Transcript of Cuba Trade (Cuba series pt. 1) [Bill Kelly Reporting] Tom Reiber has been a pretty successful farmer on the acreage he shares with family near Gibbon. When he'd haul the harvest to the Cargill elevator in town, there'd be talk how it would help to sell more grain overseas. But foreign trade was all in the abstract. And Cuba? [Tom Reiber, farmer, Gibbon, Neb.] "Never thought about it. I guess. I just never thought about it." [Kelly] Then Cargill asked Tom to join a small delegation to Havana to promote American grain. They visited a poultry farm run by Cuba's socialist government outside of town. [Reiber] The machinery they did have was very old and just pieced together. [Kelly] It was there that Tom Reiber found out how much Cuba, this enemy of the United States, wanted American farm products. [Reiber] "But the big thing is those people recognized the quality of American grain. They wanted us to smell it. They wanted us to taste it…and they recognized that good quality and that makes you proud." [Kelly] That grain was among some of the first the United States government allowed into Cuba in almost forty years and then only because it was labeled "humanitarian aid." The Cargill Corporation will not talk publically about that trip, but for one farmer from Gibbon Nebraska, this was foreign policy in the first person. [Reiber] "They need the food. They need something to eat. We feed the people and make them comfortable then they on their own will want to step up. It's just human nature." [Kelly] All over Havana Cuba, the images of Cuba's martyred diety of the Socialist revolution, Che Guevera keeps watch. The street musicians sing passionately of the Commandante's beloved presence: "Your revolutionary love, Leads you to a new enterprise" declare the lyrics. Well, the new enterprise is not yet free enterprise, but the realities of the new Cuba have opened doors for American agri-business. [Pedro Alvarez Borrego, Chairman, Alimport] "Now let me take this opportunity to pass an invitation to the Nebraska producers to come here on a business trip so we can discuss contracts..." [Kelly] Under a youthful portrait of Fidel Castro, in a bleak Soviet era conference room, Pedro Alvarez, the Cuban government's top trade official made his sales pitch to a delegation of journalism students from the University of Nebraska: [Alvarez] "Our wish is to have those links re-established. Our doors are open. Our friendship is sincere, as well as our desire to increase our purchases and business with the United States." [Kelly] How the rhetoric has changed in four long decades. [Narration of 1960's US Air Force Film] "He [Castro] promises his people freedom. Instead he gives them bondage as Russia's first satillite in the Caribbean." [Kelly] Fideo Castro seized control of the Cuban government in 1959. One of his first acts was to seize private property and put it in state control…including businesses owned by American companies. This Cold War ally of the Soviet Union was too close to America's shores, especially when nuclear missles appeared on the island. [Air Force Film] "In one giant step, Russia is giving Cuba an offensive nuclear capability that can strike at the heart of the United States." [Jaime Suchlicki, Director, Institute for Cuban American Studies, University of Miami] "The objective of the Kennedy administration was not to over throw the Cuban regime but to say 'look this is unacceptable. You have taken American property without paying for it and we will maintain the embargo until that happens.'" [Kelly] At the Insistitute for Cuban American Studies in Miami, Jaime Suchlicki claims for years the embargo made little impact, while the Russians pumped up to a million dollars a day into Castro's economey. [Suchlicki] "Since the Soviety Union collapsed, Cuba became obviously a bankrupt econemy so the embargo added to that bankruptcy and showed that this system of communism or socialism or whatever you call it only works when it is subsidized by a foreign power." [Kelly] Only in the past five years have there been any signs of a recovery, and it's the face of Cuba shown on the official tours. This is Cuba's dollar economy. The restoration of historic Old Havana attracts European and Canadian tourists and fills the government owned restaurants for rum drinks and island music. It's been possible only through foreign investment and outside aid. The Cubans here make a decent wage and even better tips in the currency of preference: US dollars. Much of the rest of the country clearly struggles as Castro attempts to maintain the appearances of the Socialist ideal: providing a minimum standard of living for all its citizens…free health care, education and a gaurenteed food ration. [Antonio Jorge] "The ration has become skimpier. It has become small with the passage of time. Amounts granted to people have been decreasing since its inception in 1962." [Kelly] It is a damning observation from a surprising source. Antonio Jorge, was once Castro's chief economist, and is now in exile in the U.S. [Jorge] Only the very small children get a ration of milk, because cattle production is down. [Kelly] Running low on milk for children is not a political discussion for Nerka. The milk pot she took from her refridgerator makes it all real. She took us on a tour of the home she shares with her children. In Havana, they call it "living in the caves" because so often the interiors of the old buildings open up to the sky. Every Cuban …regardless of income…gets a ration book to collect the governments free food when its available. With it Nerka picked up the week's bread ration for her family. In this country, she explains, everyone is always hungry. [Nerka, Havana resident] I am hungry, baby hungry, everyone hungry, Cuba hungry [Kelly, on camera] The embargo mystifies the Cuban government and its citizens, rich and poor. It's something of a joke among the tourists from France, Italy, Spain and Russia who fill the streets and beaches, while their corporations unload their products in the port. [Kelly] Cubans milled this flour from wheat imported from Italy and France, and now its on its way inland to be made into bread. American agri-business would very much like a share of this market, but as long as the Capitol building remains in Castro's control, President Bush will not allow the embargo to be lifted. At the US Capitol, a growing number of Republicans have split with the administration's hard line on Cuba. [Senator Chuck Hagel, Nebraska] They need trade, they need relationships, their people know that. And I think the United States is making a mistake not to be part of that now. [Kelly] Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel no longer believes Castro is a threat worth isolating with an embargo. [Hagel] This is a toothless old Tiger sitting down there and everybody in the world trades with him, has a relationship with him except essentially one of his closest neighbors. And I think we are far better off to change that policy; understand what he is of course. I mean, he isn't going to change who he is. You're not going to rehabilitate Castro. [Kelly] To find out why, you start on Calle Oche… 8th Street… the main street in Little Havana, Miami Florida, USA. This neighborhood… filled with generations of men and women who fled the island's dictatorship… lined with memorials to those who gave their lives in the name of Cuba's freedom… these 28 square blocks fuel the passionate debate that keeps Fidel Castro isolated. Their representative in Congress is a Cuban American, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen. [Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Miami, Fla.] I don't feel pressure from my community to vote a certain way on the embargo. That is something that was part of my make up and my being. It defines me as what I am, whether I would be running for office or not. It is so much a part of me, that quest for freedom for the enslaved Cuban people. [Kelly] And in a non-descript office building just blocks from Calle Oche resides the most active opposition to lifting the embargo, the Cuban American National Foundation. [Joe Garcia, Cuban American National Foundation] This is an evil that is beyond what is conceivable for most Americans. That is why we believe it must be obliterated. [Kelly] Joe Garcia, the Foundations director, knows the Cuban American community delivers a lot of votes to politicians tough on Castro. But he argues passionately that maintaining the embargo goes beyond election year politics. [Garcia] This is a regime where there is a block committee man who watches your behavior on every block. This is a regime which controls your behavior not only in high school and college but in grade school up. This is a regime that is dominating and controling. This as bad as we thought about the Soviet Union and it's ninty miles from the United States. [Kelly] The political clout of this community in Congressional and Presidential elections is legendary. For those advocating an end to the embargo that influence can be frustrating. [Congressman Tom Osborne, Nebraska] They… they have their agenda and… there is a deep-seated hatred of Castro and… so these people have a political agenda; they want him removed. [Kelly] Congressman Tom Osborne sits on the Cuba Working Group with other representatives hoping to open up trade. [Osborne] … because for forty years we've had a policy that has banned trade, banned travel and it certainly hasn't worked. And I guess I've drawn the analogy from time to time that if you were running a certain football play and you ran it for forty years and it didn't work, you'd probably try something different. [Ros-Lehtine] We say its been 40 years of every other country to engage with Fidel Castro and that hasn't brought on any change either. [Garcia] I want to help the US farmer , but I certainly don't want to help a dictatorship. [Kelly] We may be in the process of finding out if that is true. The first shipments of food and pharmacueticals from the United States were allowed into Cuba this past year because of a Humanitarian Aid bill sponsered by Senator Hagel, among others. [Hagel] When you open societies that is the best course of action for people who are being abused and who have lost their human rights. [Kelly] And American corporations are certainly lining up to take advantage of the market opportunities opened up under the banner of humanitarian aid. Nebraksa's ConAgra is one of them, although they refused to return phone calls about their Cuba commodity sales and the criticism of the Cuban Americans against dealing with Castro. [Antonio Jorge, Institute for Cuban American Studies] So why all of a sudden are senators and congressmen and businesses so interested in a few dollars more as Clint Eastwood would say? Why this amazing degree of greediness? [Kelly] Food rations for the Cuban people have not increased, and there is no sign of additional meat or bread in the markets. Leaders in Castro's government say the amount of grain arriving from the US… while measured in the tons… is still too small to make a daily difference. And if people are hungry, well Cuba's top trade official told the Nebraska delegation, people shouldn't complain about the size of the handout. They only have themselves to blame. [Jose Alvarex, Chairman, Alimport] "Those who want to purchase additional commodities should go to work, make more money and go to the store." [Antonio Jorge] So don't tell me anymore about how the Nebraska farmers lose sleep over the Cuban children being under nourished. [Kelly] One Nebraska farmer, Tom Reiber of Gibbon, has more of a moral tug of war in his heart than you might expect. His visit to Cuba both made him understand how selling his grain to Castro could help and hurt. [Reiber] I'm really on the fence. I've been asked, well who do you agree with: Jimmy Carter or President Bush. I see both sides. [Kelly] This coming after the biggest surprise of his short trip… an unexpected summons to have dinner with President Fidel Castro. [Reiber] The tourists. He wants the tourist trade. That he mentioned more than anything else. Then when they get those dollars they can buy more food, more grain. [Kelly] And at the end of dinner, a special gift, which is how Tom Reiber came to possess both some of the world's best cigars, and a much deeper understanding of how …for better or worse…a load of grain from Gibbon may tip the balance in one of America's most enduring foreign policy challenges. Reporting for STATEWIDE from Havana Cuba, I'm Bill Kelly.