Clinton Eases Restrictions On Cuba Travel Defends Stand In Bosnia

In a wide-ranging foreign policy address Friday, President Clinton eased U.S. restrictions on travel to Cuba and defended his decision to send U.S. troops to police a possible peace agreement in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole immediately responded, criticizing Clinton’s policies toward Bosnia and Cuba and accusing the president of claiming undue credit for a recent series of U.S. diplomatic successes.

Clinton, addressing Freedom House, a nonpartisan, pro-democracy group, said the United States would take new steps to encourage a “peaceful transition to a free and open society” in Cuba and to “promote democracy and the free flow of ideas.”

U.S. news organizations will be allowed to open bureaus in Cuba, and travel restrictions will be eased for academics, students, clergy, human rights groups and CubanAmericans.

The president also asked Americans to support his administration’s initiative in Bosnia, which has resulted in a conditional cease-fire and the promise of peace talks - but could eventually lead to the dispatch of 25,000 U.S. troops to police a future peace agreement.

“If and when peace comes, the international community’s responsibility will not end. After all the bloodshed, the hatred, the loss of the last years, peace will surely be fragile. The international community must help to secure it,” Clinton said.

“As NATO’s leader, the United States must do its part and send in troops to join those of our allies,” he said.

“If we fail, the consequences for Bosnia and for the future of NATO will be severe. We must not fail,” Clinton said. “In Bosnia as elsewhere, if the United States does not lead, the job will not be done.”

Clinton compared the situation in Bosnia to U.S. policy in general. Taking a page from Franklin D. Roosevelt, the president said that “persistent experimentation” must guide U.S. policy in the chaotic postCold War world.

“American efforts in Bosnia, the Middle East and Haiti and elsewhere have required investments of time and energy and resources,” Clinton said. “Sometimes they have been difficult for many Americans to understand because they have to be made … without the beneift of some overarching framework, the kind of framework that the bipolar Cold War world provided for so many years.

“To use the popular analogy,” Clinton said, “there seems to be no mainframe explanation for the PC world in which we’re living. We have to drop the abstractions and dogma and pursue, based on trial and error and persistent experimentation, a policy that advances our values of freedom and democracy, peace and security.”

Good news from Bosnia, the Middle East and elsewhere have boosted Clinton’s standing in opinion polls as the architect of U.S. foreign policy. With the help of those improvements, he has opened a lead over Dole, the frontrunner for the 1996 Republican presidential nomination, in a series of recent surveys.

Dole was quick to pounce Friday, ripping Clinton in general terms, and with specific critiques of U.S. policy in Haiti, Bosnia and Cuba. Dole argued that Clinton’s peace initiative in Bosnia succeeded only after Congress insisted that the U.S. drop its arms embargo on the Bosnians.

“It was Congress, after 2-1/2 years of inaction and indecision, that led the White House, by decisiviely rejecting the Clinton Bosnia policy,” Dole said. “President Clinton finally decided to lead, and NATO finally acted.”

Dold said that “if this president believes he has already made his case to send 25,000 Americans to Bosnia, he is sadly mistaken.”

“Why send Americans? Why not just lift the arms embargo and let the Bosnians defend themselves?”

Turning to the Caribbean, Dole said that U.S. intervention in Haiti was “certainly no success.”

“The political leadership has broken down … credible evidence points to political killings and death squads being run by members of the Haitian government, and no one knows what will happen when the American forces leave next year,” Dole said. “It’s far too soon to claim victory, and we’ve already spent about at least $2 billion.”

Meanwhile, the heads of some of some of the largest U.S. corporations - including the top executive officers from General Motors, JC Penney, Sears and Hyatt - arrived in Havana Friday for a dinner meeting with Castro and other officials.

The executives will meet today with anti-Castro dissidents and human rights activists as well as members of the Cuban Independent Economists, a non-government group that has been producing reports on the economy.

The executives’ unprecedented visit, organized by publishing giant Time Inc. with White House blessings, lent a new urgency to a sharpening political debate in Washington, in which Clinton and Republican critics are pulling in opposite directions.

Dole’s critique of Clinton’s gestures toward Cuba included a threat to quickly move legislation through Congress that would crack down even further on the Cuban economy.

“All signs point toward normalization, secret negotiations with Castro, allowing Castro to visit the U.S., returning the Cuban refugees and now easing travel restrictions,” Dole said. “This latest action makes it even more important for Congress to move ahead on the legislation, and for tightening the embargo.”