Trip, at Castro's invitation, concerns regime's foes in U.S.

                  By TRACEY EATON / The Dallas Morning News

                  HAVANA – Former President Jimmy Carter says he would like to journey to Cuba in
                  what would be the first visit by a former or sitting American president in more than
                  70 years.

                  Mr. Carter on Friday wouldn't confirm that he will take the trip, but he told CNN's
                  Judy Woodruff that "the best way to bring about democratic changes in Cuba is
                  obviously to have maximum commerce and trade and visitation by Americans and
                  others who know freedom."

                  "That's the best way to bring about change and not to punish the Cuban people
                  themselves by imposing an embargo on them, which makes Castro seem to be a
                  hero because he is defending his own people against the abuse of Americans."

                  If Mr. Carter does venture into Cuba, it would be one of the most watched trips to
                  the island since Pope John Paul II traveled there four years ago.

                  "It would be momentous for a former American president to go to Cuba," said Silvia
                  Wilhelm, director of Puentes Cubanos, a Miami exile group. "I'm sure the Bush
                  administration will pay very close attention to what he says."

                  Cuban President Fidel Castro invited Mr. Carter to the island in October 2000 when
                  the two met during the state funeral for Pierre Trudeau, a Cuban official said. Both
                  were friends of the former Canadian prime minister.

                  Mr. Castro repeated the invitation in January as part of what some analysts call a
                  concerted effort by the Cubans to court high-profile Americans who oppose the
                  longtime ban on trade with Cuba.

                  If the trip comes through, it would likely happen this year, according to the Carter
                  Center in Atlanta.

                  But Mr. Castro's foes are concerned.

                  Mr. Carter "is a man of good intentions," said Joe Garcia, director of the Cuban
                  American National Foundation, a powerful anti-Castro lobbying group in Miami. "But
                  I worry about him ... dealing with a dictatorship as ferocious as the Castro regime.
                  We shouldn't be legitimizing this regime."

                  Mr. Garcia contends that Mr. Carter, as president, was naïve. He points to 1980,
                  when Mr. Carter said that Cubans who didn't want to stay on the island would be
                  welcome in the United States, unleashing a wave of 125,000 rafters – including
                  prisoners and mental patients – who swarmed South Florida.

                  Still, Mr. Garcia said, he doesn't oppose a Carter trip and said he'd even pay the
                  airfare if Mr. Carter genuinely tries to bring about change. That is, a government
                  without Mr. Castro.

                  Sally Grooms Cowal, president of the Cuba Policy Foundation, whose goal is lifting
                  the U.S. ban on trade with the island, said the former president "is certainly not a
                  fool. He won't go to be taken advantage of."

                  "He's very carefully considering how he can be most helpful to the United States and
                  to Cuba. He's been listening to a lot of people. He's trying to get all sides."

                  The former Georgia governor was inaugurated as president on Jan. 20, 1977. Less
                  than two months later – on March 19, 1977 – he lifted the ban on American travel to
                  Cuba. And within the next three months, the two countries opened "Interests
                  Sections," offices that aren't formal embassies, but deal mostly with trade and
                  consular affairs.

                  It was the beginning of the normalization of diplomatic relations. But it didn't get
                  much further, in part because Cuba maintained troops in Angola and because Mr.
                  Carter lost the 1980 election to Ronald Reagan.

                  Mr. Carter said later that if he had won, he would have pushed for better relations
                  with Cuba.

                  Mr. Reagan re-established the travel ban in April 1982. And in the years that
                  followed, U.S. policy toward Cuba has only gotten tougher.

                  In 1995, Mr. Carter and others from his center in Atlanta met with Cuban exiles to
                  try to push for some kind of dialogue between the exiles and Castro loyalists. But it
                  didn't lead to any significant changes.

                  Undeterred, the former president kept up his interest in Cuba. And over the years,
                  he's been very critical of U.S. policy toward the socialist regime.

                  In January 1997, for instance, he lashed out against the Helms-Burton act, which
                  attempts to penalize foreign companies that do business with Cuba. "One of the
                  worst mistakes my country has ever made," Mr. Carter called it.

                  In any case, a Carter visit to Cuba probably would be controversial and even
                  unpopular in some quarters.

                  In a January Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll, only 28 percent of 4,053 people
                  surveyed thought that Mr. Carter should accept Mr. Castro's invitation.

                  Cuban author and scholar Marta Rojas said the last American president to visit Cuba
                  was Calvin Coolidge. On Jan. 16, 1928, he spoke to the Sixth International
                  Conference of American States in Havana.

                  Among the other politicians to visit was William Rufus King, who was elected vice
                  president in 1852 and then traveled to Cuba to recover from tuberculosis. He was so
                  sick that Congress allowed him to take the oath of office from Cuba on March 4,
                  1853. But he died shortly after his return to the United States.

                  As vice president, Richard Nixon traveled to Cuba and met with Mr. Castro in 1959.

                  What Mr. Carter wants to accomplish is to bring "trade, investments" and increased
                  American travel to Cuba, Ms. Grooms Cowal said. That, she said, "will pave the way"
                  for a democratic system.

                  An official with Cuba's Foreign Ministry had no comment. Nor did the State
                  Department. In Monterrey, Mexico, White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer said
                  Friday that he was aware of news reports that Mr. Carter was considering a trip to
                  Cuba. But he had no comment on the matter.

                  Still, ordinary Cubans said they're intrigued.

                  "Carter's visit will be a beautiful happening that will undoubtedly create much
                  speculation in both Cuba and the United States," said Aramis Perdomos Nodarse,
                  30, a Havana security guard.

                  "The worms in Miami [as Castro loyalists describe their foes] will create a great
                  fuss."