we're lightdelighted to have yoe part in a very interesting program. though many of us indeed that u.s.-cuba relations should be normalized, we're not here to press for that or to make the case. but rather to show how it could be done if and when a u.s. president decides it is in the national interest. typically, foreign affairs are an executive function and congress mostly stays out of the process. but cuba is different. the passions it can work up in sk segments of this country are nothing short of extraordinary. thus in the mid 1990s, to an unprecedented degree, congress began letting slating specifically around cuba. the elaborately name cuban liberty and sold dare act of 1996. those laws follow directly from the end of the cold war and the disappearance of soviet subsidies to the cuban economy. with the subsidies gone, the cuban economy went into free fall and it was widely predicted that civil discontent would soon sweep the government from power. this -- miamians remember neighbors with packed backed ready to return back to cuba. a prominent mia