I, the lead American in Cuba, advocated engagement and Secretary of State Colin Powell remained disinclined to dismantle the Clinton administration’s liberal travel measures and cooperation with Cuba. The acting assistant secretary of state, Lino Gutierrez, a career bureaucrat and conservative Cuban American, would likely have been pleased to enact harsher policies but was unable to do so as long as Powell objected to gratuitously punishing Castro. Thus, much to the disgust of conservative Cuban Americans (including Reich, who was watching from the sidelines), the Clinton-era travel policies remained in place, allowing hundreds of thousands of Americans in addition to Cubans living in the United States to visit the island. This unforeseen combination of events meant that relations under George W. Bush—the president elected to crack down on Cuba—actually improved during his first year in office.

  Castro, too, contributed to better relations though what the media dubbed his “charm offensive” to persuade visiting Americans, especially senators, congressmen, and business leaders that it was in the best interest of both countries to end the embargo. Castro considered these American visitors as his advance team who would press for a more moderate US policy toward Cuba when they returned home. Moreover, he also greatly enjoyed hosting these VIP American visitors. Those who dined with him provided him a platform on which to perform. They stroked Castro’s ego and reassured him that he was respected and esteemed by famous Americans, even as our government, at the behest of the Cuban diaspora, continued to undermine his revolution.

  After a late-night/early-morning dinner with Fidel Castro, Arthur Miller presciently pointed out that Castro was “A lonely old man hungry for some fresh human contact, which could only get more and more rare as he ages.” Miller had come to Cuba with William Styron, author of Sophie’s Choice, and Ambassador William Luers, the president of the United Nations Association, and their wives. Their visit in March 2000 had been one of the first and most important visits under Clinton’s new people-to-people travel regulations. Castro’s good friend, Nobel Laureate Gabriel García Márquez, had invited the authors to Havana. In turn they invited my husband Bob, our political officer Jeff DeLaurentis, and me to breakfast at their hotel, the lovely Santa Isabel. The hotel was located on the far side of the Plaza de Armas, across from the Palacio de los Capitanes Generales, once the headquarters for Spanish aristocrat Isabel de Bombilla, who ruled Cuba during the years her husband, governor of Cuba and conquistador Hernando de Soto, was exploring what would one day become Florida and Louisiana. (Little bronze statues of Isabel—the first woman to rule in the Western Hemisphere, even if unofficially—can be bought along Havana’s streets.) I also pointed out that the building on the near side of the hotel, with a flagpole and no flag, was once the US consulate in the days when American consuls with immense powers ensured the safety of our investments and had the last word on Cuba’s foreign relations.

  Bill Luers’s wife Wendy told us that her husband wouldn’t be joining us for breakfast because he was still sleeping. Castro had wanted to reminisce about old times with Luers, who had negotiated the Interests Section agreement in 1977 on behalf of President Jimmy Carter. Wendy added that she had had an adventure the previous night. When she awoke and found that Bill wasn’t in the room, she got up, threw on a robe, and opened the door to the terrace that overlooks the Plaza de Armas. As she stepped outside, she heard the ominous clicks of safety switches being turned off and saw long rifles pointed at her. She quickly retreated. Cuban security was guarding Fidel Castro and Bill Luers, who were still reminiscing in Castro’s black limousine, which was parked in front of the hotel.

  Miller and Styron regaled us with details about their dinner with Fidel. They said that Castro would pick a topic, expansively lay out his views, and then turn to them for comments, which he didn’t allow to last long before expounding on yet another issue. Miller said that Castro seemed to expect their total agreement and approval. Thus Fidel was surprised and disappointed when Miller stopped him midsentence with a plea: “Please, Mr. President, forgive me, but when we arrived you will recall that you said I was 11 years, five months and 14 days older than you.” Miller paused and then said, “It is now 15 days.”

  With the battle for Elián González on everyone’s mind, I asked Miller what he thought about Cuba policy. He responded by paraphrasing William Shakespeare’s Macbeth: “When the hurly-burly’s done, when the battle’s lost and won, I hope there might an opportunity to move toward a more normal relationship.” I don’t think either of us could have imagined that almost twenty years later the embargo would still remain in place.

  A year later, when Bush took office in 2001, people-to-people visits—like the one Miller and Styron were on—had increased in frequency, as had the number of public figures seeking an invitation to dine with Castro or at least meet with Ricardo Alarcón, the top official responsible for Cuba’s policy toward the United States. Alarcón was so convinced that Castro’s charm offensive would succeed in weakening if not ending the embargo that he proudly told me, “Vicki, I’m so busy briefing Americans groups that I hardly have time to sleep.” I warned him that Castro’s strategy was unlikely to prove effective. Congress might pass legislation to weaken or repeal the embargo, but Bush—who had narrowly won Florida with the help of Cuban Americans—would veto it. But for Castro there were other benefits: he enjoyed meeting with the visitors and Cuba was earning hard currency from their stay.

  The most high-profile visit in 2001 was that of the Council on Foreign Relations led by David Rockefeller, banker and philanthropist. I held a
large dinner in his honor with ambassadors from European and Latin American countries who offered them their candid views of Cuba and of US policy. The following evening, the Rockefeller group dined with Fidel who, as was customary, did 80 to 90 percent of the talking. They also visited with Elizardo Sánchez, the human rights activist. It seemed to me that a visit with Sánchez was well worth the price of a protracted dinner with Castro. I knew that Rockefeller wouldn’t convince Fidel to become a capitalist, but so long as Castro continued to enjoy his American visitors he would be more tolerant of the dissidents, because one depended upon the other. If Castro jailed the dissidents it would provide the conservatives the excuse they needed to insist that Bush punish Castro by tightening the embargo.

  I didn’t expect to be invited to the dinners with Fidel; it certainly would have been uncomfortable for all present. I would have been obliged to defend US policy, and the dinner guests would have been dismayed if I interrupted or contradicted him. Neither were my staff or I invited to accompany the American groups on their visits to schools, hospitals, and museums. Visits to these institutions were not, as one might imagine, required by the Cuban government. Rather, they were a mandatory part of people-to-people visits, whose purpose was to inform Americans of Cuban culture and society. The US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), which enforced the embargo, insisted that the tour groups that arranged the people-to-people travel include visiting Cuban educational and cultural institutions. Yet because Cuban officials organized the actual visits it gave them a chance to advocate ending the embargo; they did so by showing the very best of Cuban education and health care. The loyal Cuban tour guides inevitably helped by explaining that the lack of supplies and the decrepit state of these institutions and the island’s infrastructure was the result of the US embargo.

  On one occasion, I did accompany a tour. Former Texas governor Ann Richards invited me to join her group on a visit to Pinar del Rio, on the western end of the island. When I briefed her group I lamented that the Cuban government carefully orchestrated every tour, making sure that visitors leave with a good impression. Thus, I opined, they didn’t see that life in rural areas was tightly restricted and the possibility of advancement almost nonexistent. Intrigued, Richards invited me to show the group a rural village. I consented and joined the group, but when I asked the tour guide to turn off the main highway, he refused. I insisted, but to no avail: neither he nor the bus driver wanted to get in trouble with their superiors, who wouldn’t approve of a deviation from the planned route. I told Richards that at the next exit she would have to reinforce my request. A lesser woman might have backed down, but Richards didn’t.

  The village where we stopped was less than five minutes off the main road, and was typical of rural towns all over the island: isolated, poor, and depressing. On either side of an unpaved gravel lane there were tiny one-story houses with peeling paint. There was only one store, which provided goods that could be bought with the government-provided ration card and also served as a post office. There were no cars; a few bicycles and a tired horse tethered to a buggy were the only means of transportation. The people were friendly, but frightened at the appearance of a luxury bus and a gaggle of well-dressed Americans, few of whom spoke Spanish. After a brief visit, the guides herded us back to the bus. The Americans were dismayed and disturbed by the poverty and isolation in this small town only thirty minutes outside Havana. The guides explained it was all the fault of the embargo. But I had made my point, and at least one group had had a more realistic view of life in Cuba.

  My all-time favorite encounter with visiting dignitaries almost persuaded me to change my political party affiliation. After meeting with Senators Daniel Akaka (D-HI), Max Baucus (D-MT), and Pat Roberts (R-KS) at the Hotel Nacional, Roberts invited me to accompany them to the airport, something that I could have done in any country other than Cuba. I regretfully declined his offer, explaining that I would be blocked from joining them in the airport VIP waiting room. Senator Roberts was outraged that the Cubans would treat the American representative this way. Wanting to show the Cubans that he disapproved of their actions—and possibly to confirm my story—he asked me to join him and his colleagues in their car. I squeezed into the back seat with Roberts and Baucus; Akaka sat in the front with the chauffeur. At the airport, as we began walking toward a small VIP guest room, a Cuban official blocked my way. The senators and I protested to no avail as I was escorted to a separate room. But less than five minutes later, I was ushered into the room where the senators were silently and stonily staring at their hosts. As I entered, everyone—Cubans included—stood and greeted me. Roberts had told the Cubans that until I joined them there would be no discussion. The Cubans gave in and I joined the group. Roberts had thrown down a challenge, forcing the Cubans to back off. I wished that more American officials would press the Cubans on their treatment of our diplomatic representatives in Cuba. I was proud of the senators—especially Roberts—and decided that like Roberts I would stand up to the Cubans for what I believed to be right.

  I was very much in favor of the people-to-people visits because Americans were learning about Cuba, and Cuban officials were learning that Americans were surprised to discover the limits the government placed on the lives of Cuban citizens, including barring them from tourist hotels and the absence of media and the Internet. Still, most groups were favorably impressed with Cuba. I didn’t think that Americans should hear only one side of the story, nor did I like that idea of allowing Cuban officials to dominate the narrative. Cuba’s innumerable problems and deficiencies were not principally the result of hostile US policy, as they claimed. We certainly had an adversarial relationship—I was Castro’s biggest annoyance, my country his avowed enemy, and our policies were designed to harm his government. But Castro’s authoritarian regime bore most of the blame. In order to remain in power, Fidel restricted individual freedom, persecuted dissent, and imposed a communist orthodoxy that deprived Cubans of political and economic opportunity.

  To provide the visiting groups a more balanced view of Cuba and US-Cuba relations, my staff and I offered detailed policy briefings to visiting American groups. Two officers generally gave the briefing, there was no script, and each team had its own approach. I often began with the Spanish-American War because the United States played a critical role in helping Cuba gain independence from Spain. Turning to the Cuban Revolution, I acknowledged the frustration that led Cubans to support Castro’s rebels in ridding the country of Fulgencio Batista and the Mafia bosses led by Meyer Lansky. I also put the current US-Cuba relationship in context, pointing out that it was a product of our cold war with the Soviet Union, which had seized the opportunity to befriend Castro and gain an outpost, including military bases, ninety miles from our shores. I revealed that both Democratic and Republican presidents had attempted to improve relations, but their efforts ran afoul of either Castro or the Cuban diaspora. I didn’t hesitate to remind our listeners that Castro was a dictator who controlled every aspect of life on the island.

  I made the case that US policy was not a question of black or white but instead many shades of gray. Over the years our policy had become increasingly polarized, as Cuban Americans became a powerful voting bloc. Having suffered at Castro’s hands, they could see absolutely no redeeming qualities in his regime. When it became increasingly clear that the US embargo would not topple the regime, they refused to give up, clinging to the sanctions as a way of punishing Castro more than a way of bringing freedom to the island. At the same time, anti-embargo advocates became all the more convinced that US policy was misguided, serving only to increase the poverty and reinforce that Cuban government’s control over their lives.

  Our briefings were popular with audiences from universities and cultural organizations, as well as foreign affairs and business groups. Usually we gave our briefings at the US Interests Section in a room that featured the head of the eagle that had been torn off the USS Maine Monument by Castro’s rebels or at the
hotels where the visitors were staying. We made the briefings and the Q and A sessions lively and entertaining and, of course, we defended US policy. We were American diplomats, and that was our job. I made one point that always flummoxed my listeners: I told them that so long as Fidel Castro remained in power, Cuba posed no threat to the United States or the region. But if during a transition the Cuban government was unable to maintain internal security, it would likely become a haven for crime, narcotics trafficking, or even terrorism.

  Castro didn’t like the competition from our briefings, which countered his version of Cuba and our relationship, but he couldn’t stop them. Occasionally he indulged in a bit of skullduggery. One evening as I rode home in the official car, I was astonished to find the large group that I was scheduled to brief walking along an avenue a few blocks from the residence. Their bus driver—presumably a good revolutionary—had refused to take them to the American residence. When he remained adamant, they demanded to be let off the bus and allowed to find their own way. Several who were elderly accepted a ride in my car, and I walked with the others to the residence. Omar, the head butler, was ready with mojitos, Cuba’s national drink. My visitors enjoyed their rum cocktails, the beautiful house, and the briefing. Despite Castro’s trick which had caused them some inconvenience, most still believed that US policy was outdated and unethical.