The Cuban Embargo: The Domestic Politics of an American Foreign Policy PDF
Preview The Cuban Embargo: The Domestic Politics of an American Foreign Policy
THE 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
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