U.S.-Cuban Relations in the 21st Century

Task Force Report
Analysis and policy prescriptions of major foreign policy issues facing the United States, developed through private deliberations among a diverse and distinguished group of experts.

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Diplomacy and International Institutions

Having contained Cuban support for revolution in Latin America and perceiving signs of strong stirrings of a new civil society in Cuba, the United States should take steps to “contribute to rapid, peaceful, democratic transition in Cuba while safeguarding the vital interests of the United States.” This policy conclusion and a set of specific actions were recommended by an independent Task Force made up of both liberals and conservatives and chaired by Bernard W. Aronson and William D. Rogers.

The report’s specific recommendations include: lifting limits on the number of visits Cuban-Americans can make to Cuba and on the amount of money they can legally send family members; allowing Cuban-Americans to claim tax exemptions for dependents living in Cuba; lifting restrictions on the sale of food and medicine and helping nonprofit organizations, religious groups, and individuals to assist the Cuban people; opening Cuba up to group and individual travel for cultural, religious, educational, humanitarian, and athletic purposes; easing restrictions on Cuban academics, artists, athletes, and officials wishing to visit the United States; and opening American commercial activity on the island.

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Cuba

Diplomacy and International Institutions

Task Force Members

Task Force Members:

ALLEN R. ADLER, currently a private investor, is involved in a broad range of nonprofit activities. Among others, he is a trustee of the Simon Wiesenthal Center and serves on the board of the World Policy Institute. In his earlier career, he was an executive with Columbia Pictures Industries and Paribas North America. He is a graduate of Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and the Harvard Business School.

BERNARD W. ARONSON served as assistant secretary of state for inter-American affairs, 1989-93, under two U.S. presidents, longer then any other holder of that position. He served as international adviser to Goldman Sachs and Co. after leaving the State Department and currently serves as chairman of ACON Investments L.L.C., which manages Newbridge Andean Partners L.P., a private equity fund that makes direct investments in Latin American companies, primarily in the Andean bloc of South America.

MARIO L. BAEZA is chairman and chief executive officer of TCW/Latin America Partners, L.L.C., and various related entities. He is the former president of Wasserstein Parella International, Ltd., and a former partner in the international law firm of Debevoise and Plimpton. He is a member of the board of directors of the Council on Foreign Relations, and several other for-profit and nonprofit institutions.

JEFFREY L. BEWKES is chairman and chief executive officer of Home Box Office (HBO). He is responsible for the overall management of the world's largest premium television company, which operates multiple premium networks in the United States, Europe, Asia, and Latin America, as well as HBO's many other lines of business.

TED GALEN CARPENTER is vice president for defense and foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute in Washington, DC. He has published numerous texts on security and international affairs.

RODOLFO O. DE LA GARZA, vice president of the Tomas Rivera Policy Institute and Mike Hogg professor of community affairs at the University of Texas, is a specialist in ethnic politics. His most recent work, Family Ties and Ethnic Lobbies, analyzes how Latino relations with their countries of origin affect U.S. foreign policy.

MARK FALCOFF is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research in Washington, DC. He has taught at the universities of Illinois, Oregon, and California (Los Angeles), and at the U.S. Foreign Service Institute. In the ninety-ninth Congress, he served on the staff of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

DANIEL W. FISK, as a senior staff member and associate counsel of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, played a principal staff role in the Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act of 1996. He is now an adjunct fellow with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington, DC, a member of the board of directors of the Institute for U.S.-Cuba Relations, and a teaching associate/Ph.D. candidate in the department of political science at Arizona State University.

CRAIG FULLER, chairman of global board services of Korn/Ferry International, is responsible for conducting board and senior-level executive-search assignments in the firm's General Practice. Mr. Fuller served for eight years in the White House as chief of staff to Vice President Bush and as assistant to President Reagan for cabinet affairs. President-elect Bush named Mr. Fuller the co-director of his presidential transition team. He is president of the Inter-American Dialogue, the leading U.S. center for policy analysis and exchange on western hemisphere affairs. The author of a regular column for The Christian Science Monitor, he speaks and publishes widely on U.S.-Latin American relations. He serves on boards and advisory committees for the World Bank, Inter-American Development Bank, International Center for Research on Women, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and Human Rights Watch/Americas.

GARY C. HUFBAUER is Reginald Jones senior fellow at the Institute for International Economics. Previously he was Maurice R. Greenberg chair and director of studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. He is a co-author of Economic Sanctions Reconsidered.

ADRIAN KARATNYCKY is president of Freedom House, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that promotes democracy, civil society, and the rule of law, and monitors democratic change, political rights, and civil liberties throughout the world. He is editor and director of Freedom in the World: The Annual Survey of Political Rights and Civil Liberties. Mr. Karatnycky has been president of Freedom House since September 1993.

M. FAROOQ KATHWARI is chairman, president, and chief executive officer of Ethan Allen, Inc. He has been president of the company since 1985 and chairman and chief executive officer since 1988. He is the founder of the Kashmir Study Group and serves on the boards of the Institute for Diplomacy at Georgetown University, the National Retail Federation, and the American Furniture Manufacturers Association.

FRANKLIN W. KNIGHT is Leonard and Helen R. Stulman professor of history at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, and president of the Latin American Studies Association. He has published widely on Cuba, the Caribbean, and Latin America.

PHILIP PETERS is senior fellow at the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution. He formerly served in the State Department's bureau of inter-American affairs during the Reagan and Bush administrations.

SUSAN KAUFMAN PURCELL is vice president of the Americas Society and the Council of the Americas in New York. Between 1981 and 1988, she was senior fellow and director of the Latin America Project at the Council on Foreign Relations. She was also a member of the U.S. Department of State's policy planning staff, with responsibility for Latin America and the Caribbean, between 1980 and 1981.

PETER W. RODMAN is director of national security programs at the Nixon Center. He has served as deputy assistant to the president for national security affairs and as director of the State Department policy planning staff.

RIORDAN ROETT is Sarita and Don Johnston professor and director of the western hemisphere program at the Johns Hopkins Nitze School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, DC.

WILLIAM D. ROGERS, senior partner at Arnold and Porter, Washington, DC, was formerly assistant secretary of state for inter-American affairs and undersecretary of state for international economic affairs. In addition, he served on the law faculty of Cambridge University and he has served as a member of the board of directors at the Council on Foreign Relations.

ALEXANDER F. WATSON was a career Foreign Service officer for over thirty years, serving chiefly in Latin America, before joining the Nature Conservancy in 1996, where he serves as vice president and executive director for international conservation. His last three Foreign Service posts were ambassador to Peru, deputy permanent representative to the United Nations, and assistant secretary of state for inter-American affairs.

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