| Show My Fathers Father's stand on Cuba travel Kathleen Kennedy Kennedy Kennedy Ken Ken- nedy Townsend Special to The Washington Washington Washington Wash Wash- ington Post The present travel restrictions are inconsistent with traditional American liberties the U.S. then-U.S. attorney general argued in ina a the scenes debate over the ban on US U.S. citizens traveling to Cuba I hope that this will soon be the position advanced by Attorney General Eric H. H Holder Jr as the administration ponders its next step on Cuba which should be to move beyond allowing only Cuban Americans to travel freely to the island and to address the rights of all Americans most of whom are still not free to go In fact this position was put forth by the attorney general in 1963 my father Robert Kennedy The history of his efforts to end prosecutions of US U.S. citizens who challenged the travel ban and to rescind those restrictions altogether supports including travel for as part of the new beginning with Cuba that President commendably announced at the Summit of the Americas last weekend In December 1963 the Justice Department was preparing to prosecute four members of the Student Committee for Travel to Cuba who had led a group of 59 college-age college Americans on a trip to Havana My father opposed those prosecutions as well as the travel ban itself The prohibition only enticed more students to defy the ban he believed and more were likely to travel to Cuba over the coming Christmas vacation There are realistically only two courses open to tous tous tous us in these circumstances he wrote in a Dec 12 1963 confidential memorandum to Secretary of S State ate Dean Rusk First to make every effort to curtail trips to Cuba two to withdraw the existing regulation prohibiting such trips The first is unlikely to meet the problem and I favor the second My fathers father's principal argument for lifting the theban theban theban ban was simply that restricting Americans' Americans right to travel went against the freedoms that he had sworn to protect as attorney general Lifting the ban he argued would be more consistent with our views as a free society and would contrast with such things as the Berlin Wall Walland and Communist controls on such travel Despite its clarity my fathers father's position did not carry the day Instead the Johnson WhiteHouse White WhiteHouse WhiteHouse House sided with the arguments put forth by bythe bythe bythe the State Department relaxation would appear as a softening of our policy toward Cuba our travel controls are part of a joint effort by the US U.S. and other American Republics to isolate Cuba and a relaxation of US U.S. restrictions would make it very difficult for forus forus forus us to urge Latin American governments to prevent their nationals from going to Cuba six Forty-six years later however none of these arguments remains a relevant justification for fora a punitive policy that violates the constitutional rights of US U.S. citizens to freely travel abroad The original rationale for the ban to ensure the United States did not appear hypocritical when it pressured Latin American nations to block their youth from flocking to Cuba has long been relegated to the dustbin of history Since the mid when the Organization of ot American States voted to o lift multilateral trade sanctions against Cuba most Latin Americans have been free freeto to travel to the island and many have In recent months the presidents of Brazil Chile Argentina Venezuela Guatemala and the Dominican Republic among other leaders have paid high- high profile visits to Havana to meet with Raul and Fidel Castro making very public statements to their countrymen and to Washington that there is nothing wrong with going to Cuba Those same leaders are making a joint effort effort to engage the Castro regime and reintegrate the island into the Western Hemisphere As learned at last weekends weekend's summit the Latin American leaders have adopted a coordinated message on Cuba This is the time to normalize relations with Havana and take Cuba off the hemispheric agenda for good By continuing to try to isolate Cuba they essentially told Washington has succeeded only in isolating itself Much as there is no longer an international constituency that wants the United States to maintain a hard line on Cuba there is no longer a domestic constituency CNN polling this month found that 64 percent of US U.S. citizens support free travel to Cuba and that 71 percent believe that Washington should fully frilly restore diplomatic relations More important for the presidents president's political calculations 67 percent of Cuban Americans in the Miami area favor lifting restrictions on travel to Cuba for all US U.S. citizens according to a Bendixen and Associates poll released this week declaration last weekend There are critical steps we can take toward a new day in U.S.-Cuban U.S. relations and his hid decision td td I rescind all restrictions on Cuban American travel could become momentous steps toward ending five decades of hostility in Washington's approach to Havana The next step should be a White WhiteHouse WhiteHouse WhiteHouse House endorsement of the Freedom to Travel to Cuba Act recently introduced in Congress and a presidential initiative to restore the constitutional rights of all US U.S. citizens to travel to Cuba The goal is not only the advancement of democracy in Cuba but as Robert Kennedy believed a policy consistent with the sanctity of traditional liberties and the values of ofa a free society our own Kathleen Kennedy Townsend served as lieutenant governor of Maryland from 1995 to 2003 The documents cited above can be read on the Web site of the National Security Archive www |
