CUBA TRAVEL U.S.

Prominent American Leaders Call Upon Administration to Lift All Restrictions on Humanitarian Trade and Travel to Cuba

 WASHINGTON, May 20 /PRNewswire/ -- A bipartisan group of prominent
business leaders, ex-government officials, elected officials and humanitarian
leaders from across the nation today, in an open letter to President Bush,
called on the administration to work with the majority of members of Congress
who seek to lift all restrictions on humanitarian trade and free travel to
Cuba.
    The letter was issued by Americans For Humanitarian Trade With Cuba (AHTC)
in response to the administration's recent adoption of measures that would
limit Cuban American family visits, humanitarian aid and travel recommended by
its interagency Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba.
    "These draconian and anachronistic limits on family interaction play right
into Castro's hands," AHTC Chairman Sam Gibbons, a former 34-year member of
Congress from Tampa and WWII war hero, said.  "It's time we turned the tables
on Castro by increasing -- not limiting -- American interaction with the
people of Cuba by allowing free travel and normal humanitarian trade."
    "Mikhail Gorbachev asked President Bush to 'tear down the wall of embargo'
when he came to Miami to support the majority of Cuban Americans who want more
engagement with Cuba.  Instead, President Bush has built a wall so high we
cannot even see our families in Cuba anymore," said one of the signers of the
letter, Silvia Wilhelm, President of Miami-based Puentes Cubanos and a member
of AHTC's Advisory Council.
    Text of the letter and list of signers follow:

    May 20, 2004

    Dear Mr. President,

     We are proud of the historic tradition of Americans meeting the needs of
     hungry and sick people wherever they are found. Americans have been long
     recognized for being generous and giving. Few people have stronger
     historic, cultural and particularly family ties to Americans than the
     people of Cuba.  For humanitarian reasons alone, they deserve our
     support.

     In this spirit, we are concerned that your recent moves to limit Cuban
     Americans' ability to help family in Cuba contradicts that historic
     tradition.  Despite the passage of legislation in 2000 which has allowed
     some American companies to make cash sales of food to Cuba, ordinary
     Cubans are also paying a bitter price for the continued restrictions on
     the sale of U.S, food and medical products.  The recent tightening of
     American travel limits the interaction so widely appreciated by the Cuban
     people.

     For our country to continue to deny the Cuban people the normal transfer
     of food and medicines and normal contact with American citizens achieves
     nothing.  Forty-three years of the strongest embargo in our history has
     resulted in increased hardship for the people of Cuba while making no
     change whatsoever in the political makeup of the Cuban government.  We
     can no longer support a policy carried out in our name which causes
     suffering of the most vulnerable-women, children and the elderly.

     We call upon you to work with a majority of members of the U.S. Congress
     who seek to lift all restrictions on the sale of agricultural products
     and medicines to Cuba including restrictions on travel to Cuba, which
     hinder the ability to meet with Cuban counterparts, block efforts to
     achieve humanitarian trade and violate Americans' fundamental right to
     freedom of movement. These changes would be totally consistent with
     current U.S. policy as expressed by the Department of State and spelled-
     out in the Cuban Democracy Act and the Helms-Burton laws to "support the
     Cuban people."

    Sincerely,

    David Rockefeller; South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford; Carla Anderson
Hills, former U.S. Trade Representative under first President Bush; Paul
Volcker, former chair of the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank; Frank Carlucci, Reagan
National Security Adviser; James Schlesinger, former Nixon CIA Director and
Secretary of Defense; John Whitehead, former Assistant Sec. of State; General
Jack Sheehan, former NATO Supreme Allied Commander; Peter H. Coors, Chairman,
Coors Brewing Company, Colorado; Craig L. Fuller, Former Chief of Staff, Vice
President Bush and President, National Association of Chain Drug Stores;
Francis Ford Coppola, producer/director;  Dwayne Andreas, Chairman Emeritus,
Archer Daniels Midland Company;  Mayor Micheal Dow, Mobile, Alabama;  Bob
Odom, Louisiana Commissioner of Agriculture; former U.S. Surgeon General
Julius Richmond; Oliver Stone, producer/director;  Dr. Alberto Coll, Pell
Center, Rhode Island (Cuban American); Silvia Wilhelm, Puentes Cubanos, Miami
(Cuban American); Richard E. Feinberg, Former NSC Chief for Latin America,
President Clinton; Phil Baum, American Jewish Congress; Lloyd M. Bentsen, Jr.,
former Treasury Secretary under President Clinton; Reginald K. Brack, Jr.,
former Chairman, Time Inc.;  Dr. Joan Brown Campbell, Chautauqua Institution;
A.W. Clausen, former Chairman BankAmerica Corporation and former President
World Bank;  Mark O. Hatfield, former U.S. Senator, Oregon, Chairman
Appropriations Committee; Dennis Rivera, President 1199, National Health &
Human Service Employees Union;  Kurt L. Schmoke, Former Mayor, Baltimore;
Sargent Shriver, Special Olympics International; Malcolm Wallop, Former U.S.
Senator, Wyoming; George Sturgis Pillsbury, Sargent Management Company,
Minnesota; Jim Winkler, General Secretary  United Methodist Church;  A.J. Pete
Reixach, Director, Port of Freeport, Texas and Former  Pres., Gulf Coast Ports
Association; Rev. Dr. Robert Edgar, former U.S. Representative, now General
Secretary of the National Council of Churches of Christ of the U.S.A

     CONTACT: Lissa Weinmann (718) 416-1653