Carter-Castro courtship: when the former peanut farmer and president recently visited Castro's island prison, he dutifully lent credibility to the bearded one's supposed reformation.(Jimmy Carter, ex-President in Cuba)

Jimmy Carter's May 12th-17th Cuban escapade at the invitation of aging despot Fidel Castro was the first time that an American president, in or out of office, had visited Cuba since Castro's 1959 U.S.-abetted coup.

Despite occasional protesting to the contrary, Carter seemed bent on using the trip to give credibility to the Communist line. For instance, a few days prior to the trip Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security John Bolton asserted that the Castro regime has offensive biological research capability which it has shared with other "rogue states."

Castro denied it, and on the second day of his trip Mr. Carter seconded the denial after a brief tour of a biotechnology facility. The former president claimed that he specifically asked about biological weapons during a pre-trip briefing by U.S. officials, and had been told that the U.S. had no evidence that Cuba was transferring technology useful to terrorists. According to White House spokesman An Fleischer, however, the subject was never broached during Carter's May 9th briefing by National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice.

Carter also claimed that Undersecretary Bolton's allegation had been conjured up to undermine his trip. But it was subsequently revealed that the matter had first surfaced weeks earlier, during congressional testimony by the assistant secretary of state for intelligence and research on March 19th.

On the day of Carter's arrival, Castro advised his guest to "express yourself freely whether or not we agree with part of what you say or with everything you say. You will have free access to every place you want to go." The next day, Carter delivered a major address at the University of Havana. It was broadcast live and uncensored, in Spanish, on Cuban state TV and radio.

Recalling how he had worked as president to normalize relations with Communist China in 1979, Mr. Carter expressed his hope that "Congress will soon act to permit unrestricted travel between the United States and Cuba, establish open trading relationships, and repeal the embargo." This despite Castro's claim in the aftermath of 9-11 that the U.S.-led war on terrorism was "worse than the original attacks, militaristic, and fascist."

Varela Project