Speech #960235586

I have long believed that it is in the American interest to have diplomatic and economic relations with Cuba. Our failure to do so has allowed the Soviet Union to develop Cuba into a surrogate for Soviet plans. The current communications and diplomatic confusion over the Cuban refugees points up the weakness of our present policy of turning our backs on Cuba and letting others dominate the scene. Problems with Cuba go back at least to the years following the Second World War when our policy of containment brought us strange political bedfellows in a number of countries around the globe. The litmus test for U.S. support was simply an antiCommunist pledge.