U.S. promotes hope of a free Cuba

WASHINGTON — With aging Cuban President Fidel Castro recuperating, the U.S. State Department and White House publicly are promoting a hope that the island nation could make a transition to democracy — and promising to peacefully support any such move.

Nonetheless, members of the Bush administration say they expect nothing but a transition of power from Castro to his equally dictatorial brother, Raul Castro, in the event that the Cuban leader of 47 years does not recover.

The difference between the administration's public proclamations and actual expectations is a reflection of the pressure that Cuban-American politics place on the White House, with Bush and every Republican president since the 1960s counting on the fervent support of the Cuban-born exile community in South Florida.

It's also a measure of the influence that several elected Cuban-Americans have gained with seats in Congress. They have embraced a non-negotiable demand that this or any administration commit itself to the cause of a free Cuba, including enforcement of a decades-old U.S. trade embargo against Castro's Communist regime.

The State Department and White House are promoting the hope of a free Cuba at a time when the 79-year-old Castro might be sidelined for at least several weeks.

"We believe that the Cuban people aspire and thirst for democracy, and that given the choice they would choose a democratic government," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Tuesday, the day after Castro's surgery was announced.

"Look," said White House spokesman Tony Snow. "The one thing this president has talked about from the very beginning is his hope for the Cuban people finally to enjoy the fruits of freedom and democracy. . . . We stand ready to help. . . . And we will be ready and eager to provide humanitarian, economic and other aid to the people of Cuba."

Yet, Snow acknowledged that what U.S. and Cuban experts see as the most likely immediate transition of power leads only to Raul, commander of the Cuban army and security forces and master of the regime's politically punitive prisons.

"For the dictator, Fidel Castro, to hand off power to his brother . . . is not a change," Snow said. "There are no (U.S.) plans to reach out. . . . The fact that you have an autocrat handing power off to his brother does not mark an end to autocracy."

Privately, administration insiders caution against any predictions of demise for a charismatic leader who will turn 80 on Aug. 13.