Policy toward Cuba in the Clinton Administration
The debates over U.S. policy toward Cuba take place within the parameters of the U.S. embargo and isolation policy toward Cuba that is a matter of law. The Helms-Burton legislation signed in 1996 after Cuban Migs shot down two planes piloted by members of the Cuban-American exile group, Brothers to the Rescue, killing four people, not only strengthened the embargo and lengthened its reach, it codified all such policies into law. The president cannot lift the economic embargo of Cuba unilaterally, as Clinton did with Vietnam; such a change must go through Congress. More interesting still, the Clinton administration surrendered this presidential prerogative largely without a fight and with little public or scholarly notice. No longer within the nearexclusive purview of the executive and a powerful interest group, in this period Cuba policy became enmeshed in electoral politics and a struggle for foreign policy power between the Congress and the president. Here we examine the politics of Cuba policy in the first term of Clinton administration. We argue that the roots of Cuba policy rest in the complex dynamics of domestic politics that surround this issue. The initiative behind Cuba policy in the first Clinton administration largely moved out of the White House and onto Capitol Hill. While this trend began before the end of the cold war, it has accelerated in recent years. It is perhaps common to argue that policy makers are hostages to the Cuban American National Foundation (CANF),1 a forceful supporter of the embargo, but the evidence suggests that the politics