Miami Herald: Senators reassured about Cuba policy; spending bill vote expected

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Miami Herald

Posted on Tuesday, 03.10.09
Senators reassured about Cuba policy; spending bill vote expected

BY LESLEY CLARK
[e-mail]

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Treasury Department has promised opponents of changes to U.S.-Cuba policy tucked into a giant spending bill that some of the most controversial provisions will result in little change.

The U.S. Senate is expected to vote Tuesday on a $410 billion spending bill that contains provisions that make trade and travel to Cuba easier. The bill offers a general travel license for Americans selling agricultural products to Cuba, lets Cuba pay for goods on arrival and defunds enforcement of family travel restrictions enacted by former President George W. Bush.

Florida senators had vowed to block the bill. But in a letter to Sens. Bill Nelson of Florida and Robert Menendez of New Jersey, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said the provision that would grant a general license for agricultural producers to travel to Cuba would be limited to ``only a narrow class of businesses.''

''Any business using the general license would be required to provide both advance written notice outlining the purpose and scope of the planned travel and, upon return, a report outlining the activities conducted,'' Geithner wrote.

The assurances from Treasury are likely to pave the way toward passage of the $410 billion spending bill that was blocked last week by Nelson, Menendez and other senators opposed to the scope of spending in the bill.

A spokesman for Sen. Mel Martinez, R-Fla., who worked with Menendez to rally opposition to the Cuba changes said Tuesday, ``It appears Treasury is addressing the most egregious of these provisions, fixing the problem.''

Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/breaking-news/story/942403.html

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http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com.nyud.net:8090/news_politics/images/2007/07/30/72dpisenatorsbombstour662f.jpg

Senators Bill Nelson and Mel Martinez (Republican, Cuban
"exile" and former head of housing for _{George W. Bush.} )

http://i264.photobucket.com.nyud.net:8090/albums/ii186/DutchPhil/MARTINEZWH.jpg

Mel Martinez and _{George W. Bush}

[Taverner]

1. I don't get why theCANF and anti-changers want Communism to persist in Cuba

I thought their whole plan was to stop Castro :shrug:

[Judi Lynn]

3. They want the government to fail so miserably the people will welcome them back to control them

all over again. You've probably noticed what wonders they've done for Miami!

Their only interests revolve around dealing out so much hardship the citizens overthrow their own government and let them come back to assume their little feudal roles all over again and turn Cuban back into "The Whorehouse of the Caribbean," as it was known world-wide during the "good" old days.

This belief in injuring Cuba until they surrender goes back at least as far as "The Breckenridge Memorandum," written by U.S. Secretary of War on Christmas Eve, 1897. Some of its lofty sentiments:

On 24 December 1897, US Under-Secretary of War J.C. Breckenridge wrote in a memorandum 'This population is made up of whites, blacks, Asians and people who are mixture of these races. The inhabitants are generally indolent and apathetic – Since they only possess a vague notion of what is right and wrong, the people tend to seek pleasure not through work, but through violence – It is obvious that the immediate annexation of these disturbing elements into our own federation in such large numbers would be madness, so before we do that we must clean up the country – We must destroy everything within our cannons' range of fire. We must impose a harsh blockade so that hunger and its constant companion, disease, undermine the peaceful population and decimate the army. The allied army must be constantly engaged in reconaissance and vanguard actions so that the Cuban army is irreparably caught between two fronts.'

He went on to explain the plan for the military occupation of Cuba and the temporary maintenance by force of the new independent government of a minority of the autonomists and Spaniards who remained, until it was strong enough to maintain itself against the separatists. He continues: 'When this moment arrives, we must create conflicts for the independent government. That goverment will be faced with these difficulties – These difficulties must coincide with the unrest and violence among the aforementioned elements, to whom we must give our backing – To sum up, our policy must always be to support the weaker against the stronger, until we have obtained the extermination of them both, in order to annex the Pearl of the Antilles.'

More:
http://www.rcgfrfi.easynet.co.uk/ratb/cuba/history3.htm

[Taverner]

4. True - and of course, they want their land back

And as an Ambassador who will remain nameless once pointed out "They want their slaves back"

[Judi Lynn]

5. Oh, you bet! One thing they've never felt the need to share with the world

is the fact that they were ALL offered compensation long ago, as were the other landowners from other countries who went ahead and settled with Cuba at the time.

The U.S. Government advised the owners here to not do business with the Cuban government so they all turned it down. It was discussed even by a aide to John F. Kennedy who met secretly with Che Guevara. Discussed BY Che Guevara with Richard Goodwin, or maybe William Atwood, who wrote about it to Kennedy in a report.

I think you'll hear it mentioned if you ever see this program which recycles on the Discovery Channel:

Kennedy Sought Dialogue with Cuba

INITIATIVE WITH CASTRO ABORTED BY ASSASSINATION,
DECLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS SHOW

Oval Office Tape Reveals Strategy to hold clandestine Meeting in Havana; Documents record role of ABC News correspondent Lisa Howard as secret intermediary in Rapprochement effort

Posted - November 24, 2003

Washington D.C. - On the 40th anniversary of the assassination of John F. Kennedy, and the eve of the broadcast of a new documentary film on Kennedy and Castro, the National Security Archive today posted an audio tape of the President and his national security advisor, McGeorge Bundy, discussing the possibility of a secret meeting in Havana with Castro. The tape, dated only seventeen days before Kennedy was shot in Dallas, records a briefing from Bundy on Castro's invitation to a U.S. official at the United Nations, William Attwood, to come to Havana for secret talks on improving relations with Washington. The tape captures President Kennedy's approval if official U.S. involvement could be plausibly denied.

The possibility of a meeting in Havana evolved from a shift in the President's thinking on the possibility of what declassified White House records called "an accommodation with Castro" in the aftermath of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Proposals from Bundy's office in the spring of 1963 called for pursuing "the sweet approach…enticing Castro over to us," as a potentially more successful policy than CIA covert efforts to overthrow his regime. Top Secret White House memos record Kennedy's position that "we should start thinking along more flexible lines" and that "the president, himself, is very interested in ." Castro, too, appeared interested. In a May 1963 ABC News special on Cuba, Castro told correspondent Lisa Howard that he considered a rapprochement with Washington "possible if the United States government wishes it. In that case," he said, "we would be agreed to seek and find a basis" for improved relations.

The untold story of the Kennedy-Castro effort to seek an accommodation is the subject of a new documentary film, KENNEDY AND CASTRO: THE SECRET HISTORY, broadcast on the Discovery/Times cable channel on November 25 at 8pm. The documentary film, which focuses on Ms. Howard's role as a secret intermediary in the effort toward dialogue, was based on an article -- "JFK and Castro: The Secret Quest for Accommodation" -- written by Archive Senior Analyst Peter Kornbluh in the magazine, Cigar Aficionado. Kornbluh served as consulting producer and provided key declassified documents that are highlighted in the film. "The documents show that JFK clearly wanted to change the framework of hostile U.S. relations with Cuba," according to Kornbluh. "His assassination, at the very moment this initiative was coming to fruition, leaves a major 'what if' in the ensuing history of the U.S. conflict with Cuba."

Among the key documents relevant to this history:

• Oval Office audio tape, November 5, 1963. The tape records a conversation between the President and McGeorge Bundy regarding Castro's invitation to William Attwood, a deputy to UN Ambassador Adlai Stevenson, to come to Cuba for secret talks. The President responds that Attwood should be taken off the U.S. payroll prior to such a meeting so that the White House can plausibly deny that any official talks have taken place if the meeting leaks to the press.
  
  
• White House memorandum, Top Secret, "Mr. Donovan's Trip to Cuba," March 4, 1963. This document records President Kennedy's interest in negotiations with Castro and his instructions to his staff to "start thinking along more flexible lines" on conditions for a dialogue with Cuba.
  
  
• White House memorandum, Top Secret, "Cuba -- Policy," April 11, 1963. A detailed options paper from Gordon Chase, the Latin America specialist on the National Security Council, to McGeorge Bundy recommending "looking seriously at the other side of the coin-quietly enticing Castro over to us."
  
  
• CIA briefing paper, Secret, "Interview of U.S. Newswoman with Fidel Castro Indicating Possible Interest in Rapprochement with the United States," May 1, 1963. A debriefing of Lisa Howard by CIA deputy director Richard Helms, regarding her ABC news interview with Castro and her opinion that he is "ready to discuss rapprochement." The document contains a notation, "Psaw," meaning President Kennedy read the report on Howard and Castro.
  
  
• U.S. UN Mission memorandum, Secret, Chronology of events leading up Castro invitation to receive a U.S. official for talks in Cuba, November 8, 22, 1963. This chronology was written by William Attwood and records the evolution of the initiative set in motion by Lisa Howard for a dialogue with Cuba. The document describes the party at Howard's Manhattan apartment on September 23, 1963, where Attwood met with Cuban UN Ambassador Carlos Lechuga to discuss the potential for formal talks to improve relations. In an addendum, Attwood adds information on communications, using the Howard home as a base, leading up to the day the President was shot in Dallas.
  
  
• White House memorandum, Secret, November 12, 1963. McGeorge Bundy reports to William Attwood on Kennedy's opinion of the viability of a secret meeting with Havana. The president prefers that the meeting take place in New York at the UN where it will be less likely to be leaked to the press.
  
  
• White House memorandum, Top Secret, "Approach to Castro," November 19, 1963. A memo from Gordon Chase to McGeorge Bundy updating him on the status of arrangements for a secret meeting with the Cubans.
  
  
• White House memorandum, Top Secret, "Cuba -- Item of Presidential Interest," November 25, 1963. A strategy memo from Gordon Chase to McGeorge Bundy assessing the problems and potential for pursuing the secret talks with Castro in the aftermath of Kennedy's assassination.
  
  
• Message from Fidel Castro to Lyndon Johnson, "Verbal Message given to Miss Lisa Howard of ABC News on February 12, 1964, in Havana, Cuba." A private message carried by Howard to the White House in which Castro states that he would like the talks started with Kennedy to continue: "I seriously hope (and I cannot stress this too strongly) that Cuba and the United States can eventually sit down in an atmosphere of good will and of mutual respect and negotiate our differences."
  
  
• United Nations memorandum, Top Secret, from Adlai Stevenson to President Johnson, June 16, 1964. Stevenson sends the "verbal message" given to Lisa Howard to Johnson with a cover memo briefing him on the dialogue started under Kennedy and suggesting consideration of resumption of talks "on a low enough level to avoid any possible embarrassment."
  
  
• White House memorandum, Top Secret, "Adlai Stevenson and Lisa Howard," July 7, 1964. Gordon Chase reports to Bundy on his concerns that Howard's role as an intermediary has now escalated through her contact with Stevenson at the United Nations and the fact that a message has been sent back through her to Castro from the White House. Chase recommends trying "to remove Lisa from direct participation in the business of passing messages," and using Cuban Ambassador to the UN, Carlos Lechuga, instead.

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB103/index.htm

~~~~~~~~~
If you ever have idle time, you might find the history of the life of ABC reporter, Lisa Howard, after she started the meetings between Cuba and the U.S. became very odd, before she suddenly "committed suicide!" Very, VERY strange.

http://www.gwu.edu.nyud.net:8090/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB103/howard.jpg

Lisa Howard

[No Elephants]

11. Having hunger and disease decimate a peaceful population so that you can

"exterminate" the weak and the strong. Well, that'll show innocent folks with only a "vague notion of what is right and what is wrong" what is REALLY wrong, won't it?


(Now, pet peeve indulgence alert.)

I wonder if Hitler lifted this use of the term "exterminate" from Breckinridge?

I always thought it was a heinous term for genocide, as though the victims were bugs, rather than people. Ditto for "ethnic cleansing" and dirt.

Genocide is genocide. Don't give it a name that sounds as though you are performing some kind of public health service.

[Judi Lynn]

15. Unbelievable, isn't it? I did a check once to find out who the Undersecretary of War was.

Nearly fell off my chair. WHY ON EARTH was he in our country's government as late as 1897, one can only wonder, in shock!

Here's info. from his Wikipedia:

John Cabell Breckinridge (January 16, 1821 – May 17, 1875) was a lawyer, U.S. Representative, Senator from Kentucky, the 14th Vice President of the United States, Southern Democratic candidate for President in 1860, a Confederate general in the American Civil War, and the last Confederate Secretary of War. To date, Breckinridge is the youngest vice president in U.S. history, inaugurated at age 36. He is also remembered as the Confederate commander at the Battle of New Market, where young VMI cadets participated in the battle on the Confederate side. He was the grandson of U.S. Senator and Attorney General John Breckinridge and the father of congressman and diplomat Clifton Rodes Breckinridge. His great-grandson, John Cabell "Bunny" Breckinridge, was an actor.

~snip~
Breckinridge was an unsuccessful candidate for President in 1860, nominated by the Southern faction of the split Democratic Party and supported by the incumbent Democratic President, Buchanan. Far from expectant of victory, Breckinridge understood the long odds his success would necessitate. In a letter to Varina Davis he bemoaned "I trust I have the courage to lead a forlorn hope". In a four-way contest, he came in third in the popular vote, with 18.1%, but second in the Electoral College, winning the states of the Deep South, plus Delaware and Maryland. Breckinridge won the South with his pro-slavery platform, but was unable to win solid majorities in the border states, where Stephen Douglas, the Northern Democratic candidate, or the Constitutional Union Party was able to prevail in some cases. His native Kentucky went for John Bell, the Constitutional Union candidate. In most of the North, Breckinridge received almost no support, but as the candidate of the Buchanan faction he outpolled Douglas in Pennsylvania and won Delaware, and received some support comparable to Douglas in Connecticut. Republican Abraham Lincoln ultimately won the election with Breckinridge in second place. The race put Breckinridge at odds with his uncle, Robert Jefferson Breckinridge, who had supported Lincoln.

He was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1860 from Kentucky and served from March 4, 1861, until expelled by resolution of December 4, 1861, for support of the South. Fearing arrest, he fled to the Confederacy. Unlike other Confederate leaders, such as Robert E. Lee, who claimed obeisance to the will of their states, Breckinridge broke with his state after the Kentucky legislature voted to stay in the Union.

~snip~
Breckinridge feared that he would be put on trial for treason by the United States government and resolved to flee the country. He and a small band sailed from Florida in a tiny boat to reach safety in Cuba. He continued to the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United Kingdom again. He returned to Lexington, Kentucky, in March 1869 after being granted amnesty, and resumed the practice of law. While turning down suggestions that he become active in politics again, he spoke out strongly against the Ku Klux Klan. He became vice president of the Elizabethtown, Lexington, and Big Sandy Railroad Company. He died in Lexington of complications from cirrhosis<1> and was interred in Lexington Cemetery.

Breckinridge had ample reason to fear charges of treason. In 1863, premature rumors of his death prompted the New York Times to print what is perhaps the most vituperative obituary ever written about a nationally elected American official.<2>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_C._Breckinridge

So THIS IS THE GUY who was so deeply influential in creating our modern Cuba policy. Oh, PLEASE!

[Judi Lynn]

16. Ah, ha ha ha ha. I just saw the photo at the bottom of this Cuba policymaker's grave!

http://upload.wikimedia.org.nyud.net:8090/wikipedia/en/thumb/f/f9/John_C._Breckinridge_grave.jpg/800px-John_C._Breckinridge_grave.jpg

Ah, ha ha ha ha haaaaaa. Well, it goddamn figures, doesn't it?

That puts him in very good stead with the racist oligarchs who fled from Cuba immediately after the revolution, who have controlled our country's Cuba policy all these years.

What the Civil War Confederate Secretary of War for Jefferson Davis thought about Cuba should be good enough for us, too!

In case I overlooked mentioning it, he became the Undersecretary of War for U.S. President William McKinley after the Civil War.

[No Elephants]

10. Apparently, the plan is to watch while he dies of old age?

[msongs]

2. once again the anti-freedom-for-cuba bush policies march on nt

[roody]

6. Good---because I totally enjoy defying the embargo.

[Judi Lynn]

8. Oh, you've been to Cuba? (Humor!) n/t

[Mika]

7. Freedumb still on the march.

This is pretty much the change in Cuba policy that I expected/predicted. Nada.

First Obama was against the embargo ('it just doesn't make sense & hasn't worked'), now he's for it ('Cuba must comply {on bended knee} to US demands, for any change').

Status quo prevails - so the campaign cash cow (both pro and con) continues.

Campaign funding corruption exemplified.

[Judi Lynn]

9. Gotta say, you warned us, even when we were certain this was going to do it for us! n/t

[No Elephants]

12. "Don't worry about your vote for our bill. We'll never enforce it." I hate politicians anymore.

[harun]

13. What a load of crap.

[roody]

14. Not a problem for Pastors for Peace

20th Pastors for Peace Friendshipment Caravan to Cuba
Caravan to Cuba July 3 - August 3, 2009

We believe that NOW is the time to end the US government’s policy of economically blockading Cuba, and banning travel by its citizens to Cuba.
A policy that has:

survived almost 50 years and 10 US presidents.
sustained an attempt to starve the Cuban people into desperately rising up against their government.
caused tremendous economic suffering in Cuba, as well as hurting business in the US.
divided hundreds of thousands of Cuban families.
prevented both nations from exchange and learning from each other.
ignored almost universal international condemnation, and is immoral and inhuman.

---snip---

Challenge this Immoral Blockade!
President Obama has promised to remove all restrictions on Cuban Americans visiting Cuba and sending money to their families. Obama also said he was prepared to sit down and talk with the Cuban government. These are welcome steps if implemented, but we need to go much further.

All US citizens should be free to travel to Cuba, whether for educational purposes, tourism, business, cultural, scientific or religious exchange. Normal trading relations should be resumed, so that Cuba can purchase the goods it needs to develop its economy and rebuild after the hurricanes, and so that the US can purchase the products that Cuba specializes in such as a number of unique life saving vaccines.

---snip---

"Let us not love in word: but in deed and in truth." 1 John 3:18
Interreligious Foundation for Community Organization (IFCO)

www.ifconews.org

[Judi Lynn]

17. Thanks for posting the first notice we've seen on the upcoming trip.

Several DU'ers have traveled with this outstanding group of American citizens in the past. It would be really cool to get multiple DU'ers at the same time!