Cuba Foreign Policy

Throughout their 33-year marriage, pious Marta Martinez and her fervently Communist husband have maintained detente. They were married by a priest because she insisted, crying--but kept the religious ceremony secret because he was embarrassed and afraid his career would be jeopardized. Their three children were baptized but also joined the Young Pioneers, the Communist youth group. "You take charge in your communism, and I take charge of my business--religion," she told him.

Much of the controversy, anger and distrust we have witnessed over the past five months of the Elian Gonzalez case could have been prevented with better understanding and communication between Americans and Cubans. That is why I urge President Clinton to visit Cuba before he leaves office. The president should fly on Air Force One into Jose Marti Airport in Havana and declare to the Cuban people that the Cold War is finally over.

Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev began his first full day of talks with Cuban President Fidel Castro on Monday amid indications that the two may be looking for a fresh approach to fighting the growing flow of drugs from Latin America. During their first 90 minutes of formal talks in the morning, both Gorbachev and Castro addressed the drug problem, according to Soviet spokesman Gennady I. Gerasimov, who sketchily described the meeting to reporters afterward.

Throughout their 33-year marriage, pious Marta Martinez and her fervently Communist husband have maintained detente. They were married by a priest because she insisted, crying--but kept the religious ceremony secret because he was embarrassed and afraid his career would be jeopardized. Their three children were baptized but also joined the Young Pioneers, the Communist youth group. "You take charge in your communism, and I take charge of my business--religion," she told him.

Cuban President Fidel Castro turned out a quarter of the population of Havana on Sunday to greet Mikhail S. Gorbachev on the Soviet leader's first visit to his largest Communist ally west of the crumbling Iron Curtain. With a warm embrace at the foot of the exit ramp of the Soviet Il-62 jet that brought Gorbachev and his wife, Raisa, from Moscow, the two men immediately began an earnest conversation that was unheard by spectators who crowded against airport guard rails to see them.

Former Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara said Monday that new Soviet revelations about the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, including the presence of hitherto unknown Soviet short-range atomic weapons in Cuba at the time, indicate that the two nations were much closer to a nuclear conflict than was previously realized. McNamara made the statement after returning to Washington from a four-day closed-door meeting in Havana of former U.S.

With the impasse in Haiti still unresolved, the Clinton Administration now finds itself confronted with yet another crisis in the Caribbean, again involving refugees and the vexing question of how to promote democratic change against the wishes of an entrenched dictatorial leadership.

Much of the controversy, anger and distrust we have witnessed over the past five months of the Elian Gonzalez case could have been prevented with better understanding and communication between Americans and Cubans. That is why I urge President Clinton to visit Cuba before he leaves office. The president should fly on Air Force One into Jose Marti Airport in Havana and declare to the Cuban people that the Cold War is finally over.

A former Communist Party youth leader once seen as a protege and surrogate son to Cuban President Fidel Castro was replaced as foreign minister Friday by an even younger man--the 34-year-old chief of staff who handles Castro's daily schedule. Castro's replacement of Roberto Robaina, 43, with Felipe Perez Roque, a key advisor to the president for seven years, appeared aimed at giving Castro tighter control over Cuba's foreign policy.

Cuban President Fidel Castro wore his trademark military fatigues and Congolese President Laurent Kabila sported a tropical shirt decorated with pictures of bank notes as the African leader ended a three-day visit here Saturday that underscored Cuba's expanding relations with former friends and new allies.

With the impasse in Haiti still unresolved, the Clinton Administration now finds itself confronted with yet another crisis in the Caribbean, again involving refugees and the vexing question of how to promote democratic change against the wishes of an entrenched dictatorial leadership.

Former Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara said Monday that new Soviet revelations about the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, including the presence of hitherto unknown Soviet short-range atomic weapons in Cuba at the time, indicate that the two nations were much closer to a nuclear conflict than was previously realized. McNamara made the statement after returning to Washington from a four-day closed-door meeting in Havana of former U.S.

Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev began his first full day of talks with Cuban President Fidel Castro on Monday amid indications that the two may be looking for a fresh approach to fighting the growing flow of drugs from Latin America. During their first 90 minutes of formal talks in the morning, both Gorbachev and Castro addressed the drug problem, according to Soviet spokesman Gennady I. Gerasimov, who sketchily described the meeting to reporters afterward.

Cuban President Fidel Castro turned out a quarter of the population of Havana on Sunday to greet Mikhail S. Gorbachev on the Soviet leader's first visit to his largest Communist ally west of the crumbling Iron Curtain. With a warm embrace at the foot of the exit ramp of the Soviet Il-62 jet that brought Gorbachev and his wife, Raisa, from Moscow, the two men immediately began an earnest conversation that was unheard by spectators who crowded against airport guard rails to see them.

Re your Aug. 11 editorial, "Bridge to Cuba": long overdue, and only because we want a medical breakthrough. You call Washington's economic embargo of Cuba "hoary foreign policy." I would add sick, stupid, stultifying and slanted. Why do we conduct business with communist China, Korea, Vietnam and any number of dictator countries? Is it because they don't have a Miami-Cuba lobby? Fidel Castro may have led a hard-won revolution but it was only because the Cuban people were badly exploited by American business and gambling interests permitted by greedy Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista and his wealthy cohorts.

Excuse the French, but the Iceland summit is, if it is anything, detente. Yet that word, which infused the political vocabulary in the early 1970s, has become lost to American speakers--not over a breakdown in arms control but because the Cubans went into Angola in 1975. The Cubans are still there, and logic would suggest that detente is still in suspension until they withdraw. But no, it is not even on the Reykjavik agenda.