we met honored to have meeting with cardinal ortega the cardinal obviously of cuba. and we met with members of civil society. the, our chief of mission or the what they call the special interest section, bless you, jeff dilorentes, arranged for us to have dinners with 12 ambassadors from allied nations who gave us their impression of what the president's action was. we were very, very proud of president obama coming forth and joining with president castro to start a new path of diplomatic relations between the united states and cuba. we found that the people on the street in cuba were very enthusiastic about that. everyone we met with was very positive about that that is what we agreed on. we had some other areas of disagreement that related to human rights and mr., our ranking member on the foreign affairs committee addressed that will i'm sure in his remarks here as did mr. mcgovern who is the chairman co-chair of the, human rights commission but it was subject of all of our members addressed. so that was briefly what we did in cuba. i think rather than going into

. -- cardinal ortega at the head of the jewish community and representatives from civil society that'soggers journalists entrepreneurs and we had the opportunity to sit with the ambassadors from 12 nations to listen to their views about what should be happening in cuba and in all of our meetings the support of the process from open dialogue and yes for negotiations. people wanted to see this process move forward. and they all recognize how critical it is to make sure president obama and president castro succeed. i'll believe on putting pressure on the cuban government to make changes. there was a strong sense that this is a historic moment for building a better relationship and the opportunity should not be missed. i might add that no one is looking at this through rose-colored glasses. the issues are difficult. the conversations were frank weather on human rights, removing cuba from the state sponsor of terrorism list banking, finance, the embargo, diplomatic reciprocity. important to note that there was no mention of preconditions. the focus was on not dwelling on the failed policies

i heard about it everywhere, from cardinal ortega as well as cubans i met while i was there independents private entrepreneurs and independent media. this has galvanized them, as well. they are encourage would by the fact that the pope's continuing involvement and the vaticans continuing involvement as a facilitator and to shextent as a guarantor gives them greater hope that compliance will assured. >> i will close with this. i think that is critical. i'm going to write a letter to pope francis thanking him for his leadership on this, but he's got to stay involved. i don't think there's any doubt we're going to have problems with the government there. there's just like we do at my friend pointed out in china. of course, this isn't going to change everything overnight. his involvement calling it the way he sees it and being 16 sheer and honest about what is happening is going to help us move forward. i just want to thank you both of you very much and i would conclude. >> thank you. senator. >> thank you. thanks for having this hearing. chairman and i agree on a lot of things in the senate