Reply #17: Here's some early reading: ROBERT F. KENNEDY URGED LIFTING

[Judi Lynn]

ROBERT F. KENNEDY URGED LIFTING
TRAVEL BAN TO CUBA IN '63


Attorney General cited inconsistency "with traditional American liberties"
State Department overruled RFK proposal to withdraw prohibitions on travel

National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 158

Posted - June 29, 2005

Washington D.C. June 29, 2005 - Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy sought to lift the ban on U.S. citizens traveling to Cuba in December 1963, according to declassified records posted today by the National Security Archive. In a December 12, 1963, memorandum to Secretary of State Dean Rusk, Kennedy urged a quick decision "to withdraw the existing regulation prohibiting such trips."

Kennedy's memo, written less than a month after his brother's assassination in Dallas, communicated his position that the travel ban imposed by the Kennedy administration was a violation of American freedoms and impractical in terms of law enforcement. Among his "principal arguments" for removing the restrictions on travel to Cuba was that freedom to travel "is more consistent with our views as a free society and would contrast with such things as the Berlin Wall and Communist controls on such travel."

His memo prompted what senior National Security Council officials described as "an in-house fight to permit non-subversive Americans to travel to Cuba." Several State Department officials supported Kennedy's position that "the present travel restrictions are inconsistent with traditional American liberties," and that "it would be extremely difficult to enforce the present prohibitions on travel to Cuba without resorting to mass indictments." But in a December 13, 1963 meeting at the State Department, with no representatives present from the Attorney General's office, Undersecretary of State George Ball ruled out any relaxation of regulations on travel to Cuba.

A principal argument, as national security advisor McGeorge Bundy informed President Johnson in a subsequent memorandum on "Student Travel to Cuba" was that "a relaxation of U.S. restrictions would make it very difficult for us to urge Latin American governments to prevent their nationals from going to Cuba-where many would receive subversive training."

Instead of announcing a legalization of travel to Cuba, as the Attorney General had proposed, in late December the State Department issued a warning stating that "persons who may consider engaging in such travel should be on notice that if they do so, their passports will be withdrawn and they may be subject to criminal prosecution." The ban on travel was maintained until President Jimmy Carter lifted it in 1977; but restrictions were re-imposed during the Reagan administration and have been tightened further under the current administration.

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB158/index.htm

http://www.spiegel.de/img/0,1020,676369,00.jpg

Jimmy Carter during his trip to Cuba, during which he made a speech nationally
which was carried on all Cuban radio, television stations live, and transcripts
were published in the Cuban newspapers. He also toured medical research laboratories,
agricultural and industrial sites, and had meetings with Cuban "dissidents." I
hesitated to post these photos because I'm quite sure you are a person who will use
this knowledge you apparently lacked to start accusing Jimmy Carter of being too "soft"
on Cuba now. That's o.k. Most DU'ers are very much more informed on these events, as they
tend to keep up as a matter of principle.

During Bill Clinton's Presidency, travel restrictions were loosened for certain people-to-people programs, and relations were warming until the Cuban reactionary political "Hermanos al Rescate," which had been buzzing Havana, certainly invading Cuban air space, seen personally by the former U.S. Interests Section head, Wayne S. Smith, provoked Cuba to warn the U.S. to keep them out of Cuban air space or they would be shot down. They invaded Cuban air space, even though they lie about it, and they lost some people. At that point everything was tightened up. Otherwise there is no doubt relations with Cuba were headed for a thaw.

Also, there are documents available to the public now covering the time before John F. Kennedy's murder when he was initiating dialogue with both Che Guevara and Fidel Castro. I have posted them many times at D.U. already. His aide went to meet with Che Guevara and made a report on their meeting and conversation.

I have to run as I only have a couple of minutes to scan LBN now, will be able to provide more info. since you appear to be completely clueless about US/Cuban history, and have been hoping to trip someone up, to make a winger point, apparently. Oh, by the way, during Bill Clinton's adminstration, the early steps were taken to loosen the embargo enough to allow limited sale of certain agricultural products and some medicine. That was a beginning.

If you had every taken time to get conscious of what happens in Congress at least once a year, you would already know that the House and Senate BOTH have voted time after time to end travel restrictions, and Democrats are perenially trying to get the embargo lifted, but the right-wing asshole block always manages to remove the language in committee, or sabotage it entirely.

The pro-crappy Cuba relations crowd is dying off, as you've lost Jesse Helms, Tom DeLay, and all their fellow maggots. Only a few left to screw things up. That's going to change soon, sane people hope.

Did you think it's the PRESIDENT who moves alone to change the embargo itself? You really need to do your homework.