Advisers to anti-Castro U.S. senator meet Cuba parliament leader

Published Wednesday, January 28, 1998, in the Miami Herald

Advisers to anti-Castro U.S. senator meet Cuba parliament leader

HAVANA -- (AP) -- A top Cuban official held a ``respectful dialogue'' Tuesday with aides to U.S. Sen. Jesse Helms, one of the communist island's fierciest critics, the official Prensa Latina news agency said.

Cuban Parliament President Ricardo Alarcon said the meeting covered the recent visit of Pope John Paul II as well as recent parliamentary elections.

``I am not going to exaggerate the affair,'' the agency quoted Alarcon as saying. ``I do not believe it is easy to change people of a conservative formation. ... But it has been a very respectful dialogue.''

Helms, R-N.C., heads the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and is the co-author of a 1996 law that tightened the U.S. embargo on Cuba, which has been in effect for 36 years.

The senator could not be reached Tuesday night for comment about the meeting.

Helms and Sen. Robert Torricelli, D-N.J., are working on a proposal to ease the embargo by allowing donations of food and medicine to be distributed to needy Cubans by the American Red Cross, according to a draft of the plan. At least some of the food would be authorized under the U.S. government's Food for Peace program.

There are moves in Congress to lift all restrictions on the sale of food and medicine to the island, and congressional sources have said the senators' proposal is aimed at neutralizing support for such a solution.

The pope repeatedly criticized the embargo during his five-day visit to Cuba, which ended Sunday,

Also attending the meeting Tuesday were Roger Noriega, an adviser to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee; Marc Thiessen, Helms' spokesman; and Charles McCurry, an aide to the House Foreign Relations Committee.