Posted on 05/11/2002 4:15:54 PM PDT by doug from upland
Miami expects presidential visit
Event may be linked to Cuban holiday
BY CAROL ROSENBERG
crosenberg@herald.com
President Bush is expected in Miami for a Republican fundraiser May 20 -- Cuba's 100th Independence Day -- and White House image-makers are considering presidential stops ranging from a Little Havana rice-and-beans lunch to an anti-Castro rally.
Officially, the White House is mum on the visit.
''We haven't made any announcements about May 20th,'' spokeswoman Jeanie Mamo said this week, in keeping with long-standing policy of not divulging plans too early. Secret Service concerns or world events could derail them.
Behind the scenes, however, politicians and exile activists being consulted by the White House say that a big Cuba event is expected.
A key staff concern: how much the visit should resemble President Ronald Reagan's trip, on May 20, 1983, to Little Havana, a dramatic display of Cuban-American clout on the 81st anniversary of the Cuban Republic.
Meantime, Miami Cubans have been vying with competing offers:
• A visit to Our Lady of Charity Shrine that evening for a community celebration that will include the arrival of a torch from Key West, Afro-Cuban music and a speech by Bishop Agustín Román. Armando Cobelo, chairman of a Centennial Celebration Committee, sent an official invitation weeks ago.
• Lunch at the Versailles Restaurant on Southwest Eighth Street, a popular tourist and political shop-talk spot owned by a member of the Cuban American National Foundation's executive committee.
• A walk down Eighth Street, which has been significantly spruced up to lure tourists to Little Havana since the Reagan presidency.
• An appearance at an afternoon rally at Miami-Dade County Auditorium, promoted by Spanish-language radio to fill the 2,429-seat hall with wall-to-wall opposition to Fidel Castro's 43-year grip on power in Cuba.
• A stop at an invitation-only, cocktail dedication of Casa Bacardi, a cultural center at the University of Miami's Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies. The school has sent an invitation.
Although the celebration at the shrine is the only community-based event firmly scheduled for the day so far, it is probably the least likely idea to be accepted. The shrine is on Biscayne Bay, presenting an extraordinary challenge to the Secret Service.
Reagan's visit made history, and not just because he stopped in at La Esquina de Tejas restaurant to sample authentic Little Havana fare. Wrapped in anti-communist Reaganism, the visit signaled national recognition of Cuban exiles' clout.
CANF founder Jorge Mas Canosa introduced the president at the Dade County Auditorium, the same location that is booked for May 20.
This time, people involved in discussion of the events say, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush likely would introduce his older brother.
Firmly on the schedule, so far, is an evening fundraiser at the home of one-time Jeb Bush business partner Armando Codina, a developer, who was unavailable for comment Thursday.
Funds will go to the Republican Party of Florida, not the governor's reelection campaign directly, in what is being characterized as the president's first fundraiser for his brother in South Florida.
The president already has done a similar event in Tampa.
The trip also might coincide with what Cuba policy-watchers in the region and in Washington expect to be the latest installment of hard-line anti-Castro White House policy. No big changes are predicted, neither an increase in isolation nor any effort toward engagement. And sources were predicting this week that there could be slippage in the proclamation of new policy, in part, because of a behind-the-scenes tug of war on where it will go.
As of Thursday, a staffer involved in the process said the Bush administration was leaning toward issuing guidelines that ``reinforce that the United States is not a friend of Castro and he needs to take democratic steps in order to change.''
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