senator helms was a chair on sinner relations. dan burton was chair of the committee on western hemisphere affairs and these were too powerful people who wanted to strengthen the embargo. today one of the principal leaders of the effort to end the embargo as i said was richard lugar, republican senator from indiana who was the ranking minority member on the committee on foreign relations. if there is no chance that he would oppose the strength and ignoring the law. when president clinton signed the helms burton act he did it in an auditorium he invited the cuban-american community to come up from leaders to come up from miami, he did it in an auditorium in the old executive office building to the right of the white house when you are looking from the lafayette park and in the signing ceremony one of those where he had 25p and he wrote w. and handed it to one of his campaign contributors and so forth. in the signing statement that he had attached to the law, he said i consider this law precatory. i had to look that up in the dictionary, it is

the helms-burton act was passed by a republican congress and signed by a democratic president in 1996 if you are taking a poll, you will find more democrats in agreement. but fundamentally, what is driving policy is a concern for cuban american voters, and there are not enough members of congress yet who think they will not be punished one way or another for supporting an end to the embargo. these are not just members from florida or new jersey. the cuban-american community, some of it is very heavily involved in campaigning. it's money reaches every corner of this country, they have shown their ability to get rid of members of congress with which they disagree. the cuban-american community is a force to be reckoned with. host: knoxville, tennessee. caller: of wanted to save, a blockade is an act of war -- i wanted to say, a blockade isn't an act of war -- is an act of war. now if americans try to go to cuba, they can actually be put in jail. it is ridiculous to be at odds with cuba. in 1973, 20 years after the pharmacist arrive -- pharmacists -- armistice was signed with north korea