Self-Embargo

Democratic politicians can rarely afford the luxury of telling the truth to the people: witness the current and fruitless debate on Cuba. Both candidates support the indefensible American blockade of that country, and both know more about the situation than they are telling whistlestop crowds.

Kennedy's point was sound when he attacked the administration's failure to identify itself with progressive reform in Latin America; he is, however, dead wrong when he talks as if the United States were in a position to do anything about Fidel Castro. At first it seemed as though Kennedy were suggesting unilateral American action to topple Castro's government, but it turns out that he was only talking loudly and brandishing a twig, for he now seems to say that what he really meant was that any U.S. action should include the other Latin American nations. Since these nations are not about to sanction U.S. intervention of any sort (which would violate the letter and the spirit of the treaties they have induced the U.S. to sign), and since any U.S. threat would remind Khrushchev of his promise last May to defend Cuba, Kennedy is actually on safe, albeit blustering and ineffectual ground.

Nixon has pointed out--correctly--that what Kennedy seems to advocate would lose us friends in the hemisphere and provoke a Cold War crisis with Russia. But Nixon has also said that we should "quarantine" Castro politically and economically, which would be a violation of the same treaties he accused Kennedy of proposing to violate. Moreover, Nixon's comparison of Cuba with Guatemala is sinister indeed, since everybody, including Nixon, knows that what the Eisenhower administration did in Guatemala is exactly the same kind of action Kennedy appeared to advocate recently.

Thus the entire debate on Cuba is a sham, as divorced from reality as anything Fidel Castro has ever said. And while the spurious debate flickers on about what the U.S. should do (when it can do nothing) so does another sham--the American embargo on Cuba trade. This is a sham, because the major commodities in the once-flourishing Cuba-U.S. trade had already been closed off prior to the embargo, and because American shippers are already transferring the few essential items that Cuba still needs from this country through Canada, which has publicly stated that it will tolerate no restrictions on its Cuba trade. The embargo is thus failing, since none of America's hemispheric allies will go along with it. And this failure is a good thing, too, for the purpose of the embargo was just what Castro said it was: an attempt to profit by the misery of a people and make them submit through hunger.

Embargo is a familiar spectre to Latin American politicians in nations dependent upon U.S. exports. Cuba is only one of many such countries which, up to now, have had to choose between being an American colony, a trade dependency of the U.S. enjoying political autonomy, or starving. If the embargo is continued, the United States will permanently alienate the people of Cuba, who, after all, are more enduring than any regime in Cuba. The United States will also alienate the people of those Latin American nations dependent upon us for their economic well-being.

Since there is little chance that the United States can trigger an internal revolt against Castro without meeting the oppositionof Latin America, it would be well for Kennedy and Nixon to admit that little can be done with Cuba while the American people are incapable of accepting any compromise. Castro may yet learn that he cannot impose unlimited drafts on the endurance and loyalty of the Cuban people, and any Cuban regime which hopes to carry out his ambitious social programs will need aid. But there will be no hope for at least a neutralist Cuba, accepting aid from both East and West, until the embargo goes.

The hardest policy to advocate in an aroused democracy is one of patience and inaction. Both Kennedy and Nixon know that nothing can be done about Castro at the present time, but both are trapped by their own rhetoric. It will be a revelation if either has the courage, as President, to lift the Cuban embargo and attempt to salvage what we can from this disaster.