A long wait for little change

Fidel Castro’s resignation as Cuba’s president arrived on a long-awaited yet disappointing day for U.S. leaders who unsuccessfully worked for decades to help bring about his government’s collapse.

Almost from the time Castro seized power in 1959, U.S. leaders have shaped their policies around their confidence that the communist regime on Florida’s doorstep soon would give way to a democratic and pro-U.S. government.

Yet Castro has survived the assassination attempts, a tightening U.S. trade embargo, economic crises and even the fall of his patrons in the Soviet Union.

Through 10 U.S. administrations, Castro’s government has remained in place.

Now, even at the epochal moment of his departure, U.S. hopes for dramatic change are muted. Limited steps toward economic liberalization are possible, but no one is forecasting the advent of Western-style political freedoms anytime soon.

Instead, the approaching changes may at best resemble Chinese economic reforms, except on a tiny, Cuban scale.

Forecasts of Castro’s demise “have been a pipe dream from the beginning, and they still are,” said Wayne S. Smith, a former U.S. State Department official. “This government has been far more durable, and more flexible, than people here gave him credit for.”

As a result, the authoritarian cast of Fidelismo could remain in place for years to come, whether U.S. policymakers stick with harsh measures or turn to engagement.

Given the political clout of thousands of anti-Castro Cuban Americans, rapid changes in the U.S. embargo are unlikely, especially in an election year. Whether the next administration alters that stance depends in large part on political changes in Cuba.

Sen. Barack Obama, a Democratic presidential contender who favors engagement with U.S. adversaries, said Tuesday that he would like to ease the embargo against Cuba, but demanded the release of political prisoners. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton called for a “transition to democracy” in Cuba.

Sen. John McCain, the Republican presidential front-runner, welcomed Castro’s resignation but said it was “nearly a half century overdue.”

The rise of Castro, the son of a Spanish immigrant, was a challenge to Washington from the beginning. The Caribbean island symbolized the threatening proximity of revolution, and when Castro allowed Russian missiles on his territory during the height of the Cold War, it brought the United States as close as it has ever come to nuclear war.

One U.S. president after another tried to rid himself of Castro through invasion, assassination and economic blockade. The current U.S. policy is built around the tough Helms-Burton Act of 1996, which codified the U.S. trade and travel embargo, penalizes foreign countries that invest in Cuba and prohibited normalization of relations as long as Castro or his brother Raul are in charge.

U.S. officials have long predicted that Castro’s system would collapse out of economic weakness, or falter because of its heavy dependence on the charismatic personality of one man.

But Castro showed his flexibility in the early 1990s when Cuba faced its greatest crisis, in the fracturing of the Soviet Union. Its passing deprived Havana of more than $4 billion a year in subsidies, as well as a world ideology that lent the regime importance among its citizens and special status in the hemisphere.

Cubans suffered.

“People thought it was the end for Cuba,” said Peter DeShazo, a former U.S. State Department official now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. In 1993, a Miami journalist, Andres Oppenheimer, visited Cuba and wrote a book titled “Castro’s Final Hour.”

But Castro found a way to keep his government together. He opened his economy, to a limited extent, to foreign investment, including joint ventures and a flourishing tourism trade that brought the cash of thousands of Europeans and Latin Americans.

In the last few years, Castro has found an important new partner in Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who shows his admiration for Castro by subsidizing the island with 56,000 barrels of oil a day.

As Castro approached his 81st year, U.S. leaders and regime critics were watching for signs of mortality. And when, in July 2006, Castro temporarily turned over power to Raul because of an intestinal illness, many were overjoyed.

Castro’s Cuban American foes in Miami danced in the streets, and some said in interviews that they were debating whether to return to the island immediately to reclaim their lost property or to wait a few weeks, Smith, the former State Department official, remembered.

But Castro survived, and it became clear that turning over power to Raul was part of a long-laid script for a gradual shift to minimize the chances of political upheaval. Castro, who had one of the longest tenures as head of state, took greater care than many other authoritarian leaders to try to perpetuate what he had created.

And it is clear that Fidel Castro will be maintaining at least a spiritual presence in the government as it takes a new shape, probably around younger leaders. He remains Communist Party chief, a member of the parliament, and probably will be elected Sunday to the 31-member Council of State.

Daniel P. Erikson, director of Caribbean programs at the Inter-American Dialogue, a research group in Washington, said Castro’s regime has proved more durable than expected for several reasons.

It had more staying power because it grew out of a domestic revolution, unlike those, for example, in Soviet-dominated Eastern Europe, he said. Castro has been fortunate to find wealthy international allies. And the U.S. economic embargo, by isolating Cubans and fostering the sense that the country was under attack, “probably prolonged its life,” Erikson said.

Although Cuba has many notable dissidents, some analysts believe that it may be unrealistic to expect that they are now likely to begin grass-roots political ferment that will force change. The leaders of the dissidents have not been pushing for change since Castro became ill.

Some of the dissidents spoke hopefully Tuesday, but others were cautious about what comes next.

Vladimiro Roca, a former political prisoner, was quoted by Agence France-Presse saying that Castro “has done the most sensible thing.” But he said that “in any case, during a year and a half without Fidel, there have been no changes, and now there are going to be no changes either.”

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paul.richter@latimes.com