Former state Sen. John M. Nutting of Leeds came back from Cuba with a few cigars in his pocket, a new appreciation for its supreme leader and a strong desire to do business with Cuba (Dec. 16).
Seems like Nutting had a great time. Apparently he found Fidel to be a congenial person with a great sense of humor and smart to boot.
Despite a trade embargo, the Congress, in its infinite wisdom, has lifted agricultural trade restrictions and Nutting was in Cuba to drum up some business.
He met with Communist leader Fidel Castro, the El Primo dictator of Cuba who transformed his country into the first communist state in the Western Hemisphere after taking over in January 1959 following several years of violent revolution beginning in 1952.
Nutting is not the first American to report Fidel’s seductive ways or how great it is in Cuba nowadays.
The combination of personal charm, cigars, great beaches and mutually lucrative business deals, etc., seems to work in the dictator’s favor these days.
Never mind that Cuba has been and still is a totalitarian state, one which no American amigo would ever tolerate at home — a place of oppression, censorship, political trials and and one-man rule according to many observers.
In my opinion, no trade should be made with Cuba until that land changes its form of government, apologizes for its hostility to the United States in the past, and puts Castro out to pasture once and for all.
Times sure have changed since the 1950s when America was at odds with totalitarian Communism worldwide.
While Castro was busy making Cuba safe for Communism in the 1950s, American servicemen were bleeding and dying on the ground, at sea and in the air, in a bloody war against Communist aggression in Korea.
Martin J. O’Brien, Augusta
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