Carter comes to Cuba

The Washington Post And The Associated Press

HAVANA – Flashing his trademark smile, Jimmy Carter arrived in Cuba on Sunday and became the first U.S. president – in or out of office – to visit this communist country since the 1959 revolution that put Fidel Castro in power.

Carter arrived on this sunny but troubled island for a five-day visit, looking for “areas of cooperation” in relations between the United States and Cuba that are at their lowest point in years.

“We come here as friends of the Cuban people,” said Carter, 77, delivering his arrival speech in Spanish as he was greeted at the Havana airport by Castro, 75.

Carter is the first current or former U.S. president to visit Cuba since President Coolidge traveled there 74 years ago. The visit is being watched closely by all sides of the intensely emotional debate about Cuba, which has colored U.S. politics and policy since the Eisenhower administration.

Carter will give a live, nationally televised speech to the Cuban people Tuesday evening, and, as if to make sure ordinary Cubans don’t miss it, Carter mentioned the time and place of the address at Sunday’s arrival ceremony, which was also televised live.

Castro, wearing a gray pinstriped suit instead of his usual military fatigues, promised Carter that he would have “free and total access to anywhere you want to go” – including Cuban scientific centers, which U.S. officials recently claimed could be working toward making biological weapons.

Addressing Carter as “your excellency,” Castro said Carter was welcome to meet with all Cubans, “even those who do not share our struggle,” a reference to the dissident human rights and religious leaders Carter plans to meet with on Thursday.

On Sunday evening, Castro hosted Carter for talks at his headquarters, the Palace of the Revolution. Afterward, a larger group was to attend the first of two dinners the Cuban leader had planned for Carter and former first lady Rosalynn Carter.

Castro, the world’s longest-serving head of state, has bedeviled 10 U.S. presidents. In 1980 Castro twisted comments by Carter into a pretext for clearing out prisons and mental wards and sending 125,000 Cubans floating off to the United States. Known as the Mariel boatlift, the crisis contributed to Carter’s election loss in 1980 to Ronald Reagan.

Despite the Mariel incident, many historians now regard Carter’s presidential experience as a progressive time in relations with Cuba. In 1977 Carter lifted travel prohibitions, which were reimposed by his successor, Ronald Reagan. Carter also negotiated agreements on fishing rights and maritime boundaries and secured Castro’s release of 3,600 political prisoners. The two governments opened “interest sections” – a step short of embassies – in each other’s capitals for the first time since relations were cut by Eisenhower in 1961.