President Clinton on Wednesday gave CNN permission to open a bureau in Cuba and allowed nine other U.S. media to go next if they win approval from Havana, which expelled the last U.S. bureau 28 years ago.
A White House statement said Clinton believes increased U.S. coverage ``will keep international attention focused on . . . Cuba and provide greater public exposure to those on the island who seek peaceful change.''
But with Havana allowing only CNN to send a permanent correspondent to Cuba, Clinton's decision to issue the one-year licenses immediately sparked vows to closely monitor network coverage of the island.
``At the end of 12 months, if CNN just stands for the `Castro News Network,' that should be a factor on whether that license is extended,'' said Jose Cardenas, spokesman for the Cuban American National Foundation.
Replied CNN Executive Vice President Eason Jordan: ``We're not the Castro News Network . . . or the Clinton News Network. We intend to do what we've always done, which is to report accurately, fairly and responsibly.''
Approved by Clinton but lacking Cuban permission are The Miami Herald, The Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel, and The Chicago Tribune; ABC, CBS and Univision television networks; The Associated Press and Dow Jones News Services; and Cuba Info, a newsletter of Johns Hopkins University.
Jordan said CNN Latin America correspondent Lucia Newman, a Mexico City resident who often covers Cuba, will open the bureau next month in the Havana Libre Hotel and described her job as ``the world's most challenging.''
Reporter faces scrutiny
``I don't think there's any reporter's reporting that will be as closely scrutinized as hers -- closely scrutinized in Washington, closely scrutinized in Havana, closely scrutinized in Miami,'' he said.
Two other foreigners and two Cubans to be hired locally will round out the bureau staff, Jordan added. As for costs, he estimated them at ``several hundred thousand dollars a year,'' including salaries.
Cuba's government-run television broadcasts a half-hour program of world news each night selected by Cuban editors from CNN and Mexico's Echo Television. But average Cubans cannot get direct access to CNN or other foreign networks.
Clinton's decision meant he approved all the news organizations that had applied for licenses to open offices in Cuba, required because of the U.S. embargo on the communist-ruled island.
Full access unlikely
Havana officials have privately said that one or two other U.S. news media may get permission to open bureaus in the coming year or two, but full U.S. media access would be unlikely until U.S.-Cuban relations are normalized.
That gave little comfort to the other news organizations interested in Cuba bureaus.
Said Herald Publisher Dave Lawrence: ``Any opportunity for increased coverage of, and within, Cuba is good news. I hope The Herald and others will have that same opportunity shortly. The White House has made it clear that it supports full coverage; now we will see where Fidel Castro stands.''
Added the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, which lobbied the Clinton administration to approve the U.S. licenses: ``Now we'd like to see the Cuban government give access to all American media.''
Although Cuba closed the last U.S. news bureau -- the Associated Press -- and expelled its bureau chief in 1969, Havana has been allowing U.S. journalists to make occasional trips to the island.
Cuban officials claim that more than 90 percent of all visa requests from U.S. journalists are approved. But Havana monitors their work and favors those who write what it considers to be objective reports.
The Helms-Burton Act
The White House statement made no mention of the Helms-Burton Act, which some interpret as requiring that all U.S. media -- including the government's Radio and TV Marti -- have free access to report from Cuba before the president can license U.S. news bureaus in Cuba.
``We are greatly disappointed that the president did not include Radio and TV Marti . . . By not doing so, he shuns congressional intent as described in the Helms-Burton law,'' said Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla.
But U.S. officials said Clinton decided to issue the bureau licenses under an initiative he launched in 1995, the so-called Track II of the Torricelli Act, and not under Helms-Burton.
Sen. Jesse Helms, the North Carolina Republican who sponsored Helms-Burton, said last week that opening U.S. bureaus in Cuba would not violate his law and might indeed hasten the end of Castro's government.
Ros-Lehtinen and fellow Florida Republican Lincoln Diaz-Balart noted that Clinton's decision came during a week when Cuban security agents launched a campaign of threats and harassment against dissident journalists.
The crackdown ``demonstrates that Castro still wants to monopolize information in Cuba . . . Our government must carefully monitor this situation to assure that American news outlets are able to provide accurate news coverage from Cuba, free of the tyrant's influence,'' Ros-Lehtinen said.
Added Diaz-Balart: ``I hope that the acts . . . against the independent press get at least as much coverage as Castro's preference for the Atlanta Braves'' received during a CNN interview with Castro in 1995.