WHY DOES CUBA STAND ALONE AMONG THE HATED?

January 10, 2002

Michael Smerconish

IT‘S TIME for a reality check now that they cigar smoke has cleared from my trip to Havana last week—which included a marathon meeting with Fidel Castro.

Am I still the guy in the blue suit, white shirt and red tie who can be counted on by KYW Newsradio or Marc Howard to say conservative things on virtually any issue, or have I returned from 48 hours in Havana as a converted commie pinko now that I have frolicked with Fidel?

You may laugh, but to those who have reacted to my series about the trip, it is one way or the other. In America, where all politics usually ends up in the middle, there is NO middle of the road, I have learned, when the subject is Cuba.

I had an inkling of this even before I departed. “Don’t fall for him,” warned my friend, conservative talk-show host Tom Marr, before I left Philadelphia. “He’ll try and charm you, but he is a murdering thing.” He was not alone. My own brother suggested I hit him with a pie.

While some viewed this as a “once-in-a-lifetime trip,”—some of my best friends thought the idea of shaking hands with the Cuban dictator was itself dirty.

Now that I’m back, I can report that many people whom I don’t know have equally strong opinions. Some Daily News readers think I sold out. (To them, I am tempted to respond, why do you think we call it the “People Paper”?)

“Your comparison of Fidel Castro to Mayor Giuliani made me sick to my stomach,” one fellow e-mailed me.

Or how about the retired brigadier general from the USAF who thinks that Michael Smerconish “fawns over this man like a long-lost ‘grandfather’”?

And the reaction hasn’t been limited to e-mail. I spoke to a secretary in Philadelphia yesterday who told me she had passed on a trip to Cuba with the World Affairs Council because she didn’t want money going into “his” hands. I told her I assumed that meant she would never go to China, either. To that she responded, “Oh, no, I have already been there!”

Isn’t that the point? Why does Cuba seem to stand alone against a rogues gallery that includes Vietnam, China, and North Korea? And what about our “good friends” Saudi Arabia and Pakistan?

Among the true believers, Cuba is more of an incendiary political issue than abortion. There is no room for rational debate on the embargo. You are for it—or against it. Period. And this is unfortunate.

Despite more than 40 years of effort, the Cuban embargo has failed miserably in its objective—to oust Castro. There were other reasons. Arguably, when the Soviet Union was strong, it posed a military threat, and there was a genuine concern about the spread of communism in Central America. But what is the justification now?

None that I see.

The time has come for Americans to think outside the political box created back in 1959. We need to accommodate our foreign policy to the reality of 2002.

And the reality is that U.S. companies do business in Cuba. You can buy Coca-Cola on the streets of Havana. Why? Because American companies have subsidiaries in Mexico.

Does this make any sense? Why not recognize the reality openly and stop the charade?

Castro knows he isn’t going to live forever. He’s surrounded by younger men who, from what I observed, want to have a relationship with the United States. Many have spent time in Cuba’s foreign service in Washington and New York. From then, I learned that there are legitimate areas of agreement.

With every other dictator in the world, we seem to develop concocted justifications for coexistence, but Florida politics dictates otherwise with Castro.

If the embargo hasn’t worked and only hurts the Cuban people, let’s come to grips and come to our senses.

MY MOTHER still likes to say that sometimes sugar works better than vinegar.

Well, for 43 years, we’ve tried the vinegar. Now it’s time to try the sugar. (And let’s not leave out the rum and cigars.)

There is one more thing. The best observation from Daily News readers had to do with my asking Fidel about the threat of an invasion by the Philadelphia Police Department:

“Frank Rizzo is laughing his a- - off,” wrote one guy.

As I think about this entire experience, Rizzo would not be alone.

Michael Smerconish’s column appears every Thursday. His website address is mastalk.com.