Table Of ContentTHE CUBAN EMBARGO
THE
CUBAN
EMBARGO
The Domestic Politics of an
American Foreign Policy
Patrick J. Haney & Walt Vanderbush
UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH PRESS
Published by the University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, Pa. 15260
Copyright © 2005, University of Pittsburgh Press
All rights reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America
Printed on acid-free paper
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Haney, Patrick Jude.
The Cuban embargo : the domestic politics of an American foreign policy / Patrick J.
Haney and Walt Vanderbush.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8229-5863-5(pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Economic sanctions, American—Cuba. 2. United States—Foreign economic
relations—Cuba. 3. Cuba—Foreign economic relations—United States. I. Vanderbush,
Walt. II. Title.
HF1500.5.U5H362005
327.1'17—dc22
2004015828
Contents
Preface vii
List of Abbreviations xi
1 Introduction: The Changing Politics
of the Cuban Embargo 1
2 The Making of an Embargo:
U.S.-Cuban Relations, 1959–1980 11
3 The Reagan Administration and
the Cuban American National Foundation 31
4 The Reagan Administration, Cuba, and the Cold War 53
5 The Rise of Congress and the Fall of the Cold War:
The George H. W. Bush Administration 74
6 The Road to Helms-Burton:
The First Clinton Administration 92
7 The President Strikes Back 110
with Philip Brenner
8 George W. Bush and the Struggle for Control 131
9 Conclusion 155
Notes 171
Bibliography 201
Index 215
Preface
In this book we explore the politics behind U.S. foreign policy toward
Cuba and how the dynamics that drive policy toward the island have
changed since 1980. Many analyses of the U.S. embargo policy focus on
the stability of that policy over time. It is hard to argue with this view: the
embargo has been in place since the Eisenhower administration. But we
have been drawn more to the story of impressive change that lies just be-
neath the surface stability of the embargo. And this is why we begin by
focusing on the Reagan years: the period when the Cuban American Na-
tional Foundation (CANF) was founded, a time when the president used
the threat from Cuba as an instrument to focus attention on the broader
threat from communism in the hemisphere, and an era when the executive
began to reach out to private groups to help move a new assertive anti-
communist foreign policy. The Reagan administration’s partnership with
CANFand its charismatic leader, Jorge Mas Canosa, was a key part of this
strategy; and it was successful in terms of helping to strengthen pro-
embargo forces and to tighten the embargo, at least in the short run. But
over time the political dynamics set in motion in the 1980s would serve to
erode both presidential control of Cuba policy and the embargo policy
itself. By the time that George W. Bush was sworn in as the forty-third
president of the United States, control over the embargo had shifted to
Congress, when the embargo policy was codified into law in 1996in the
controversial Helms-Burton legislation. In addition, Congress had moved
to allow some commerce between the United States and Cuba and had
taken control of the ban against open travel by Americans to Cuba—a
ban that seems on its last leg. And now the strongest opponents of the
strict embargo policy are not liberal Democrats, but a mix of free traders
and conservative farm state legislators from both parties. A lot has changed
since Ike and JFK imposed the embargo, and the changes will likely con-
tinue for the next administration. The goal of this book is to understand
vii
these changing dynamics, the rushing river underneath the frozen surface
of the embargo.
We began to write together on American foreign policy toward Cuba
because it was a subject of mutual interest to a student of U.S. foreign pol-
icy and a specialist on Latin America who found themselves together in a
small college town in southwestern Ohio. Our work began by exploring
the creation of CANF in order to see how the real story of its birth and
growth, and its links to the new Reagan administration, pushed our con-
ventional view of the role of ethnic interest groups in foreign policy. A
conference paper turned into an article, and at the urging of our colleague
Phil Brenner we next turned our attention to the politics of Cuba policy in
the 1990s and how that had changed starting with the Reagan years. A
scholar-practitioner recently said to us by email that studying Cuba policy is
an addicting topic that defies logic. It’s certainly addicting. And we’ve been
trying to understand the complicated logic that has developed around Cuba
policy over time. This book has been our primary vehicle for doing so.
This project is a collective effort, and we have many people to thank.
We have given papers at many conferences since our first American Po-
litical Science Association panel in 1997and would like to thank the other
panelists and discussants who have helped us along the way. Earlier ver-
sions of some of the work that we present here have appeared in print,
and we would like to thank the editors and reviewers of these pieces for
all their help. We published some of the material on the emergence of
CANFin the 1980s in International Studies Quarterly(June 1999), and an
article on Cuba and the first Clinton administration in Political Science
Quarterly(Fall 1999). We also published a case study on Helms-Burton in
a collection of cases edited by Ralph Carter for CQ Press, Contemporary
Cases in U.S. Foreign Policy: From Trade to Terrorism(2002). We also pub-
lished an article with Phil Brenner on the period between 1998and 2001in
International Studies Perspectives(2002), a revised version of which appears
in the newest edition of Eugene Wittkopf and James M. McCormick’s
reader, The Domestic Sources of American Foreign Policy (2003). We also
published a paper about the late 1990s in the journal Congress and the Presi-
dency(2002).
Many individuals in and out of government were gracious with their
time (once they realized we were at the otherMiami we think they thought
viii Preface
we couldn’t do much harm), including especially Jose Sorzano, Richard
Nuccio, Richard V. Allen, Steve Vermillion, Elliot Abrams, the Honorable
Lincoln Diaz-Balart, and Dan Fisk. We particularly benefited from the
period that Dan Fisk was out of government and was able to provide us
many insights, as well as having time to write on this topic himself.
We have many colleagues to thank for all their help, including Phil
Brenner, Ralph Carter, Gillian Gunn Clissold, Doug Foyle, Ole Holsti,
Peter Kornbluh, Lynn Kuzma, Bill Mandel, Chuck Myers, Keith Shimko,
Maria de los Angeles Torres, and Eugene Wittkopf. At Miami University
we appreciate the support from the College of Arts and Science and the
Department of Political Science and wish to thank Ryan Barilleaux, Sheila
Croucher, Chris Kelley, Phil Russo, Melanie Ziegler, and the many gradu-
ate and undergraduate assistants who have helped us out along the way.
We would like to thank Nathan MacBrien and the staff of the University
of Pittsburgh Press, our copy editor Leslie Evans, and the anonymous re-
viewers of the manuscript, all of whom were very helpful with this project.
And on a personal note we would like to thank each other, and Mac and
Joe for their hospitality at key moments in the life of this project. Finally,
we want to thank our families and our spouses, Kristin and Maureen, for
all their patience and support. All these people have helped make this a
better book; all remaining weaknesses are solely ours.
Preface ix
