Cautious Optimism: Reassessing US Cuba Policy‪.‬

RICHARD A. NUCCIO is a Visiting Scholar at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard University. He served as President Clinton's special advisor for Cuba from 1995 to 1996. This year marks the one-hundredth anniversary of a US-Cuba dynamic that has often produced confrontation and, at times, violence. Though the relationship between the United States and Cuba remains antagonistic, recent developments suggest that the end to those tensions may be approaching. The visit of Pope John Paul II to Cuba in January 1998 transformed the political and moral dynamics of the Cuban policy of the United States and may have long-term effects on Cuba's evolution following President Fidel Castro's rule. The Pope's visit and the continuing conflict with our European allies over Cuba policy have also encouraged some of the first direct challenges to the US economic embargo, which has remained at the center of US Cuba policy spanning 40 years and the administrations of eight US presidents.