The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“THE FREEDOM TO TRAVEL TO CUBA ACT OF 1999” mentioning the U.S. Dept of State was published in the Senate section on pages S14524-S14525 on Nov. 10, 1999.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
THE FREEDOM TO TRAVEL TO CUBA ACT OF 1999
Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, any American who wants to travel to Iran, to North Korea, to Syria, to Serbia, to Vietnam, to just about anywhere, can do so, as long as that country gives them a visa. As far as the United States Government is concerned, they can travel there at their own risk.
Cuba, on the other hand, a country 90 miles away that poses about as much threat to the United States as a flea does to a buffalo, is off limits unless you are a journalist, government official, or member of some other special group. If not, you can only get there by breaking the law, which an estimated 10-15,000 Americans did last year.
Of all the ridiculous, anachronistic, and self-defeating policies, this has got to be near the top of the list.
For forty years, administration after administration, and Congress after Congress, has stuck by this failed policy. Yet Fidel Castro is as firmly in control today as he was in 1959, and the Cuban people are no better for it.
This legislation attempts to put some sense into our policy toward Cuba. It would also protect one of the most fundamental rights that most Americans take for granted, the right to travel freely. I commend the senior Senator From Connecticut, Senator Dodd, who has been such a strong and persistent advocate on this issue. I am proud to join him in cosponsoring this legislation, which is virtually identical to an amendment he and I sponsored earlier this year. That amendment came within 7 votes of passage.
Mr. President, in March of this year I traveled to Cuba with Senator Jack Reed. We were able to go there because we are Members of Congress.
I came face to face with the absurdity of the current policy because I wanted my wife Marcelle to accompany me as she does on most foreign trips. A few days before we were to leave, I got a call from the State Department saying that they were not sure they could approve her travel to Cuba.
I cannot speak for other Senators, but I suspect that like me, they would also not react too kindly to a policy that gives the State Department the authority to prevent their wife, or their children, from traveling with them to a country with which we are not at war and which, according to the Defense Department and the vast majority of the American public, poses no threat to our security.
I wonder how many Senators realize that if they wanted to take a family member with them to Cuba, they would probably be prevented from doing so by United States law.
Actually, because the authors of the law knew that a blanket prohibition on travel by American citizens would be unconstitutional, they came up with a clever way of avoiding that problem but accomplishing the same result. Americans can travel to Cuba, they just cannot spend any money there.
Almost a decade has passed since the collapse of the former Soviet Union. Eight years have passed since the Russians cut their $3 billion subsidy to Cuba. We now give hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to Russia.
Americans can travel to North Korea. There are no restrictions on the right of Americans to travel there, or to spend money there. Which country poses a greater threat to the United States? Obviously North Korea.
Americans can travel to Iran, and they can spend money there. The same goes for Sudan. These are countries that pose far greater threats to American interests than Cuba.
Our policy is hypocritical, inconsistent, and contrary to our values as a nation that believes in the free flow of people and ideas. It is impossible for anyone to make a rational argument that America should be able to travel freely to North Korea, or Iran, but not to Cuba. It can't be done.
We have been stuck with this absurd policy for years, even though virtually everyone knows, and says privately, that it makes absolutely no sense and is beneath the dignity of a great country.
It not only helps strengthen Fidel Castro's grip on Cuba, it hands a hug advantage to our European competitors who are building relationships and establishing a base for future investment in a post-
Castro Cuba. When that will happen is anybody's guess. President Castro is no democrat, and he is not going to become one. But it is time we pursued a policy that is in our national interest.
Let me be clear. This legislation does not, I repeat does not, lift the U.S. embargo. It is narrowly worded so it does not do that. It only permits travelers to carry their personal belongings. We are not opening a floodgate for United States imports to Cuba.
The amendment limits what Americans can bring home from Cuba to the current level for government officials and other exempt categories, which is $100.
It reaffirms the President's authority to prohibit travel in times of war, armed hostilities, or if there is imminent danger to the health or safety of Americans.
Those who want to prevent Americans from traveling to Cuba, who oppose this legislation, will argue that spending United States dollars there helps prop up the Castro Government. To some extent that is true. The government does run the economy. It also runs the schools and hospitals, maintains roads, and, like the United States Government, is responsible for the whole range of social services that benefit ordinary Cubans. Any money that goes into the Cuban economy supports those programs.
But there is also an informal economy in Cuba, because no one but the elite can survive on their meager government salary. So the income from tourism also fuels that informal sector, and it goes in to the pockets of ordinary Cubans.
It is also worth pointing out that while the average Cuban cannot survive on his or her government salary, you do not see the kind of abject poverty in Cuba that is so common elsewhere in Latin America. In Brazil, or Panama, or Mexico, or Peru, there are children searching through garbage in the streets for scraps of food, next to gleaming high rise hotels with Mercedes limousines lined up outside.
In Cuba, almost everyone is poor. But they have access to the basics. The literacy rate is 95 percent. The life expectancy is about the same as in our country, even though the health system is very basic and focused on preventive care.
The point is that while there are obviously parts of the Cuban economy that we would prefer not to support--as there is in North Korea, China, or Sudan, or in any country whose government we disagree with, much of the Cuban Government's budget benefits ordinary Cubans. So when opponents of this legislation argue that we cannot allow Americans to travel to Cuba because the money they spend there would prop up Castro, remember what they are not saying: those same dollars also help the Cuban people.
It is also worth saying that as much as we want to see a democratic Cuba, President Castro's grip on power is not going to be weakened by keeping Americans from traveling to Cuba. History has proven that. He has been there for forty years, and as far as anyone can tell he is not going anywhere.
Mr. President, it is about time we injected some maturity into our relations with Cuba. Let's have a little more faith in the power of our ideas. Let's have the courage to admit that the cold war is over. Let's get the State Department out of the business of telling our wives, our children, and our constituents where they can travel and spend their own money--in a country that the Pentagon say poses no security threat to us.
This legislation will not end the embargo, but it will do far more to win the hearts and minds of the Cuban people than the outdated approach of those who continue to defend the status quo.
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