Excerpt from:
White House Diary, by
Jimmy Carter. First Edition Hardcover, signed by President Carter at San
Francisco, California, on October 26, 2010, at Book Passage.
A
Christmas gift from my eldest son who commented about the former Democratic President: “He
was very nice.”
Page 393:
February 18, 1980:
“Our emissaries to Cuba reported
startling frankness in an eleven-hour discussion with Castro. He
described his problems with the Soviet Union, his loss of leadership
position in NAM [nonaligned movement] because of his subservience to
the Soviets, his desire to pull out of Ethiopia now and Angola later;
his involvement in the revolutionary movements in Central America but
his aversion to sending weapons or military capabilities to the area;
and so forth. He's deeply hurt by our embargo and wants better
relations with us, but can't abandon the Soviets, who have supported
his revolution unequivocally.”
Throughout my term in office (and
now), I thought it advisable to have normal diplomatic relations with
Cuba, stop the embargo, and terminate all travel and trade
restrictions. We made some progress with free travel, the release by
Castro of hundreds of political prisoners, and the opening of
“interest section” (not embassies) in Havana and Washington.
Castro's injection of Cuban troops into African trouble spots,
promotion of revolution in the hemisphere, and dumping of criminals
and other undesirables into Florida made it difficult to make
additional progress.
POTUS =
President of the United States
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