By Karen DeYoung
                  Washington Post Staff Writer

                  When Peter W. Nathan first asked the U.S. government in 1996 for
                  permission to stage an exhibit of U.S. health care products in Cuba, he
                  recalls, "I got the cold shoulder. . . . The term they used was 'not consistent
                  with U.S. policy.' " His repeated requests over the next three years didn't
                  get much further.

                  But all that changed in May, said Nathan. This time, he said, U.S. officials
                  from the several departments that manage the trade embargo against Cuba
                  "can't do enough for me. They've been incredibly helpful." Officials have
                  even suggested that the veteran trade fair organizer expand his list of U.S.
                  companies hoping to do business with the Cuban government.

                  Last week, invitations for the event, scheduled for next January, went out
                  from Nathan to 5,000 American providers of everything from medicine
                  and dental equipment to ambulances and pacemakers -- all vaguely
                  classified as "drugs," the only products exempt from the embargo.
                  Companies that accept will follow a parade of hundreds of American
                  business and civic leaders who visited the island recently, including
                  representatives of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the American Farm
                  Bureau Federation, the Baltimore Orioles and Baltimore itself -- which this
                  year became the first city to obtain a multiple-visit license and has set up a
                  wide-ranging exchange program.

                  The Clinton administration's liberalized interpretation of licensing
                  requirements for Americans visiting Cuba, part of a series of measures
                  announced early this year, has opened the door to pent-up demand for
                  more contact with the island, particularly among business and agricultural
                  interests. They have banded together with longtime advocates of
                  normalized relations with Cuba -- and opponents of unilateral sanctions in
                  general -- to form a powerful new coalition pushing the White House and
                  Congress to end, or at least loosen, the 37-year-old sanctions against the
                  government of President Fidel Castro.

                  The last few months have brought calls for a partial or complete end to the
                  restrictions on trade with Cuba from farm state members of Congress,
                  including conservative Republicans pressed by struggling growers looking
                  for export markets. Pharmaceutical, hotel and entertainment sectors long
                  hoping to expand into Cuba have become newly invigorated, particularly
                  since the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has more visibly taken up the
                  cause.

                  "We're saying on behalf of the American business community that it's time
                  to look at this another way," said chamber president Thomas J. Donohue
                  of the embargo. Donohue, who headed a three-day chamber visit to Cuba
                  this month, said in an interview that he came back asking why the United
                  States was missing out on investments in oil, mining and tourism, among
                  other opportunities, that have been taken up eagerly by U.S. allies.

                  "Who does well there? . . . It's the Canadians, the Germans, the French,
                  the Italians. All of our friends -- we're not talking about China or the
                  [Russians]. We need a new approach," he said.

                  The Treasury Department, which issues licenses for Americans to visit
                  Cuba through the Office of Foreign Assets Control, declined to release
                  exact figures, saying through a spokeswoman that "more or less 6,000"
                  licenses for individuals and groups have been issued over the past few
                  years. John Kavulich II, head of the U.S. business-funded Cuba Trade and
                  Economic Council, estimated that as many as 130,000 Americans -- most
                  of them of Cuban descent -- will make licensed visits to visit Cuba this
                  year and that another 25,000, primarily tourists traveling through third
                  countries, would go illegally.

                  "The fact that the Clinton administration has begun to provide a lot more
                  licenses on a timely basis has increased dramatically the number of
                  individuals applying," Kavulich said. He estimated that at least 3,000 U.S.
                  business representatives would visit the island under license this year.
                  Although virtually none can currently sell to Cuba -- even pharmacutical
                  companies are limited by cash-only restrictions and miles of red tape on
                  the U.S. side -- there is a widespread belief that change will eventually
                  come, either in U.S. policy or in Cuba itself.

                  The State Department also appears to have loosened the restrictions on
                  Cubans visiting the United States. Maria de la Luz B'Hamel, who is in
                  charge of North American policy in Cuba's Foreign Trade Ministry,
                  returned to Havana Saturday after a 30-day tour of farm states and
                  meetings with major U.S. agricultural associations. To the surprise of the
                  Cuban government -- since sales of U.S. agricultural products to Cuban
                  government entities are banned -- the State Department also issued a visa
                  to the director of Alimport, Cuba's state purchasing agency for bulk food
                  that last year bought $700 million worth of imports from Latin America and
                  Canada, Europe and the Far East.

                  Many inside the administration advocate moving closer to an opening with
                  Cuba, but there is a disinclination to get out in front of Congress or
                  antagonize the Cuban-American community and its elected allies. The
                  licensing policy still is unevenly applied -- many licenses are inexplicably
                  delayed or denied -- and the possibility of any real normalization of
                  relations, at least as long as Castro, 72, is in power, remains remote.

                  "The serious people who do policy stuff are supportive of change," one
                  Senate aide involved in the issue said of the White House. But "at the
                  highest political levels, where they count electoral votes, there's a
                  nervousness about doing anything that changes the status quo for these
                  communities."

                  The pro-sanctions stance of conservative Cuban Americans, particularly
                  the large concentration in southern Florida, and their representatives in
                  Congress has been bolstered by Castro's continued hard-line policies
                  against political freedom and private enterprise.

                  But while there is little enthusiasm in this country for Castro or his
                  government, an alignment has emerged between those who have long
                  thought the best way to oust him is to expose the island to as much of
                  America as possible and those who see Cuba as an unconquered market
                  whose politics -- like those of China and Vietnam -- should not impede
                  commerce.

                  Frank Calzon, executive director of the pro-sanctions Center for a Free
                  Cuba, acknowledged the change, saying, "There has been some shift in the
                  correlation of forces on the Hill" away from unbending support for the
                  embargo.

                  According to USA Exchange, one of several powerful anti-sanctions
                  lobbying groups set up over the past two years by the nation's leading
                  business and trade organizations, 14 anti-sanctions pieces of legislation are
                  pending in the House and 11 in the Senate. Most have bipartisan support,
                  and some would end all unilateral sanctions, including those against Cuba.

                  Six of the 25 pending proposals are Cuba-specific, aimed at ending the
                  food embargo. Yet when the administration announced in April that it was
                  lifting some prohibitions against food and medicine sales to specific
                  countries -- a list that included Iran, Sudan and Libya -- Cuba was not
                  mentioned.

                  Imposed in the early years after Castro's 1959 overthrow of the
                  government of Fulgencio Batista, the Cuba embargo was strengthened in
                  1992 and 1996 and remains among the most severe of U.S. unilateral
                  sanctions. It includes a ban on all exports of U.S. products except
                  pharmaceuticals and on the issuance of U.S. visas to most Cubans, along
                  with restrictions on involvement of all Americans with Cuba through a
                  Treasury licensing procedure that sharply restricts who will travel or send
                  money there.

                  Over the years, various administrations have incrementally loosened or
                  tightened the restrictions in response to domestic political pressure and
                  actions by the Castro government deemed worthy of punishment. In
                  January, however, Clinton announced without any apparent precipitating
                  event a series of measures aimed at easing the sanctions, including an
                  increase in the amount of money Cuban Americans can send to relatives on
                  the island; additional cities from which direct charter flights to Cuba could
                  operate; opening of direct mail service; an increase in "people to people"
                  contacts with Cuba; and permission for direct agricultural sales to private
                  and nongovernmental entities there, primarily small produce cooperatives
                  and family-run restaurants.

                  It is the directive to increase "people to people" contacts that has led to
                  more liberal interpretation of licensing rules. Thus, the city of Baltimore has
                  established a virtual shuttle of exchanges that have taken dozens of city
                  officials and private citizens involved in health care, sports, religion,
                  education and the arts to Havana this year, and it has applied to extend its
                  six-month multiple license due to expire in September. "I took another
                  group down two weeks ago," said Lee Tawney, an assistant to Baltimore
                  Mayor Kurt Schmoke. "If we're not playing the game [the Treasury
                  Department] wants us to play, they can let us know."

                  Business and agricultural representatives have passed increasingly through
                  the same open door, even though Cuba -- despite a population of 11
                  million that makes it more populous than all but six U.S. states -- is unlikely
                  to make many American businesses rich, even if the trade embargo
                  disappeared.

                  "Let me tell you, they won't be our biggest trading partner. We're doing
                  billions and billions of dollars" of trade in Mexico alone, Donohue said, and
                  Cuba is "way, way down the list. But is there a potential for oil? Yes. For
                  mining and tourism? Yes. Ask Bill Marriott or the guys at the Hilton, do
                  they want to let everybody else in the world buy up those beaches?"

                  Donohue agreed with critics who suspect Castro may be content to host
                  American businessmen as long as they are critical of their own government
                  but has no real interest in promoting U.S. investment on the island. After
                  the Cuban health minister complained to him about difficulties in purchasing
                  U.S. pharmaceuticals, Donohue said, "I said the real problem is you don't
                  want to buy that stuff. You want to complain about how you can't buy it."
                  One of the chamber's goals, he said, is to "encourage the Cuban
                  government to get off the dime. Give us a list of drugs, tell us what bank
                  the money is in, and we'll see what we can do."

                  American Farm Bureau president Dean Kleckner, who led a trip to Cuba
                  in May, estimated that U.S. agricultural sales to Cuba -- primarily wheat,
                  corn, soy products and rice -- could exceed $500 million annually if the
                  embargo were lifted, and "for the longer term, maybe up to $2 billion. For
                  American farmers, that is very good.

                  "With the U.S. agricultural community in bad shape, having lost substantial
                  exports to Asia in the last couple of years, we're looking for exports
                  anywhere in the world," Kleckner said. "From the farm perspective, when
                  they said, 'We want to buy from you,' we said, 'Well, now, we think this
                  has been a good trip to Cuba.' "

                  The prospects for farmers are good enough that a number of farm state
                  Republicans -- including Senators John D. Ashcroft (Mo.), Pat Roberts
                  (Kan.) and Rod Grams (Minn,) -- are among the 24 cosponsors of a bill
                  to lift all food and medicine sanctions on Cuba introduced by Democratic
                  Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (Conn.), a longtime advocate of normalizing
                  relations with Havana. A similar bill introduced in the House by Rep. Jose
                  E. Serrano (D-N.Y.) now has 150 co-sponsors from both parties.

                  Among those yet to be convinced is Senate Foreign Relations Committee
                  chairman Jesse Helms (R-N.C.), a strong sanctions supporter and sponsor
                  of some of the most restrictive measures against Cuba. Helms did not
                  oppose the recent lifting of food sales restrictions in Iran, Libya and Sudan
                  in recognition of the farm crisis, but an aide said no similar support will be
                  given to the Cuba proposals.

                  Doing Business in Cuba

                  The 37-year-old U.S. embargo against the government of Fidel Castro has
                  prevented American companies from investing in Cuba, but U.S. allies
                  have invested there, particularly in the past decade.

                  Investment* by foreign private-sector and government-controlled
                  companies in Cuba from 1990 to March 20,1999: (in millions of dollars):

                  Canada $600 million
                  Mexico $450 million
                  Italy $387 million
                  Spain $100 million
                  Britain $ 50 million
                  France $ 50 million
                  Netherlands $ 40 million

                  *Amounts either committed, or delivered during that period.

                  Until 1992, U.S. -- owned foreign subsidiaries were allowed to trade with
                  Cuba under license by the Treasury Department. Between 1980 and the
                  end of 1992, the value of such trade was $4.6 billion.

                  SOURCE: U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council, Inc.

                           © Copyright 1999 The Washington Post Company