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Past Event

A Foreign Policy and Latin America Initiative Event

Cuba: Lessons from the Past

Cuba, Latin America

Event Summary

** Due to overwhelming interest, registration for this event is now closed. 
A transcript will be posted shortly afterward. **

With longtime Cuban leader Fidel Castro ailing and fading from the political arena, President George W. Bush recently outlined a series of measures to bring democracy to Cuba. Yet, how did former Presidents Clinton, Bush, Reagan and Carter deal with the Cuban government during the height of the Cold War and after? Did these Republican and Democratic administrations engage Fidel Castro? And how did those decisions affect current U.S. policy toward Cuba?

Event Information

When

Wednesday, November 14, 2007
9:00 AM to 10:30 am

Where

Falk Auditorium
The Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Ave., NW
Washington, DC
Map

Contact: Brookings Office of Communications

E-mail: events@brookings.edu

Phone: 202.797.6105

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On November 14, the Brookings Institution hosted five former Chiefs of Mission of the United States Interests Section in Havana for a discussion on the U.S.-Cuba relationship. They provided their insights into the personalities and styles of Cuba’s past and present leadership and their relationships with Cuba’s opposition.

Brookings Visiting Fellow Vicki Huddleston, who served as Chief of Mission from 1999 to 2002, moderated the discussion.

Transcript

VICKI HUDDLESTON: In many ways what keeps the Castro regime going is the threat of the United States, and the unknown change. The fact that there is an emergency release-valve in mass migration and, even now, migration is now over 15,000 annually, so that’s a pretty good valve. And that’s illegal migration. That doesn’t include the 20,000 that we’re supposed to be allowing to go to the United States.

I’d much rather see us issuing tourist visas so that the grandparents could go up and see their kids, and you could have the academics and the artists, and have that kind of a thing.

But it’s isolation, migration, and the threat that, in many ways, keeps the regime going. And that’s why I think, if you go back to that earlier question, that, in fact, U.S. policy is hugely important. Because it can prop up the continuation of the Cuban regime.

Participants

Moderator

Vicki Huddleston

Visiting Fellow, Foreign Policy

Panelists

Wayne Smith

Senior Fellow and Director, Cuba Program, Center for International Policy; Chief of Mission of USINT, 1979-1982

Jay Taylor

Research Associate, Fairbank Center for East Asian Research at Harvard University; Chief of Mission of USINT, 1987-1990

John Ferch

Former U.S. Ambassador to Honduras; Chief of Mission of USINT, 1982-1985

Alan Flanigan

Former U.S. Ambassador to El Salvador; Chief of Mission of USINT, 1990-1993

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