by Tom Fiedler
Special to Poynter.org

When Bob Rivard approached me at the April ASNE meeting about my interest in participating in a trip to Cuba with other editors, I instantly said yes -- but with a major caveat: If the Cuban government failed to approve my visa application, the rest of the group shouldn't hesitate to go without me.

This odd comment was grounded in recent experience.

In 1999, the National Conference of Editorial Writers had planned a similar visit to Cuba. At the time, I was The Herald's editorial page editor and I asked one of the staff, Cuban-born Susana Barciela, to sign up. She did. I also signed up on a stand-by list in the event that her visa was rejected on the grounds that, to the Cuban government, she would still be considered a Cuban citizen.

What occurred spoke volumes about the state of relations between The Herald and the Cuban government at the time.

As the date for the trip drew near, the Cuban Interest Section ignored Susana's visa application, while moving ahead on those submitted by writers from other papers. Finally, the trip's coordinator found it necessary to raise the issue directly. The reply: Susana' request was being blocked at "the highest levels" of the government in Havana. Why? Because, came the reply, this "highest level" believed that The Herald's editorial policy was
"I couldn't throw my corporate cousin under the bus."
-- Tom Fiedler unacceptable to the Cuban government. When asked if the Cuban government would have a different response if I were to go in Susana's place, the answer was also in the negative.

This, to be sure, came as no surprise to us in Miami. I urged the leader of the group to accept this as inevitable and to go ahead without us. After discussing this with other editorial page editors, however, the consensus emerged that the group should stand in solidarity, responding to the Cuban government that if one among us was denied entry, then none would go. In other words, the message to the Cubans was, "You can't tell us who is
acceptable and who isn't."

Many believed that such a show of unity -- and the implied threat of a couple dozen nasty editorials -- would cause the Cuban government to back down.

No chance. "Suit yourselves," came the Cuban reply. The trip was scrubbed, and along with it the opportunity for many editorial writers to see first-hand the mess that Fidel Castro had made of the island.

It was with this memory in mind that I warned Bob Rivard to proceed cautiously when including my name on the list of ASNE travelers. And I told him that at the first sign of resistance, I'd back away so as not to endanger others' chances.

So, it came as a surprise to learn in the week before the trip that my visa had been approved. I was told informally that this came after considerable discussion at the Cuban Interests Section in Washington, D.C., and, presumably, at "the highest levels" in Havana. Thus it was that I became the first Herald staffer to be officially invited to Cuba since my predecessor, Doug Clifton, went there with the last ASNE trip in 1998. (We've continued to
send reporters disguised as tourists -- a tactic that has frequently failed as some have been caught and immediately expelled).

Rather than end the story, though, this only opened a new question. Why was I being allowed in? What had happened in the ensuing four years to cause "the highest level" of the Cuban government to change? Was this what might be called a diplomatic opening? A thaw in relations between Havana and The Herald?

For me, trying to find the answers to these questions became as important a part of the trip as the experience itself. The answer: I don't know.

At every opportunity, I asked our principal handlers -- Juan Hernandez and Roberto de Armas -- how The Herald might go about "normalizing" relations with the Cuban government when it came to getting regular visas for reporters and photographers. The initial conversations weren't promising, as my question was met with a polite rant about The Herald's editorial positions and about our Spanish-language cousin, El Nuevo Herald. One of the Cubans told me flatly that The Herald "must change" before I could expect our visa requests to be treated as those of any other newspaper.

But the turning point -- if there was one -- came when I went up to Foreign Minister Felipe Perez-Rocque after he had spoken to our group on the next-to-last day of the trip. I introduced myself and, with hardly another word, Perez-Rocque launched into the now familiar criticism of El Nuevo Herald. But, to my surprise, he then volunteered that he'd also heard that The Miami Herald, my newspaper, "is a serious newspaper with serious journalists." I assured him that this was the case.

He then turned the question back on me (and I'm paraphrasing here): Would you agree, he said to me, that El Nuevo Herald is not a serious newspaper, that it exists only to make money by pandering to an extremist element in Miami?

Phew. A hardball question. I couldn't throw my corporate cousin under the bus. Yet, I also wanted to make sure that the foreign minister was clear on the point that The Herald and El Nuevo Herald are very different newspapers that only happen to share a common owner, just like the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Philly Daily News.

So, I drew from the lexicon of a good diplomat: "That's not for me to judge," I said to the minister.

As I write this from Miami, I don't know whether that answer was right, wrong or indifferent. But in subsequent conversations with Mr. Hernandez (who will become the principal officer in the Cuban Interests Section next month) and Mr. de Armas, I was encouraged to hear from each that opportunities for Herald reporters to travel in the future may, in fact, be
opening.

The path appears to be through a series of what diplomats might call confidence-building steps. That is, we should seek visas not for our hard-hitting foreign correspondents, but for specialists who cover such things as dance, film, baseball and so forth. One of them told me: "If you ask for visas for one of the specialists, it will be harder for us to say 'No.' "

We'll see. Some tricky ethical questions arise in following this route. The Herald will not send any reporter -- specialist of otherwise -- into a situation where any constraints exist in what they might report or how sensitive the criticism might be. But as long as our principles aren't
compromised, the suggested path appears worth trying.

Next month, one of our film critics will seek a visa to cover the Havana Film Festival, one of the most famous arts' events in Cuba. Meanwhile, our dance critic is preparing an itinerary for a series on that subject. And, with any luck, one of our baseball writers this winter will have the opportunity to assess the state of Cuban baseball. It may be the modern equivalent of ping-pong diplomacy.

But if it ultimately serves Herald readers, we'll give it a try.

Tom Fiedler is Executive Editor of The Miami Herald.