Dateline Havana

Cable News Network has been trying to establish a news bureau in Havana for some time, and two months ago the Cuban government assented. Now President Clinton will have to decide whether to support the application of a U.S. news organization to report in and from Cuba. We think he should, on free press grounds and more. Restrictions on reporting are a detriment to better international relations, and particularly in this case.

At present, American correspondents can travel in and out of Cuba only at the whim of Cuban authorities. No U.S. news organization has a bureau there.

Technically, the CNN application must go through the Treasury Department, which ever since the Kennedy administration imposed an economic embargo on the Castro regime in 1961 has been responsible for licensing any U.S. company that seeks to do business in Cuba. But the issue is not technical, it is political, a sensitive decision that only the president can make.

News organizations such as CBS, the Associated Press, the Inter-American Press Assn. and the American Society of Newspaper Editors have expressed their support for CNN’s bid. CNN President Tom Johnson has been making the rounds in Washington, seeking support for the application from members of Congress and administration officials. So far, he says, he’s “guardedly optimistic.”

Some supporters of the move believe an American news bureau in Havana would hasten the downfall of Fidel Castro, but that is not a function of the press. People change governments; news bureaus don’t. Nevertheless it takes people with reliable information to build an open society.

The Associated Press was the last American news organization with a base in Cuba; its Havana bureau closed in 1969. If CNN breaks the ice, other news organizations surely will follow. President Clinton, who just last week made clear his interest in reviving the economy of a post-Castro Cuba, should see a Havana news bureau as a starting point.