Glacial Change in Cuba Policy

Washington’s cautious easing of restrictions on Cuba represents welcome incremental progress. This week’s announcement fell well short of a dramatic move that could nudge Cuba toward democracy and lead to more normal relations, but it had the virtue of being politically realistic.

The new U.S. policy--loosening the flow of money into Cuba and of people both ways--will reduce the isolation of the Communist country. Out-and-out tourism, Cuba’s biggest moneymaker, is excluded. But people-to-people exchanges will be allowed in the arts, sciences, religion, education and sports. The last could lead to a little baseball diplomacy. The Baltimore Orioles organization is seeking permission to play an exhibition game in baseball-crazy Cuba in March, with the Cuban national team later playing in Baltimore. Cuban charity would get the proceeds, a big help in one of the Caribbean’s poorest countries.

An easing of restrictions on sending money to Cuba will also help, as will more charter flights, direct mail service and the sale of food and agricultural supplies to Cuba’s private restaurants and farmers.

The White House rejected a bolder recommendation from four former secretaries of State to create a bipartisan commission to review U.S.-Cuba policy. That commission, endorsed by Henry Kissinger, George Shultz, William P. Rogers and Lawrence Eagleburger, could have set the stage for ending the punishing trade embargo, in place since 1960, when Cuba, then a Soviet satellite, represented a real security threat to the United States.

Times have changed and Cuba has diminished in the four decades since then. But as long as the aging Fidel Castro remains dictator, and the Cuban Americans who so despise him continue to wield political power in the United States, no big turnaround in Washington’s policy is likely. The waiting game goes on.