By the way, did you see how brother Raul is now letting Cubans buy personal computers for the first time ever? (I had a personal computer 23.5 years ago.) Only $700. Of course, $700 is a gigantic amount of money for Cubans not high up in the government or getting money from Miami. Cuba is really poor, compared to, say, the Dominican Republic.

In

1959, Fidel promised to issue bonds to pay for $1.85 billion in U.S. owned assets that he had expropriated, but, what with one thing and another, the Bay of Pigs, the Cuban Missile Crisis, etc., that's never been paid. At 5% interest, that comes to $21 billion, which isn't much (for us, but it's a lot for Cuba). At 10% interest that comes to $217 billion, which is a fair chunk of change.

Is there the makings of a deal here? Say the U.S. government offered to pay off the 1958 American debtors with 5% interest and lift the embargo in return for, say, three consecutive free elections over an eight year period, free speech, right of return for exiles, and freedom for Americans to invest in the Cuban economy?