cont'd from cover

A similar pattern developed this year during legislative battles before the summer recess. Senate sentiment was displayed in the 79-13 margin to pass the current Agricultural Appropriations Bill with a food and medicine amendment sponsored by Byron Dorgan.

However, in the House, George Nethercutt, the leader of proponents of trade in food and medicine, was forced by the Republican leadership to accede to a “compromise” cheered by Miami’s Cuban American ultras. Never the less, the true sentiment of the House was dramatically demonstrated on July 20th when a hotly debated amendment to the Treasury Department Appropriations Bill to prevent enforcement of embargo provisions affecting sales of food and medicine was adopted by a rare 3 to 1 margin (301-116).

Perhaps more surprising, and ultimately of greater significance, the House also voted by a respectable margin (232-186) to bar use of Treasury Department funds to enforce travel restrictions. Should all Americans be allowed to travel freely to Cuba, either by legislative act or Presidential decree (see page 2), the empty shell of the embargo policy will soon collapse.

Within hours of these votes, the House and Senate Republican leadership had stripped both amendments from the Conference Report. However, the legislative battle will continue during the brief session before the election recess. It is certain to emerge again when the new Congress is seated in January. Should the Democrats win the House or Senate, the inclination to thwart the will of the Members will presumably change. (The House debate and vote record can be found in the July 20th Congressional Record, available on line at http://Thomas.loc.gov. For timely advisories on the legislative front, contact Mavis Anderson of the Latin America Working Group manderson@lawg.org)

Offsetting too great a sense of optimism is the record on Cuba of the major party Presidential candidates. Both Vice President Al Gore and Governor George W. Bush ignored national public opinion to line up with extremist Cuban American attitudes in Florida, a key voting bloc in a swing state—and the source of substantial campaign contributions. Vice Presidential candidate Joe Lieberman has a long history of closeness to (and funds from) Cuban American hard liners. Only Dick Cheney’s business orientation has produced glimmers of public skepticism about the counterproductive character of a unilateral embargo. The Party platforms, however, approach Cuba in fundamentally different ways (see page 40).

Certainly the unanimous vote to end the embargo on September 7th in Milwaukee by the annual convention of the “staunchly conservative and patriotic” American Legion, the largest US veterans organization, is another indication that national political leaders are out of step with the American people. The Legionnaires did put in an unrealistic but non-specific condition, that “the Cuban government takes positive action towards a more open and free society”, but their fundamental logic was that Cuba should not be treated differently than China or Vietnam.

At least theoretically President Clinton could change the parameters of the national Cuba debate during his last months in office by using his authority to end all travel restrictions. His successor theoretically could restore travel restrictions after January 20th (and the holiday travel season), but he would have to make the case about why in 2001 that was in the national interest. And by then tens if not hundreds of thousands more Americans will have taken the opportunity to see for themselves. The next President may also welcome the de facto space to move on given by his predecessor’s willingness to take the heat from Miami.

—John McAuliff