Positive Signs From Cuba U.S. Manages Not to See

The visit to Havana by Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev disappointed both the White House and the U.S. media. While the reporters waited in vain for a dramatic pronouncement, the leaders of Cuba and the Soviet Union discussed socialism and foreign policy without drama or fanfare--certainly without the bear-hugging displays that Fidel Castro enjoyed with former Soviet Premier Nikita S. Khrushchev more than 25 years ago. Those policies that were aired, however, endorsed detente with the United States and no export of revolution. This should have delighted the Bush Administration.

Rather than hail the Havana proclamations as indicative of a new and non-aggressive Soviet mood, President Bush focused on Gorbachev’s refusal to break his commitment to Nicaragua by stopping the flow of arms to Managua. The Soviets declared that they had neither strategic nor economic interests in the region, and they supported the Central American five-nation peace plan, which calls for a cutoff of outside arms supplies.

President Bush could have simply announced--and it is still not too late--that the U.S. policy, with which he has been associated for eight years, has had its effect. After all, he would remind the American public, the initial impetus for the U.S. military buildup in Central America was to prevent Soviet incursions into our back yard, or to stop another Cuba. Gorbachev’s Havana statements included a pledge to stop the arms flow to the Sandinistas as soon as the United States stops funding the Contras and arming Nicaragua’s neighbors. This, at the very least, is an opening for Bush to explore.

In fact, the Soviets have played an insignificant role in Central America, and, aside from providing Nicaragua with arms and fuel, Gorbachev is retreating from the Brezhnev-era policy of aiding liberation movements. Indeed, the Soviets are under fire from some Third World sectors for such a pullback.

Castro has said that Cuba has no strategic or economic interests in Central America. Its political and ideological interests, however, have gained it a reputation as a player. While not withdrawing moral and political support from the Sandinistas or the Salvadoran guerrillas, Castro is logistically unable to supply arms and equally impotent at offering significant economic aid to Nicaragua.

For U.S. foreign policy, which has been preoccupied with revolution in the Western Hemisphere, the important event should have been the announcement by Gorbachev and Castro that revolution is not exportable. Should President Bush and Secretary of State James A. Baker III look back and examine the rationale for the military buildup in El Salvador and the creation and maintenance of the Nicaraguan Contras, they would find the old Soviet menace staring them in the face. Now is the time to test Gorbachev’s assertions on Soviet disinterest in Central America.

The United States could declare that the Soviet threat to the region is ended, and stand in support of the plan signed by the five Central American presidents to bring an end to fighting in the region. Should signs appear that the Soviets are acting in violation of their stated intentions, the United States is still in a geographically and economically favorable position to put a stop to any shenanigans.

But the United States apparently has no clear goals, and without a Soviet bogyman, there is no policy, not even a flicker of what positive interests the United States might have in the region. We are stuck with “back-yard” policies fashioned under different political realities. Indeed, the absence of policy may have led Bush to fall back on the failed tools of the Ronald Reagan Administration. The Contras will get $50 million, in large part due to Bush’s backing, and Central American armies and police forces will receive their annual supply of U.S. military toys. In turn, the Sandinistas maintain high defense expenditures. An unacceptable political status quo results.

Perhaps the U.S. response to the Havana summit signifies not so much a rebuke to Gorbachev as a facade for a U.S. secretary of state who has neither a policy nor a policy apparatus. Baker is stuck with restatements about communist aggression and Soviet threats that he should know are out of sync with events. U.S. goals in Central America spring from either anti-Sovietism or from a desire to maintain dominance.

The Soviets aren’t planning any base-building, and no other external threats to U.S. security appear on the horizon. Immigration and drugs are problems, ecological destruction of the region is a worry, and instability rooted in social and economic inequities must be addressed. These issues cry out for policies, not the reiteration of the old bromide “our back yard is being threatened by communism.”

Baker can wipe the outdated blackboard clean and call for a new set of guidelines, so that the United States can get in step with what is happening in the rest of the world. Our friends and allies, and even our supposed adversaries would welcome this. Should Baker emerge with a bold new policy, he would be greeted as an enlightened leader in Latin America, Europe, the Soviet Union and even by a significant sector of the U.S. population.