Cuba: A New Shuttle

In the 15 months since Castro announced that any Cubans who wanted to could leave his little paradise lost, some 47,000 have flown to freedom on the twice-daily Havana-to-Miami shuttle. But when it came to some 900 persons holding dual Cuban-American citizenship, Castro kept stalling. He seemed to delight in preventing the State Department from helping people who were, at least nominally, U.S. citizens.

Last week, after a special plea from Mexico, the only Latin American country that still maintains relations with Cuba, Castro finally agreed to let the "Americans" and 1,800 of their relatives leave. The first planeloads flew out to Merida on Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, then on to New Orleans in a chartered Pan American Boeing 720.

Since most of the passengers were actually Spanish-speaking Cubans who were born in the U.S. and later went to the island, their leaving marked no significant change in Castro's attitude.

But the action may well have signaled a mild easing of tensions between the two countries. There have also been other signs of a thaw. Though the U.S.'s six-year-old trade embargo remains in effect, Washington recently modified its ban on travel to Cuba and announced that U.S. citizens may now get passports to visit the island for "cultural" and business reasons—provided that the Czechoslovakian embassy, Castro's diplomatic go-between in the U.S., agrees to issue a visa.