Carter-Castro courtship: when the former peanut farmer and president recently visited Castro's island prison, he dutifully lent credibility to the bearded one's supposed reformation.

Jimmy Carter's May 12th-17th Cuban escapade at the invitation of aging despot Fidel Castro was the first time that an American president, in or out of office, had visited Cuba since Castro's 1959 U.S.-abetted coup.

Despite occasional protesting to the contrary, Carter seemed bent on using the trip to give credibility to the Communist line. For instance, a few days prior to the trip Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security John Bolton asserted that the Castro regime has offensive biological research capability which it has shared with other "rogue states."

Castro denied it, and on the second day of his trip Mr. Carter seconded the denial after a brief tour of a biotechnology facility. The former president claimed that he specifically asked about biological weapons during a pre-trip briefing by U.S. officials, and had been told that the U.S. had no evidence that Cuba was transferring technology useful to terrorists. According to White House spokesman An Fleischer, however, the subject was never broached during Carter's May 9th briefing by National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice.

Carter also claimed that Undersecretary Bolton's allegation had been conjured up to undermine his trip. But it was subsequently revealed that the matter had first surfaced weeks earlier, during congressional testimony by the assistant secretary of state for intelligence and research on March 19th.

On the day of Carter's arrival, Castro advised his guest to "express yourself freely whether or not we agree with part of what you say or with everything you say. You will have free access to every place you want to go." The next day, Carter delivered a major address at the University of Havana. It was broadcast live and uncensored, in Spanish, on Cuban state TV and radio.

Recalling how he had worked as president to normalize relations with Communist China in 1979, Mr. Carter expressed his hope that "Congress will soon act to permit unrestricted travel between the United States and Cuba, establish open trading relationships, and repeal the embargo." This despite Castro's claim in the aftermath of 9-11 that the U.S.-led war on terrorism was "worse than the original attacks, militaristic, and fascist."

Varela Project

The former president mildly scolded Castro's human rights record while lauding the Varela Project that recently submitted to Cuba's National Assembly some 11,280 petition signatures calling for a referendum on sundry human rights issues. Under Cuba's constitution, 10,000 signatures are required to compel the assembly to consider and vote on holding a referendum; the petitioners barely made it.

The New York Times reported on May 17th that prior to Carter's mention of the Varela Project, the petition campaign "had been subjected to a news blackout in the state-run media." But not only was the Carter plug for the petition drive condoned on state-controlled TV, a subsequent issue of Granma (official newspaper of Cuba's Communist Party) devoted five of its eight pages to the former president's speech, including his support for the petition drive and his response to those in the audience who denounced it. Some dissidents, the Times noted, "have rejected the project as playing into Mr. Castro's hands because it is being done within the framework of the Communist system, which they consider illegitimate."

The Varela Project is named in honor of The Reverend Felix Varela, a Cuban-born priest who opposed slavery and was an advocate for the poor in New York for three decades. He died in Florida in 1853, and his ashes are kept in the University of Havana's Great Hall where Carter spoke. The project was instigated by Cuban dissident Oswaldo Paya, who in 1988 founded the independent Christian Liberation Movement [CLM]. The petition began circulating in September 1999, and the signatures were submitted to the National Assembly two days prior to Carter's arrival. Paya has described Jimmy Carter as "a symbol of the defense of human rights."

Paya and others associated with the Varela Project contend that Castro's agents attempted to thwart their efforts. The May 12th Wall Street Journal paraphrased Paya as saying that police had seized about 5,000 of the signatures and that "several thousand other signatures were fakes, planted by government infiltrators intent on ultimately sabotaging the validity of the petition." Yet the police state tactics fell just short of scuttling the petition drive. Some observers speculate that the Castro regime may have purposely allowed the petition project to reach its current stage, both to gain access to a ready-made list of disgruntled critics, and to pave the way for transforming Cuba's image as a hardline Communist satrapy to a respectably "moderate" collectivist partner in the developing new world order.

Carter lamented during his speech that the U.S. has not adopted a system of socialized medicine, asserting that "for more than a quarter century, we have struggled unsuccessfully to guarantee the basic right [sic] of universal health care for our people." In contrast, he claimed, Cuba has a "superb" system of health care.

Mr. Carter also boasted that when he became president in 1977 "there were only two democracies in South America, and one in Central America," while "today, almost every country in the Americas is a democracy." He did not, needless to say, mention that it was during his administration that the government of Iran was transferred from the pro-American Shah to an anti-American religious fanatic who captured and held hostage more than 50 Americans for more than a year; that the Communist Sandinistas in Nicaragua were encouraged in their efforts to overthrow the pro-American government of Anastasio Somoza; that the crucial steps were taken to surrender our Panama Canal to an unstable Marxist regime in Panama; and that pro-Western Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) was formally transferred to the Marxist side of the ledger.

Good Cop, Bad Cop

Carter closed his understandably uncensored address by expressing the "hope that Americans will soon open our arms to you and say 'We welcome you as our friends.'" Having played the role (from Castro's perspective) of "good cop," it was now up to President Bush to play "bad cop." During his May 20th address in Washington and Miami, the president revealed his own "Initiative for a New Cuba." In sharp rhetorical contrast to Carter's approach, he branded Castro a "tyrant" and "dictator" who has, during a "career of oppression," "turned a beautiful island into a prison."

Bush told his Miami audience that "full normalization of relations with Cuba, diplomatic recognition, open trade, and a robust aid program will only -- only -- be possible when Cuba has a new government that is fully democratic; when the rule of law is respected; and when the human rights of all Cubans are protected." Meanwhile, "the United States will continue to enforce economic sanctions on Cuba, and the ban on travel to Cuba, until Cuba's government proves that it is committed to real reform." Also, "we will continue to prohibit U.S. financing for Cuban purchases of U.S. agricultural goods, because this would just be a foreign aid program in disguise..."

Nevertheless, Bush also announced adjustments in current U.S. policy that would ease restrictions on humanitarian assistance by certain U.S. religious and other non-governmental organizations with U.S. taxpayers providing such groups "direct assistance that can be used for humanitarian and entrepreneurial activities." Also, "our government will offer scholarships in the United States for Cuban students and professionals who try to build independent civil institutions in Cuba, and scholarships for family members of political prisoners." And, the administration is "willing to negotiate direct mail service between the United States and Cuba."

The "collapse" of the Soviet Union, and transformation of formerly Communist countries in Eastern Europe, resulted in regimes largely run or dominated by old Communist wolves in new, "moderate" sheep's clothing. Apparently, that strategy has metastasized to our own hemisphere.