ABSTRACT
The United States has already attempted to soften the impact of the embargo on Cuba in a series of small steps and trial balloons. It has expanded telecommunications between the two nations; increased direct contact between political, cultural, academic and business personnel; and most important, limited still further what goods can or should be embargoed. The legal apparatus of the Castro government has been mobilized to squelch even the most modest forms of criticism and to frighten the non-committed and the non-political into some sort of revitalized mass mobilization. The essential position of the Clinton administration and its predecessors has been unusually consistent as well as resilient. Business interests wish to do so as an illustration of a new coda: that the bourgeoisie has no political party allegiance, only an allegiance to the bottom line and to unimpeded trade. Debate on what should be American policy toward Castro's Cuba is in fact a debate for soul of American foreign policy.
