To the editor:

Aren’t you proud of our president’s Cuba policy? How can we trade with a country where, as the president explained, the Castro dictatorship denies its people the right to express views contrary to official government policies? Of course there were the 11,000 signatures of people who did and the leaders of the dissidents who met with Carter, but all these are probably in jail by now.

More important, though, the president explained so wisely that if we had any trade with Cuba, none of it would go down to the people; it would all go to “Castro and his cronies.” Isn’t that obvious? So, if Kansas were to send 100,000 bushels of wheat to Cuba, “Castro and his cronies” would eat it all themselves.

Also, as the president said, we will not trade with Cuba unless they give freedom to their people, including the right to free enterprise. True, in spite of the blockade, Cuba has life expectancy higher than virtually all Latin American countries, much higher than that of African Americans in our country (just check the Encyclopedia Britannica Yearbook); still their free health care for all makes no sense. Clearly, what they need is for-profit HMOs, for-profit hospitals, for-profit hospice care, that kind of thing.

Everybody can understand that to promote freedom and democracy abroad, we need MORE trade with China and LESS contact with Cuba. And anyone who claims that our Cuban policy is influenced by potential Cuban-American votes in Florida is clearly playing party politics.

Harry Shaffer,
Lawrence