The Foreign Service Journal, June 2014

42 JUNE 2014 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL door collecting signatures of every adult in the country. But we didn’t have to be successful; we simply had to do what we could to support the activists and give them hope for change. Fidel Castro was not pleased with our outreach, to put it mildly; he hated my little radios. But Cubans loved them because for the first time in decades, they had access to information not controlled by the state. They now had a choice between tuning into Fidel’s speeches, or the BBC or Voice of America. Dissidents could also listen to Radio Marti simply by taking the portable radios to a location where jamming was ineffective. Castro demanded that we cease distributing the radios. When I refused, he retaliated by gathering some 20,000 people together at Miramar—a large public housing complex on the other side of Havana Bay—to condemn our actions. Undaunted, I attended the rally alongside the chief of the consular section and our human rights officer. Castro was so shocked that for the first time ever, he did not speak at the rally even though he was on stage. When I returned to the office after the event, which was car- ried on Cuban radio and TV, prominent human rights activist Felix Bonne was waiting for me. Bonne had been a professor of engineering at the University of Havana before being fired for views incompatible with those of the Communist Party hierar- chy. He was then sent to jail for writing and publishing, along with three other well-known, respected Cuban dissidents, a book titled La Patria Es de Todos (The Country Is for Everyone) . Felix began with praise and then delivered a warning. He told me that though I seemed to him like a colonel leading her troops, I had better be sure I had chosen a battle I could win. He reminded me that I must protect our bilateral relationship. I knew that he was right. If the Cuban government closed USINT, as Fidel had threatened, we could no longer speak on behalf of the dissidents. Nor would we be able to effectively advocate for them if they were abused or jailed. So, to defuse the conflict, I lowered my profile. But we continued distributing our “little radios”—just more quietly. Bilateral Relations Today My team and I successfully balanced doing things the Cuban government disliked—handing out radios and books around the country, and supporting human rights activ- ists—with maintaining a professional and productive relationship that gained Fidel Castro’s cooperation with our military at Guan- tanamo Base. I am not sure how much longer we could have maintained this delicate balance. But one thing is certain: it did not last long after my departure. Although President George W. Bush had initially main- tained and even expanded the Clinton measures that allowed people-to-people travel, the policy had already begun to change as Jeb Bush sought the support of the Cuban-American community for a second term as governor of Florida. My suc- cessor as principal officer was encouraged to publicly confront the Cuban government, even as the administration began to reduce travel licenses to Cuba. Hostile rhetoric from both sides increased. The distribution of radios and books was significantly reduced when the Cuban government curtailed travel by U.S. diplomats to Havana, in response to our government’s decision to restrict Cuban diplomats to within 25 miles of Washington, D.C. Then, as tensions heightened, the Cuban government jailed 75 committed human rights activists, independent jour- nalists and trade unionist. Bilateral relations did not begin to thaw until after the Obama administration took office in 2009, when Havana began releasing some of the human rights activists who had been detained. Currently, our relationship is constructive, and travel to Cuba by Americans exceeds the levels reached during the Clinton administration. But we have never regained the momentum that led to the Cuban Spring of 2002. An Amazing Job I consider myself very fortunate to have been selected to manage our relations with Cuba in Havana 15 years ago. While leading the interests section was an adventure, and great fun, it was also frustrating and infuriating. Yet the assignment afforded me opportunities to make difficult decisions, and to make a real difference. It also taught me—and perhaps some Cubans and Cuban- Americans, as well—that despite our fundamentally different points of view on many topics, there was no reason we could not work together to resolve some of our differences. All in all, it was an amazing job—the best of my Foreign Service career. n Castro was so shocked I attended the rally that, for the first time ever, he did not speak even though he was on stage.