Page 33 - Castros News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Cuban government everything it's asked for and received no assurances of any advances of democracy and freedom in return. >> i think our policy has done more to keep the castros in power than anything. 50 years is long enough. we ought to do this and do whatever we can so ordinary cuba cubans might benefit. allow more americans to travel, more commerce, more contact. this is a good thing. >> so opponents of the president's plan like marco rubio say they will do everything to block the policy. they could refuse funding for the u.s. embassy in havana or block the nomination for the u.s. ambassad...

Nuanced way start improving on its human rights record. as a matter of fact, raul castro said yesterday that human rights was among the things subject to further negotiation. >> and that's -- that leads me to my next question talking about the cuban government what does this mean for the legacy of the castro brothers? >> well, it would seem at first blush to suggest that this is an affirmation of their legacy. remember that the person they took over from over 53 years ago was definitely a dictator, supported by the united states, but nevertheless a dictator. the question really is not only the...

End of the u.s. embargo on cuba for years now. in 2002. covered a meeting between arlen specter and fidel castro in castro's company for seven straight hours. tell us about that. what you think about today's news? >> what i most remember about being in his company is thinking what would be best for the cuban people is if this guy were no longer the leader of this island nation. and the question becomes, what's the best way to get rid of not only he and not only his brother, but also those who surround him there is a perception of communism being an old man's game. what stand out in my mind, do...

Hard-earned experience that countries are more likely to enjoy lasting transformation if their people are not subjected to chaos. >> the embargo and the diplomatic isolation of cuba is a policy that our country embarked on at the end of the 1950s in the beginning of the 1960s. and we did it basically because of the soviet union because cuba's revolution was a communist revolution because the soviet union was who cuba allied themselves with against us. and we desperately didn't want cuba to be that kind of society and that kind of geopolitical threat just 90 miles off the american coast. that's...

Interlocutory between the two countries until this very moment. >> peter, let me ask you about the castros. rah rule castro is 83, fidel castro is 88. what does this deal, do you think, mean to them personally and what do you think it means to their legacy? >> well, i think that this change in u.s. policy is a tremendous legacy for president obama, frankly. it's a foreign policy victory of great significance. it's changing 55 years of policy. he has taken the courageous step that none of his predecessors since dwight eisenhower have taken to change a failed policy and promote u.s. interests al...