Listening to Cuba

My father, a successful Cuban lawyer in the 1950’s, listened to Castro and like my mother was persuaded to support the revolution–he ran guns for the insurgents. In 1959 he was offered a position in the new government but turned it down when he realized his mistake: there would be no new democracy as promised. This led him to help with the Bay of Pigs invasion and ultimately cost him his life. My mother escaped to the US with only her four children and the clothes on our backs. Like many Cuban refugees we started with nothing but each other and a bitter lesson in the dangers of listening to Castro.

Asked about Cuba’s new president during the last Democratic debate, Mr. Obama said he was willing to meet with Raúl Castro “without preconditions”. Mrs. Clinton said “I would not meet with him until there was evidence that change is happening.” At a Town Hall Meeting in Rock River Ohio, Mr. McCain said “I don’t know why in the world you would want to sit down with Raul Castro under no conditions for it. I have no idea what that would do except perhaps enhance the prestige of a guy who was really the enforcer for Fidel Castro for long periods of time.”

Whatever prestige the Castro brothers have enjoyed since turning Cuba into a communist state has not been due to any U.S. presidents being willing to meet with them and listen. It’s never happened. Arguably, rebukes such as McCain’s and Clinton’s have only fueled the regime’s propaganda machine. For nearly fifty years we’ve stood our ground, refused to listen, and where has that left us? At the same impasse we were at in 1960.

When we lived in Ohio in the early 1960’s every Sunday after church our fa